Going Dutch! What a weekend in Amsterdam.

My new friend and travel buddy, Laura, has already written a magnificent recap of our incredible weekend in Amsterdam. Read  both of ours for the best feel about how great our weekend was.

We left Barcelona as quickly as we could on Thursday afternoon, excited to check yet another destination off our bucket lists!

Ellen and Laura being dorks boarding the plane. 

My excitement vanished quickly when I experienced the worst airplane turbulence in all my travels. My knuckles were white on my armrests and my entire body shook through the rest of the hour-and-a-half flight. Me and Jesus had a long conversation on that plane ride!

Again, dorks. Welcome to Amsterdam!

We landed safely and wandered through the airport looking for the train that would take us to center city. When trying to buy our train tickets, we learned quickly that most places in the Netherlands require a "chip" in your credit card. If you don't have this chip, you cannot use your regular Visa. After a humourous conversation with a flustered dutch man behind the counter, we eventually realized we could also pay in cash - as if it wouldn't have been easier for him to suggest that to us at the beginning.

We finally arrived to our hostel, appropriately named "Hotel My Home." For four young girls traveling alone, we could not have picked a better place to stay! We were no more than 15 minutes walking distance to the bigger attractions and surrounded by restaurants, shopping and plenty of things to do. The owners of the hostel were some of the nicest people I've met. Each morning beginning at 8:30, breakfast was served in the common room. Eggs any style we wanted, plus toast with peanut butter, nutella and hagel. 

Hagel was a new discovery for me but I loved it! Hagel is basically sprinkles that melt in your mouth and the dutch eat it on bread & butter and call it hagelslag. Try it!

On our first night in Amsterdam we decided to go bar/restaurant hopping. We were tired from a long day of school/traveling (not to mention an anxious plane ride!) and decided this would be the best way to acquaint ourselves with the city until Friday. We walked directly out of our hostel door and saw a bar named Harlem. As soon as we saw the waiter carrying a big bowl of nachos, we all looked at each other and immediately grabbed a table. Yes, nachos on our first night in Amsterdam.

How could you deny these? Before... 

...after. We didn't see anything wrong with them. 

Ciney blonds with our nachos! Dutch beer.  

Ellen and I matching in stripes! 

We then walked around until we found what claims to be "the best Pancakes in town!" I'll back that up. But, dutch pancakes are much different than what you'd find at IHOP. These are a lot thinner and more like a mix between a crepe and pancake. We split a traditional bacon and apple pancake and some sugary, buttery poffertjes.

Bacon and apple pancake! 

Poffertjes!!!!! Basically soaked in butter, so very delicious. 

Laura and I with our first dutch pancake! 

Since the sun doesn't really go down until around 10 or 10:30 in Amsterdam, we walked around the rest of the evening and made our way back to the hotel so we could get a good night's rest before a long, busy Friday.

Picturesque scenery. 

We woke up the next morning with aspirations of beating the crowds to the Anne Frank House. Even though we got there right when it opened, we didn't make it in time and the line was already growing. We decided to join the bike-riding bandwagon and rent bikes to pedal around the city all day.

Green budget bikes was the cheapest we saw. 

When in Amsterdam, rent bikes. We would not have seen so much of the city if we didn't. Though our butts were sore the next day (evidence of lots of pedaling!) it was beyond worth it. Also, everyone rides bikes - the number of bikes outnumber the amount of bike racks and next to Central Station there is even a bike parking deck. 

First stop on our bikes was the "I Amsterdam" sign and the Rijksmuseum.

In the garden!

The museum was beautiful. We spent a couple hours exploring the multiple floors of Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Vermeer and other dutch artists. Since we went early in the morning, we didn't have to fight through too many people to look at the art.

Hungry, we hopped on our bikes in search of some lunch. I was skeptical at first, but we chose a small deli to get a sandwich. Luckily, there were some cute dutch boys in the deli that spoke english and could recommend us some things. I ended up with a crab salad on brown bread, with slices of young cheese and dutch salami. It was delicious and so cheap!

Brandweizen beer. Muy bien. 

We biked off our sandwiches and beer all the way to Vondelpark, where we parked our bikes and laid down for a quick ciesta.

We were amazed to look at our watches and see that it was only early afternoon. In Barcelona, time flies because you spend so much time walking to and waiting for the metro. (I was also really excited that I had to wear a sweater most of the time while I was biking. In Barcelona? Forget it. You're melting in a tank and shorts.)

We explored the rest of the afternoon. Found the cheese museum. Biked to different landmarks. And made our way back the Anne Frank House at dusk, when the line was much shorter. We only waited about 20 minutes to enter.

Little piece of heaven. 

I definitely recommend going to the Anne Frank House when in Amsterdam. The stories are so touching, and it brought a reality to something I've studied and read about so much. Seeing the original pages of Anne's diary left me speechless.

The next day, we turned in our bikes early and took a bus to a smaller town called Volendam. It was so nice to get out of the city for a few hours and see a new take on dutch culture. We spent half the day walking around this town.

When we returned to Amsterdam, we took a short nap, then started our 40 minute walk to a brewery called Brouwertij 't IJ, in an old windmill. It's far away from the hustle and bustle, but well worth the walk. We saw no other Americans as we entered and knew we'd found what we'd been looking for!

Beer, salami and cheese. Perfect! 

We stopped for dutch pancakes for dinner - so nutritious - and caught our boat for our canal cruise!

My camera batteries died, or I would have some more pictures. 

Everyone on the canal cruise!

We spent the night exploring the town after dark. Yes, that includes the red light district. I have to say that you need to go during your visit, but I wouldn't return myself. Understandably, I was pretty uncomfortable. I really just wanted to empower these women and tell them they can be more, but something told me that wouldn't really go over well.

My favorite part of the night was splitting fries with Ellen. The hardest part was choosing which type of sauce we wanted!

Sunday was a long, lazy day for us. We packed so much into Friday and Saturday! We woke up, checked out of our hostel, and ate, shopped and walked around the city until our flight left at 9:30 pm.
This included: a cup of coffee from an actual coffeeshop (there are some that serve coffee!), a nap in the park, clothes and souvenir shopping and enjoying the weather by having dinner on a boat.

We only spent 3 days in Amsterdam, but it felt like a week! These girls know how to travel and I'm so glad we got to see so much of the city in such short amount of time. I absolutely loved Amsterdam, and did not want to leave. I will boldly say that it is the most beautiful European city I've seen to date! I'm ready to plan another visit.

xoxo

Meredith 

Tucked away: The Sweetest Thing in Dublin, Ireland

In addition to talking about (almost) everything I get the chance to do abroad, I also want to highlight little places that took me by surprise and stood out to me. I'm calling these places "tucked away" not for their location, but for the fact that they might not come up first on TripAdvisor or be in the middle of tourist central. 

I ordered their famous hot chocolate. It was creamy and oh-so-delicious.

In Dublin, my "tucked away" moment was a chocolatey lunchsnack (Merriam-Webster, it's about time this is an actual word) at the Sweetest Thing chocolate cafe. The cafe was mentioned briefly in my roundup about my weekend in Dublin, but now it deserves its own post.

The cafe isn't hard to find, if you're looking. It's located right along the River Liffey on the North Side on Bachelor's Walk and if you sit at the tables right outside the door like we did, you get beautiful views of the river.

The inside of the shop is adorable. Black and white checkered tile, red walls and brick accents, you know you've found the Mom-n-Pop store you wanted. We even ran into a couple enjoy their chocolate snacks that said they've been coming every Sunday afternoon for a long time*.

Plus, all the Coca-Cola decorations give it a homey feeling. 

Overwhelmed with a long mouthwatering menu of chocolatey possibilities, we finally settled. Lauren started eating hers before I could get a picture to truly capture its brilliance. She ordered a hot chocolate brownie - there was hot fudge seeping out of the porous cake (think Chili's molten lava cake x 10). Andrea chose a banana split which trumped all banana splits I'd seen before. I settled with their famous hot chocolate but, since I was nodding off from a long weekend, talked the barista into adding a shot of expresso for free.

Before & after, from left to right: hot chocolate brownie, hot chocolate & banana split. 

We don't like chocolate. At all. Can you tell?

If you have a sweet tooth as big as mine and are in Dublin, don't miss this little gem. The Sweetest Thing might be a little bit 'tucked away' but their chocolate is something great.

Also, if you didn't catch on, the cafe is named after U2's hit "The Sweetest Thing." I told you the Irish love to incorporate their rockstars whenever possible!

*Meredith's memory is slowly getting worse and therefore she loses details easily like this one.

Bonjour! Bonsoir! Je suis une femme!

Hello! Good evening! I am a woman!

I've just taught you all the French I know. Except for le pomme est rouge and le chat noir (which mean "the apple is red" and "the black cat" and are pretty useless unless you're describing things to a child). I also know how to say crepe, baguette, macaroon, brie and croissant quite well. Getting the food vocabulary secured was my first priority.

Carousel in Arle, France. I think my edited Instagram picture looks much more magical. 

Last weekend, we went on an excursion to the South of France with ISA. Since traveling to Paris in 2010, I fell in love with France and was excited to explore smaller towns with a different feel than the big city.

We spent two nights in Montpellier and spent our days visiting Arles, Aigues Mortes and Collioure. 

Vincent Van Gogh spent a lot of his life and was artisically-inspired by many things in Arles, France. During our walking tour, we got the chance to see a couple of the locations that inspired Van Gogh.

After the tour, we stumbled upon Arles' Saturday morning market and, of course, I left with a couple treats. 

I went for a blackberry macaroon. 

Next stop: Aigues Mortes. This medieval town is still enclosed and has a very...quaint feel to it. It was quiet and not much was going on (except the unbearable heat).

We bought a baguette because the bread is delicious and it seemed like a very french thing to do.

This stop was my favorite. A GIANT chocolate store! 

Exhausted from a long day of sight-seeing in the sun, we spent another night in Montpellier before heading to Collioure, France.

Collioure is a beautiful coastal town with views of the mountains and the sea. The views were so surreal.

At lunch, I ordered what I thought would be a safe, mediterranean salad with some olives and grilled shrimp. Well.

Yes, those are shrimp with their heads fully on. I wasn't prepared and I have no idea how to take the heads off the shrimp (I tried, and some red goo started coming out that told me to just set that one to the side). The toast is topped in caviar - and is surprisingly bland. My favorite part was the pieces of smoked salmon.

So, of course, since I got a salad for lunch I just had to treat myself to a crepe before leaving France.

Yes. Chocolate and banana. 

The towns we visited were way different from Paris, but I still loved them. France has yet to disappoint me! Next on my list to explore in France? Bordeaux, Nice and the countryside.