Day 5

We left Graswang early the next morning in our P Diddy coach bus and headed back to Munich. My sisters and their families would spend the next day there, my parents would be off to Rome and Craig and I were headed to Amsterdam.

Craig and I were excited about the whole trip. But, the next leg of our journey was the part that Craig had asked that we do while we do while we were in Germany. His thoughts were, “Well – we’ll be over there (* there being Europe*), we might as well go to Amsterdam.” He said this like I say, “Well – we’ll be at Target shopping, so we may as well stop by Marshall’s too.”

I never had any huge desire to go to Amsterdam (like I REALLY want to go to Italy). So, I was just looking at the rest of the trip as time to waste until we were able to get home to see Iz.
Then we got to Amsterdam and we drove up to our hotel. We stayed the Hilton. And friends, I am a hotel snob. I don’t mind admitting it. I like staying nice places. I don’t mind spending more money on nice hotel rooms. The thought of sleeping in a comfortable bed with soft sheets, air conditioning, great service, clean bathrooms, and top notch staff – is just who I am. After a whole day of sight seeing in any place – all I want to do is sleep somewhere awesome. And the Hilton was fantastic.

They gave us a room overlooking the canals. We decided to venture out and walk the area. We were about 10 minutes from the city center via tram so we just wandered our neighborhood for a bite to eat.

We found ourselves at small bar. Thank God everyone in Amsterdam speaks English and that they have menus in English. After 4 days of struggling in Germany, our pompous American, English speaking selves needed to be around English speaking people. But, the Dutch (ok – I don’t get why they are called Dutch since the country is The Netherlands… they should be called Netherlandians) speak Dutch, English, French and German. They are so smart.

Anyhoo, we ordered more alcohol. I had been drinking every single day since we go to Europe. Some days – twice…or three times a day…HEY I was on vacation! We ordered some appetizers that were AMAZING! I am a foodie. So I love different food and spices. After 4 days in Germany – I was just over sausage, pork, potatoes and pretzels. So, the lamb kabobs, tapenades and calamari were so delicious.

It was 9:30pm by the time we finished our food – but the sun had not set. So, we had another drink (of course) and wandered the streets a little more.

I fell in love with the architecture and the easy going feeling I sensed from the city. I was starting to have a love affair with this city…(don’t tell Italy).