Aka. "Destination Anywhere", "The Boy and Girl from County Bavaria"... After a very intense year in Würzburg (Germany), I'm back in Salamanca. I probably won't have that many experiences to write, but there's always an excuse to post a new entry!

If there's a place where you can get run over by a bicycle, sail its channels without being in Venice, check out some prostitutes from the church door and hear more English than in England... this has to be Amsterdam.

Before starting with my narration, I have an important warning for you all. I'm NOT going to talk about drugs, coffee shops or prostitutes, so if that's what you're expecting... you'd better stop reading ;) We ARE decent people!

Amsterdam is popularly known as the Northern Venice because of its canals. As most people know, it's also famous for being one of the most liberal cities in the world. In my opinion, even though most of the buildings look very similar (as you'll see in the videos), it is a very versatile city in which you can never get bored. The perfect place to go on holiday. You have a little bit of everything - an exciting nightlife, people from every corner of the world (we especially heard a lot of Spanish) and quite a broad cultural offer. Apart from that, I must emphasize the variety of people and places. In just one street you could come across five restaurants of different nationalities (Chinese, Italian, Greek, Argentinian...) and nearly all the possible places to hang out you can imagine (Irish pubs, cafés, discos, Latin clubs...) To sum up, there are only two flaws I've found in this city. The first one is that all this variety, together with the fact that you hear more English than Dutch makes you feel that the city only exists for and because of the turists. Another important disadvantage is that it's insane expensive.

All this being said, let's talk about the suspects

From left to right: Pilvi (Finnland, 22), me (you already know me) and Annuska (you also know her)

From left to right: Cristian (Chile, 24) and Tiia (Finnland, 22)

We all got there in the evening of the 26th of February (last Thursday). As it was already pretty late, all we did on that evening was leaving our stuff in the hostel, in which the five of us were sharing a room, have something for dinner (in an Italian restaurant) and explore around to get to know the famous nightlife in Amsterdam. I have to mention that our hostel, called Inner Amsterdam, was located in one of the most cultural areas of the city, in walking distance of the Van Gogh Museum. Besides, the Leidseplein area (full of restaurants and places to go out) was also pretty nearby. As I mentioned before, Leidseplein was one of the best examples of diversity and liveliness in the city.

The night before leaving, I had been reading some reviews of our hostel. The opinions on the cleanness differred depending on the writer's nationality (a Brazilian girl complimented the hostel for its tidiness while a German protested that it was very dirty), but all agreed that breakfast was very good. Well, I didn't find it too dirty, but it was not exactly welcoming and just after arriving we had problems with the window, which we couldn't close and had to get it repaired. Fortunately, the handyman didn't turn up too late. And as for breakfast... well, it was nice, but nothing special.

Taking into account where the hostel was located, it's no wonder that the first thing we visited the following day was the Van Gogh Museum, for which we had to pay 15 € and queue for a while. They don't do any discounts for groups or students. But the exhibition was very beautiful and the audio-tour helped me a lot. It was called "Van Gogh and the colours of the night". Obviously, it wasn't allowed to take pictures in there, but it's enough for you to know that some of his most famous paintings were there: "Starry night", "Sunflowers", "The Potato Eaters"... Here are two of my favourites:

I know, it's quite a stereotypical one, but it does have something very special, which I can't really describe. It's somehow depressing, but still full of fantasy and I really love the shapes. However, I don't agree with most of the interpretations I've heard of it.

In spite of the similarities with "The Scream" (one of my least favourite paintings ever), what I like about this painting is that, as the audio tour explained, you can see some Japanese touches in it. Aparently, Van Gogh was very fond of Japanese artists.

After the museum, we went on a small cruise through the canals of Amsterdam. It was raining a bit, so we were thankful that the boat had a ceiling. I took advantage of that moment to take a couple of videos so that you can all see what the city looks like.

Apart from giving me the chance to show you the amount of bicycles you can find all around the city (sometimes you have to be careful, since some people drive like crazy), I take advantage of the second video to talk about another one of the main attractions: Anne Frank's House. The house where Anne Frank and her family spent their last days before being taken to Auschwitz is nowadays a museum. The queue was just as long as the one you've seen in the video, but it was definitely worth it. Once again, photos were forbidden. The rooms have remained unfurnished because Otto Frank, Anne's father, decided to keep them like that. He only made an exception so that they could shoot the short films you could watch in the museum and create a scale model, which you can also have a look at. Eitherway, the place is small and claustrophobic. You wonder how two families could survive there for that long. There was also the original diary, which has been translated to 57 different languages (by the way, the Spanish version was already sold out when we visited the gift shop). One thing I have to say is that although the story this museum tells is truly sad (especially when you find out that Anne died just one month before the war ended), it does have kind of a happy ending. Anne's dream was to publish a novel, and that's what her father did. In some way, the fact that Otto worked so hard to make his daughter's dream come true even though she was already dead is amazingly tender.

After that we walked to the city centre and had something to eat. As we were all fed up with Italian food (we hadn't had anything else on the two previous days), we went to a Japanese restaurant... and yes, we ate it with chopsticks!!!

One of the most important things about Amsterdam is that it's full of museums. They have museums for absolutely everything, from the Rijksmuseum (paintings by Dutch masters such as Rembrandt) to the Vodka Museum (!!!) Of course, knowing that they all close quite early and that we only spent there a bit more than three days, we didn't have time for all of them, so we had to choose one for each day. And our third choice for the last day (we came back on Monday, but on that day we didn't have time to do anything, as we spent most of the day travelling) was the Madame Tussaud's Museum. Again, it was damn expensive (21 €), but we had a great time there. It was amazing! Not to mention that we also had a few laughs in the souvenir shop. Here are some nice photos:

Bono from U2 and me :)

Cristian and Jennifer Lopez

Annuska with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie

It was a very nice holiday. In fact, I wouldn't mind going back to Amsterdam somewhen, though I can't imagine living there. There are still many things we didn't get the chance to do, but even so I think we managed to combine the cultural side of the city with relaxing stuff and a little bit of party in the evenings. But of course, I would be lying if I didn't say that, curious as I am, being in such a place that's full of new experiences, I have tried something I never thought I'd try in my life...

I'VE HAD THAI FOOD FOR THE FIRST TIME!!!