i just got back this evening from amsterdam. we went for queen's day. well, we went for queen's day eve, queen's day, then left this afternoon (today is may 1st).
it was me, zach, torben, jeff, doug, and chris. we took the train to antwerp because torben knows a girl who is studying there, and we went with a group that she organized to amsterdam. we met up with that group (20+ strangers but they were nice, although i didn't talk to them much) and took a charter bus to amsterdam. once we were there we checked into our hotel then went on a canal boat ride. couldn't hear much of the commentary above but it wasn't that interesting anyways. it was pretty all the same, though. boating through canals in amsterdam is neat, i just wish we had a smaller boat and that it was open air rather than window covered and filled with old people. after that we wandered the city.
theme of this trip: wandering and standing around. queen's day itself was pretty crazy. everyone wearing orange. so many people in crowds, walking past booths of people selling whatever they have. walked through the park. amsterdam is a pretty city but i went on an overly packed holiday so it left a unique impression. there was a huge stage set up in "museumplein", filled with thousands of people. crappy music being played. we heard dj tiesto (a very popular dj) was playing that night so we decided we'd go to that. we also heard that some crazy guy drove his car at the royal family's bus during a parade. five people were killed and more were injured. we didn't think anything of it besides thankfulness that we weren't near it and outrage that this guy did that. unfortunately it also meant that festivities were cancelled. we got to the huge area where tons of people were earlier, expecting it to be more crowded, and it was completely empty of people and full full full of trash. so we spent the rest of the night just walking around, finding that places were closing, people were gone or leaving, and things were generally over.
it seemed like the apocalypse. lots of people being crazy, somewhat empty streets, and trash EVERYWHERE. so much trash. at first it was amusing but it started to get on my nerves. never seen so much trash on the streets. unfortunately i didn't take pictures of that because i left my camera at the hostel. some pictures to come.
