We knew there were two other backpacks and accompanying people in our room yesterday, who never appeared... until 4 AM. They came in and tried to be quiet, but I woke up anyway, and didn't get back to sleep for hours; one of them snored like a foghorn. It was like he was going to swallow his own sinuses, the sound was barely human. At one point, I saw Andie get up, walk across the room, and listen to make sure it wasn't Aaron making that noise-- because then, we could have done something about it. (Probably stuffed an entire pillow up his nose.) But there's nothing for it with strangers. I went for earplugs.
Our phones aren't holding charges when we try to plug them in, so everyone's alarms weren't working. We trusted the sun to wake us up at a reliably early hour like it had in Paris, but that tactic plus the interrupted night didn't work at all: we finally got up after 1 PM. Whoops.
And in a panic, too, realizing that we'd lost half a day of the one we had left to sightsee. We'd seen something about a morning walking tour, but that was right out; the best we could do was maybe pay for an afternoon one or try to walk it ourselves. As we jumped out of bed and started running for our clothes, the snoring boys woke up and were frustratingly pleasant, becoming much harder to hate when they were nice and funny and Finnish. (They're both high school graduates like Aaron, and work at "Finland's equivalent of McDonald's".)
We finally got out the door and eating things, and decided to hit the Van Gogh museum and then try for a canal cruise boat tour we'd seen at the front desk. We got turned around a few times in the maze of streets and took one detour to the Bloemgarden: the Flower Street.
The museum is next to a few others, making a huge complex of green space, sculpture gardens, and lawns that looked like they'd drawn half the city's population. We made it over to the museum, bought tickets, and proceeded to lose each other over 4 floors of Van Gogh pieces. The exhibit was very well done; it's called "Van Gogh at Work", meaning the evolution of his styles, and that's how it progresses. All of his works are ordered chronologically, interspersed with pieces by his contemporaries that he copied/ admired/ felt influenced by, a few of the actual model items from his still life's, and generous explanations about the thought processes and communications behind the pieces. I was impressed.
The dock for the canal cruise was completely across town and on some obscure road that we didn't locate for half an hour-- though shockingly enough, me and my map reading pulled it out in the end and found the place right before the 5:30 boat left. We jumped on, plugged the free headphones into the the audio tour machine, and trundled along in a wide yet surprisingly nimble tour boat for an hour, listening to a perky "native Amsterdam" couple tell us about their city. The captain really knew how to milk the photo ops, between Anne Frank's house and the "Seven Canals" view. We even saw the original location of the Dutch East India Company.
We got off and headed to a supermarket to get dinner things, ate, and then Andie managed to download a walking tour onto her phone. We visited all the buildings the canal tour hadn't covered and headed back to the hostel, feeling satisfied with our Amsterdam endeavors.
There were two more people in the room tonight, a brother and sister from England (another girl!). They and the Fins invited Aaron to come hang out with them in the lobby for cards and drinks, so Andie and I went to bed early.
And in a panic, too, realizing that we'd lost half a day of the one we had left to sightsee. We'd seen something about a morning walking tour, but that was right out; the best we could do was maybe pay for an afternoon one or try to walk it ourselves. As we jumped out of bed and started running for our clothes, the snoring boys woke up and were frustratingly pleasant, becoming much harder to hate when they were nice and funny and Finnish. (They're both high school graduates like Aaron, and work at "Finland's equivalent of McDonald's".)
We finally got out the door and eating things, and decided to hit the Van Gogh museum and then try for a canal cruise boat tour we'd seen at the front desk. We got turned around a few times in the maze of streets and took one detour to the Bloemgarden: the Flower Street.
The museum is next to a few others, making a huge complex of green space, sculpture gardens, and lawns that looked like they'd drawn half the city's population. We made it over to the museum, bought tickets, and proceeded to lose each other over 4 floors of Van Gogh pieces. The exhibit was very well done; it's called "Van Gogh at Work", meaning the evolution of his styles, and that's how it progresses. All of his works are ordered chronologically, interspersed with pieces by his contemporaries that he copied/ admired/ felt influenced by, a few of the actual model items from his still life's, and generous explanations about the thought processes and communications behind the pieces. I was impressed.
The dock for the canal cruise was completely across town and on some obscure road that we didn't locate for half an hour-- though shockingly enough, me and my map reading pulled it out in the end and found the place right before the 5:30 boat left. We jumped on, plugged the free headphones into the the audio tour machine, and trundled along in a wide yet surprisingly nimble tour boat for an hour, listening to a perky "native Amsterdam" couple tell us about their city. The captain really knew how to milk the photo ops, between Anne Frank's house and the "Seven Canals" view. We even saw the original location of the Dutch East India Company.
We got off and headed to a supermarket to get dinner things, ate, and then Andie managed to download a walking tour onto her phone. We visited all the buildings the canal tour hadn't covered and headed back to the hostel, feeling satisfied with our Amsterdam endeavors.
There were two more people in the room tonight, a brother and sister from England (another girl!). They and the Fins invited Aaron to come hang out with them in the lobby for cards and drinks, so Andie and I went to bed early.
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