Amsterdam, Netherlands

Hey everyone - We've made it safely into a rainy, yet much warmer, amsterdam. We're chillin at the hostel for now since we had to be up for a 5:50 am train, and then making some dinner and roaming around for a while. I hope all is well at home. We leave for Dublin on friday, but I'll try to update you then...if not, I'll let you know when we get there. See you all soon!

~ Mike

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We woke up at 4:50 am to take our 5:50 train to amsterdam.  The train ended up being 20 minutes late arriving to Frankfurt, giving us only 2 minutes to make our train connection about 16 tracks away.  We made the connection and took our seats as the doors closed.  We arrived in Amsterdam on time, and walked to the Flying Pig Hostel.  We got our first of two rooms, put our stuff down, and walked over to the Doors

cafe.  The doors is an amazing place not far from Amsterdam Centraal, and has a great atmosphere with a laid-back style.  After the

Doors we went back to the hostel to rest before walking around the city after it got dark out.  We hit up a few bars , got some food to make lunch and dinner the next two days, and made our way back to the hostel to crash.

We woke up the next day at 9:30 to change rooms and get some breakfast.  People were still in our room when we checked in, so we dropped our stuff down and took a walk to the Heineken Brewery.  It was a little expensive (15 Euro), but overall a fun experience.  We got to see how the beer was made, taste the barley and hops, go on a virtual ride through the beer process, and experience a taste-test.  The bartender taught us how to drink beer correctly (for instance, never drink the head off of the beer - it keeps the beer from going flat), and then we went to the bar in the brewery for some Heineken Extra Cold.  It was really cold - that's really it.  

We walked back to Dam Square and wandered around the city for a while before going back to the hostel to chill.  We made sure that Amsterdam gave us a nice break since we had been going straight, and we wanted to be well-prepared for Dublin.

See more of my pictures from Amsterdam here.