ISN Adventures, Day 2

This day was a touch more chill than Tuesday, which was nice after walking so much lately!  We started off the day with brunch, which consisted of "traditional" Dutch baguettes with cheese or ham on them.  Then we had our crash course in Dutch, where the instructors had one hour to teach us what they though were the most essential Dutch phrases for foreigners to know: counting to ten, introducing yourself, and how to order beer/ wine/ water/ coffee/ cola/ tea, etc.  The drinking culture here is unreal.

We sang a traditional Dutch song and then went to Waterlooplein, an open air market that sells everything from bikes to clothes to smoothies (tasty smoothies, made with apple, mango, strawberry, and "pure love").  Some of the group members bought bikes, and then we went on a canal cruise.  This was not too exciting because the rocking of the boat was putting me to sleep, but I did learn some interesting facts and take a few more pictures.

 

Fun fact: the reason for the narrowness of the buildings and thus the reason they have the hooks to hoist furniture is because when the houses were being built, people were charged by the width of their property.  My coach also told me that everyone could make their house in any style they wanted, hence the variety in building styles.

I think this is the new film museum, but I'm not 100% sure.  There's one of the two IAmsterdam signs!

 I think this is a maritime museum of sorts, but again...half asleep...

Sup, ya'll.

This nifty thing is outside one of the school's buildings.  It's so people don't just leave their cigs on the sidewalk.  At the bottom of the picture you can see my rad shoe that I took from the common room.

To kill time before dinner, the group went to Albert Heijn for pre-drinks/ snacks and then to Vondelpark to chillax.  We got a seat by some men singing songs in Spanish, which was somehow comforting and familiar to me.  I have a few pictures of our group and the surroundings.

Proost!  (Cheers!)

After dinner, the group went on a pub crawl through the Red Light District, but I opted out because I'm lame and didn't want to bike home drunk in the dark when I have a hard enough time finding my way in the day time.  Tonight we are going to a comedy show in Jordaan, and I think I can find my way home from there.

Good luck to all my VCU homies starting school today!!!  Let me know how it goes :)

I'm going to get ready to go to brunch #2, but it's lovely to hear from you all and to Skype and email and write letters.  (Even if the email is as simple as, "Went to a party.  Remind me to tell you about it." Looking at you, David.)  I've been up till past midnight lately, so I'm around till about 6 pm East Coast time if anyone wants to get in touch!

Right then, see yous later (that's how the Irish girl in our group says goodbye),
Carlie