Wandering and a Show

April 7, 2010

We found another CS host, Hans, who messaged me yesterday saying he could host us and he was much closer to the center of Amsterdam so we decided to switch hosts and stay with him the rest of the time. Arthur was great but it was a lot easier transportation wise this way. He understood and drove us to to ferry around 9:15. We had gotten up at 8 and made him breakfast. This was my meal responsibility. Breakfasts I can do! :) Apparently, Arthur had never had breakfast at his new place he was currently in so that was a fun present to give him. He also doesn't have other people cook for him either so I was glad we could do that for him.

After taking a ferry, metro, getting lost again and having a 20 minutes long conversation with a random man on the street who stopped to tell us to watch out for the bikes and basically that Dutch women are whores and bad people we made it to Hans' place! He was home, thankfully, and let us in. Immediately he told us to put our things down and offered us tea. It was perfect. We hung out with him for awhile and planned out our stay here. Hans had to get to work at 3 and we headed out to explore the city around 1:30.

Hans told us about free boat rides along the canal so we headed out to find those. They were right behind the Boom Chicago comedy club apparently and that is all we knew. We got a couple maps and some google directions and eventually found our way there only getting lost once. We're getting better! The lady who is a promoter for the club said the boats weren't currently in operation there gave us a discount on the show and a free drink for that evening. We ended up talking to Carol (the club promoter) for awhile and found out she was actually a CouchSurfing host in Amsterdam. I loved that the first person we talk to here was on CS!

She told us she was going to a huge tulip farm about a half hour outside of Amsterdam and invited us along to check then out. It sounded like a lot of fun and the Netherlands is known for their flowers/tulips so we figured, why not? After talking with her for awhile we said we'd be back for the show and headed off to find Anne Frank's House.

The line wasn't too bad to get in the Anne Frank's House and it was even a little cheaper than we thought it was going to be - score! The house was really cool to walk through and read about. We were able to walk in the actual house and rooms where everyone lived and slept. It was a lot bigger than you would think but at the same time was pretty small for the amount of people that lived there. The rooms were really skinny and I didn't quite understand how they got two beds in some of them but I'm sure things were smaller back then. I haven't read the book since middle school but there were a lot of quotes in each room which was cool to read. There were also videos playing of people who knew Anne and had survived the war. I had heard from a couple people that this place wasn't worth the money but I disagree, it was completely worth it. I am really interested in WWII though, so I guess it depends on individual's interests.

We went back to Boom Chicago to buy the tickets then off to find food. Carol told us about a Dutch form of fast food called Febo. I hadn't heard of this yet but it is pretty much just food in vending machines, but they are hot and can be used as a mini-meal. I have no idea how good the food is - I haven't heard good things - but I'm sure we'll try it at some point while we are here. In the mean time we found a cheap italian place since those seem to give the most food for the least amount of money.

After dinner we wandered around for awhile before the comedy club and stumbled upon a mini-market where we bought some food and drinks for cheap. Hilary is starting to get sick so she wanted to stock up on her vitamin C. I just wanted something to snack on while we were hear instead of buying something from a restaurant every time we got hungry. Way too much money! The guy at the store was really nice and ended up filling up Hilary's water bottle.

We headed back to the comedy club for the show and ran into Carol again. She introduced us to her friends and realized we had never really introduced each other. When we told her our names she responded with, "That's easy. Hilary Clinton and Laura Bush - the first ladies." Ha. Hilary gets Hilary Clinton a lot while traveling but I have definitely never heard Laura Bush for me. I guess that's a good way for people to remember our names though. just sucks I have to be a Bush.

The show was pretty good, not amazing but it was entertaining. It reminded me a lot of Jet City Improv for those of you that have seen it but it was better, longer and I got a free drink. After the show got out we did a quick scan for Carol to get more information about the tulip place we were joining her for in the morning but we didn't see her so we just decided to head out and message her via couchsurfing. Our next stop was a place that was suggested to us called Roosie's. It was a coffee shop we got a couple of spacecakes at and then headed home from there. The spacecakes were a little disappointing but it was alright cause we need sleep anyway. Since Hilary is getting sick and we have an early morning we figured it was better to call it a night tonight and go out the next couple.

Our host this time around, Hans, is nice enough but doesn't seem over enthused to have us like our previous hosts have been. He's sort of just acting like it is any other night. He told us that he has hosted over 400 people in the past 3 years so I think the thrill of it has left him and now he just goes on living his life no matter who is staying at his place. Tonight when we came home he ended up just turning on the TV and watching it in Dutch for a few hours. We were sleeping in the room he was watching TV in so we just sort of hung out on the computer and reading until he went to bed so we could go to bed. It hasn't been a negative experience at all, just sort of a neutral one. He's a little older in his late 30's as well so that might be the issue. He probably isn't very interested in hanging out with a couple of early 20 year old girls. Oh well, we found Carol and friends to hang out with.