Day 2 - Amsterdam

Day two started nice and early, with me catching the 8:20 am bus to Leiden, where I then took a train to Amsterdam Centraal (you will notice that when I put places or stops or such, they will be spelled in Dutch =] I'm getting good at reading Dutch). I made it all nice and good to the train (where I purchased a OV-chipkaart, which is a card that has money on it that you can use for the bus, trains, metro, trams, etc) and then got on the train. The train I was on was to stop at Schiphol (the airport). When it got to the airport, a lady came and sat by me. She was white, so I figured she was Dutch (yes, I'm making assumptions about people...) and then a group of 5 girls (Americans) came and sat down near us. We all started talking and turns out the girls were from Duke and UGA and had a 7 hour lay over in Amsterdam before heading onto Ghana for study abroad. The lady sitting next to me ended up being an American from South Carolina and she had a 5 hour lay over in Amsterdam before continuing on to Dubai. The lady had been to Amsterdam before, and the last time she came, she went to the Rijksmuseum, but this time wanted to go to the Van Gogh museum, if she could figure out how to get there. I told her that I was going to the Rijksmuseum, and that the Van Gogh museum was right near it, and that to get to the Rijksmuseum, I was taking tram 2 or 5 to Hobbemastraat, and that should work to get to the Van Gogh museum as well. She was grateful she had met me, and then when we got off the train she said, Now, I'm not stalking you, I'm just following you. I said she was more than welcome to follow me, even if I didn't really know where I was going. So we both go out to the trams, find the correct ones, and off we go! It was so neat! Up to that point, it really hadn't hit me that I was in Europe, but being out in Amsterdam really did it for me. I was really in Europe!! So the lady and I made it to our stop, and parted ways.

I went to the entrance of the Rijksmuseum where I was to meet Ryan.

Entrance

Sign outside the Rijksmuseum

Street that the Rijksmuseum is on

More of the Rijksmuseum

 30 minutes or so later, he shows up! I was so excited to see him! I hadn't seen him in 2 years =] So we go inside, and buy museumkaarts, which allow us to get into over 30 museums in Amsterdam for FREE! Yes, the kaart cost money, but its super cheap when you figure that you get into over 30 museums (and thats just in Amsterdam, the kaart works for all of the Netherlands!). I've gone to 6 or so so far, and it prices out to be like...5 euros a museum, which is about half the price. If you are going to Amterdam and plan on going to a lot of the museums, get it! So we spent about an hour in the Rijksmuseum, where I saw paintings by Rembrandt and Vermeer and then moved on to the Van Gogh Museum (which was just a 2 minute walk from the Rijksmuseum), where I saw paintings by Van Gogh, Picasso, Rousseau, Cezanne, Monet, Manet, Renoir and Redon, all artist I've studied. That was so cool!

We spent about an hour there, and I really loved seeing all the Van Gogh paintings (though sadly Starry Night wasn't there...which I didn't figure out till we had gone through the whole museum =] ). In between the Rijks and Van Gogh museum is a wide open space, and that is where the I AMSTERDAM sign is. So we walked over to that, and took pictures like tourists =]

I AMSTERDAM sign, in front of the Rijksmuseum building

Ryan =]

Me =]

Then we walked over to Leidseplein, which happened to be near Ryan's hotel, and he had already explored that area and knew where all the restaurants were. I really wanted Greek, so we found a reasonably priced Greek restaurant (that was open...) and we ate there. We both had gyros plates, and it was so good! And a lot of food too! Ryan and I should have split a plate, but we didn't know how big it would be! We learned our lesson, and split the next meal we had =]

After lunch I wanted to go to the Anne Frank house =] That is going to be a post of its own =]

After the Anne Frank house, I decided I should go back to Wassenaar. Ryan and I were dead, seeing as we had only been in the Netherlands for 24 hours, and were still recovering from jetlag, and had just walked around for 6 hours! So yup, I went home, had dinner with the Neelands, watched Glee, and went to bed =]