Saturday afternoon, after I skyped mom from the hostel lobby, I had the task of getting myself from the hostel in the museum quarter to the Contiki hotel near the airport. I used google maps to find the proper bus route. But alas, the journey was not that simple (a theme of this trip, it seems). After the realization that there were three bus/tram stops around my hostel with the same name and one missed bus later, I arrived at the proper bus stop near the hotel. This bus stop was in the middle of an industrial park and I had no idea which way to walk. I asked an attendant at a shipping entrance and he pointed me in the right direction.
I arrived at the hotel at 4:50 and the tour group arrived at 5:45 and it's been pretty non-stop since then!
We had a buffet supper and then we were on the bus into downtown Amsterdam. We went on a canal cruise through the canals of Amsterdam which was very pretty and I got to know some of the other tour participants. And it didn't hurt that there was unlimited beer - Heineken of course!
When the cruise ended, we walked through the red light district. It was a surreal experience to see that industry at all, yet alone in such an open way.
Once we saw the red light district, we went to a naughty show where I was called as a "volunteer" to the stage... An embarrassing incident indeed!
After the show ended, we went to a café and partied together. The night ended with some dutch fast food - a cone of fries smothered with mayo.
Overall great first night with contiki. We returned from our night out after 2:00am, and sadly we had to wake up at 6:30 this morning to shower and eat breakfast by 8:00 am.
We are assigned a roommate who is our roommate for the whole trip. My roommate's name is Steph. She's from Australia and super cool and nice.
We had a free morning in Amsterdam so I helped a group of girls get to the Anne Frank House (because I'm an Amsterdam expert now) and I wandered around the canals until they were done.
After that, Steph and I walked up to Dam square, had a coffee and walked through some shops, walked through the red light district in the daylight and went to the sex museum (which was surprisingly extensive).
After a final café visit, we boarded the bus en route to Germany!