My brother really came through for us in Amsterdam. Of all of the places we were looking at going we were the least satisfied with hostel options in Amsterdam. They were very expensive and very poorly rated. It’s one thing to pay for quality, and a totally different thing to pay 30 euros each per night for something that gets a really bad rating! So, my very kind brother got in touch with his friends and found us a place to stay! One of his friends lives in Amsterdam with her husband in a nice apartment close to the center of town. She was away while we were there, but her husband, Joel, was amazing and let us stay with him. You can imagine that we were feeling a bit shy about all of this, especially since Joel had not even met my brother, but it turned out so well and we enjoyed both Amsterdam and Joel’s company.

It was an easy train ride from Bonn to Amsterdam, with just one quick change in Cologne. The scenery was nice, and we got to see first-hand just how flat the Netherlands are. Once in Amsterdam we followed Joel’s very detailed directions and had an easy time finding his apartment. We chatted for a little and agreed to meet up for dinner after Justin and I had a few hours to walk around the city and see the sights.

The center of Amsterdam is a really nice size for walking around. We walked for about 3 hours and saw most of the central city. We especially liked seeing all of the canals and houseboats. It is a very pretty city and absolutely chock full of bikes, boats and other unique modes of transportation, like the mini car we saw! Because we were only spending one night in the city we just wanted to take in the atmosphere and get a sense of the place. Amsterdam has a really unique feel to it.

Justin with a mini car

Funky colored buildings

Canals!

After a few hours of sightseeing we were happy to meet up with Joel and go to dinner at a totally delicious Malaysian restaurant. It had been a long time since we’d had any kind of southeast asian food and this was GOOD! After dinner Joel took us to one of his favorite pubs, Arendsnest where they had about 30 Dutch and Belgian beers on tap. The selection was amazing! We each tried three different beers. Justin’s favorite of the evening was “Stout & Hop” and mine was the “Snab Pale Ale.” This was some seriously quality beer and it was so much fun to sit with a cool new friend and try some delicious local beer. Others we sampled were the “Emelisse Tripel IPA,” “Jopen Hoppen,” “Heen & Weer Tripel,” and “Texels Skuumkoppe.”

So many beers on tap!

Dutch Windmill near Joel's house

After a late night chatting we had a pretty lazy morning doing laundry and taking care of some business. Then, we packed up all of our things and headed over to the central station. But, we weren’t done. Our overnight train to Copenhagen didn’t leave until a little after 7 pm, so we put our luggage in a locker at the station and decided to take a little boat tour of the city.

The boat tour was about an hour long and went through the canals and past a lot of the major sights. It was incredibly hot that day and it felt pretty nice to be on the water. We enjoyed the scenery and found that we could see the houses and architecture better from the canals, since when you are on the sidewalks you have to look pretty much directly up at the buildings, but from the water you have a better perspective.

Traditional Amsterdam Houses

Cool drawbridge

Houseboats!

Once we were finished with the boat we bought some food to keep us going on the train and headed to the station!