This past weekend I went to Amsterdam with my friend Sophie for an early birthday trip. We left Copenhagen on Friday night and arrived in Amsterdam around 10pm. The flight was faster than I had expected, just around 1.5 hours. We took the metro from the airport into the city center, and transferred to another metro to get to our hotel. We passed by a restaurant in the metro station called Julia’s, so of course I took a picture with it. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Sloterdijk, the hotel my dad always stayed in when he was working out of Amsterdam.
We quickly dropped off our bags and did an outfit change before heading to the city center to grab some late-night dinner. We settled on a pizza place and got personal pizzas and a drink. I spent about 5 minutes explaining to the waiter that I wanted a vodka water (literally just soda water and vodka) because he kept thinking I was saying I wanted a soda water with regular water mixed in.
But we enjoyed our pizza at 12:30am and on our way out the door Sophie met up with her camp friend that happened to also be in Amsterdam that weekend. We talked to her and her friend about their plan for the weekend and what they had done earlier that day. They were exhausted and on their way home for the night so they didn’t come out with us, but it was great meeting them.
Then Sophie and I decided to check out some bars in the area. We walked into Café de Deugniet, a small bar, and at first we thought the crowd was a little too old for what we were looking for. But we had talked to the bouncer on the way in and I didn’t want to walk back out immediately so we stuck around for a bit- and I’m so glad we did! It ended up being a really lively crowd and the bartenders were super engaged and having a great time which made the experience really fun. They came into the crowd and danced with everyone and poured everyone free shots of Jägermeister. We had heard of it before but never tried it and it had an… interesting taste…. We looked it up the next day and learned that it is a german digestif that has 56 herbs and spices in it and 35% alcohol.
After a while we decided to leave and were heading home when we realized that we were a couple streets away from the Red Light District. We checked it out and saw that there were many people still out so we felt safe walking through the area for a little bit. It was interesting to see what it looked like during the prime hours but we felt like we got the gist after about 10 minutes and walked home. You aren’t allowed to take pictures there for obvious reasons. On our way home we enjoyed the views of the city at night and we were excited to see what it looked like in the day time the next day.
The next morning we slept in a bit and grabbed free breakfast from our hotel at 10:30am. Then we took the metro back into central station and waked to Lindengracht Market, a full-time farmers market. On our walk we passed by some picturesque canal spots and stopped in some stores.
We walked through the tents, which also gave us some shelter from the slight rain, and looked at the jewelry, produce, cheese, and other goods people were selling. Sophie and I bought necklaces from one of the stands.
Then we stopped at Vegan Junk Food Bar for lunch. It was so cute and I got a burger sampler which was three mini burgers so I was able to try their different specialty flavors. Each one was better than the last and I loved the pink colored buns.
On the way out we walked past the bench where parts of the movie The Fault in Our Stars was filmed.
Then we walked off our lunch walking around the canals and exploring some shopping streets. Once we were a little hungry again, we stopped at Fabel Friet, a famous fry shop. The line was out the door and down the street but we decided it was worth it and the line moved pretty quickly. We both got fries with truffle sauce and it was DELICIOUS and well worth the wait. We ate them by the canal and enjoyed the view.
We walked all the way back to central station and explored some stores along the way. We took a quick power nap and got ready for the night. First, stop was Hummus Bistro for dinner. I went in 8th grade when I came to Amsterdam with my parents, and remembered it being great. We weren’t super hungry because of the fries we had a couple hours before, but we had a long night coming up so we got shakshuka, which is two eggs cooked in tomato and herb sauce with feta cheese and served with pita bread, pickles, and side salads. It was delicious and we were soooo full. We decided to walk to our next destination (about 30 minutes) instead of taking the bus so we could walk it off.
Next was an unlimited wine & cheese canal cruise. We found the dock and boarded the cutest little boat. There were about 20 people on our cruise who came from all over the world. The tour guides had everyone say where they were from so we learned that there were people from Norway, Ireland, the US, Germany, China, and more. It was also crazy because there was a lady sitting next to us that was from Cherry Hill, New Jersey which is less than an hour from where I live. She works at a robotics company that specializes in prosthetic limbs and was visiting Amsterdam on a work trip. We ate lots of cheese and had a few glasses of wine while getting a tour of the canals and learning about some of the history of the city. It was a little bit difficult to see everything at night but it was a cool experience.
When we got back to the dock, we walked to our next stop: a Coqtales show. The venue was a theatre with multiple shows running, so we got a couple of drinks and found our seats in the right room. There were six male performers and they had group choreography with music, dance moves, and costumes. The audience had bachelorette parties, birthday girls, and everything in between. People had signed up for “hot seats” so they got pulled on stage for certain acts and it was such a fun experience.
Once it ended we headed to a bar called the Water Hole where there is live music, pool tables, and some arcade games. The bouncer let us in for free and we made our way to the stage where a rock band was performing. We were able to get to the front of the stage and we really enjoyed their music (even though we still don’t know who the band was!) The main singer was a great performer and we had a great time watching his quirky dance moves. We stayed until the band went on break and we took an Uber home.
The next morning, we woke up and headed into town to go to PANCAKES, a popular dutch pancake house located throughout the city. We waited on line for about 20 minutes, which wasn’t bad considering it was a Sunday morning around brunch time and the restaurant wasn’t very big. I got a hot chocolate and a dutch pancake with spinach, egg, cheese and mushrooms. Sophie got coffee and American pancakes with salmon and spinach.
After breakfast we walked through the city to do some shopping. We got a few souvenirs and checked out some clothing stores. I ended up finding a leather blazer that was exactly what I was looking for and bought it. The store we were at had a really cool self- check out where you put your clothes into a bin and the computer knows exactly what clothes you put in and it pops up on the screen without having to scan anything. Sophie and I also got matching blue crewnecks. We also passed by some stands that had beautiful flowers.
We had about an hour until we needed to go pick up our bags from the hotel and head to the airport, so we decided to look for a coffee shop. I opened Google Maps and found a spot down the street that ended up being amazing. It was on the top floor of a mall and had panoramic views of the city. The interior decor was really cute and we got a drink and shared bruschetta. They actually brought us another order of bruschetta for free since they made two by accident! It was a great end to our trip.
We grabbed our backpacks from our hotel and somehow managed to fit our purchases in them and headed to the airport. We ended up being on the same flight as my friend Logan who I went to high school with! We boarded the flight and in 1.5 hours we were back in Copenhagen.
It was a great early-birthday weekend and Sophie and I had so much fun exploring all different elements of Amsterdam. It was cool going back to a city I haven’t seen in so many years and having such a different perspective on it, and it was great seeing where my dad spent so much time working from.
