The first city that we chose to visit outside of Italy was Amsterdam!!! Our plane left Thursday evening and we were all sooo excited! Not only was this our first time in The Netherlands but it was also our first time staying in a hostile. It wasn't half as bad as I expected. All six of us shared a super tiny room with three sets of bunk beds. This also came with our own bathroom. Although it obviously didn't compare to any hotel it was worth saving the money for the three nights. Nicole and Allie were also going to be in Amsterdam for the weekend so I couldn't wait to meet up with them! It worked out perfectly that their hotel was right near my hostel too. It was a total of maybe a five minute walk. I ended up sleeping in their hotel room the very first night. We stayed up talking and catching up until around 3:30 in the morning. Compared to Florence it was freezing. I guess we never realized how spoiled we really are with the weather here. It didn't take long for us to realize how much of a bike city Amsterdam truly is. Even in the cold more people were riding bikes than cars! I even almost got run over a couple of times by them!! Amsterdam's subway system runs on the streets outside not underground like the one I am used to in New York City. We found this to be extremely convenient throughout the entire weekend.

The next morning I woke up super early to meet back up with my friends and get the most out of our first real day there. We started off taking a tour of the Heineken Brewery. It was so much fun and I actually learned a lot such as the main ingredients that they use to make the beers. Of course we got a couple of beers for free too, which was a plus. Once the tour ended we went to find the famous I AMSTERDAM sign. We stayed there for a long time after discovering it and took millions of pictures. Later on that night I met back up with Nicole and Allll for dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. Once we were done we went to this bar all the way in the Red Light District to catch up with a whole other large group of people also from Penn State who were there for the weekend.

On Saturday all of the girls that I was staying with and I went to get pancakes for breakfast because we were told that that is what Amsterdam is known for. I ordered the bacon pancakes. It was really just one huge, thin crepe type pancake with strips of bacon cooked into the middle of it. I have never had anything like it before. We bought tickets for a tour of the canal after and the weather was absolutely perfect! We sat on the outside of the boat the entire time and just relaxed for the hour or so. At the end of the tour we went to the sex museum. It was interesting and gave us all a good laugh. After learning that Amsterdam is also known for their waffles we stopped in the closest little bakery we could find. I got nutella on top of mine. It was AMAZING!!!!!! By far the best waffle I have ever had. At night we went as a huge group to a different bar in the Red Light District. Here I met back up with Nicole and Allie to hangout for one last time. It was so sad and hard to have to say good bye to them again but I am sure that I will see them in another country in Europe before I know it. It felt good to get to see them and made me feel much more at home. Our flight left super early Sunday morning so we didn't have time to do much more after that. Overall it was a fantastic, successful weekend!