We took a bus from the tulips back into Amsterdam, so that we could see the city. We had less than five hours to see everything we could, but since my phone had ran out of cellular data, we literally were left to wander around a new city in a new country. It was a bit of a culture shock, but I decided to embrace it.
We went into a place immediately that was called a 'coffee shop' and soon realized that there wasn't coffee in there. It was a weed shop. We laughed and bought a pre-roll, which was probably a terrible idea since we had a flight to catch in 4 hours. We smoked the joint inside the coffee shop, and wandered back on the street, and that's when I realized that Amsterdam looked a lot better when you're high.
The canal looked magically and all of the quirky buildings looked like odd doll houses. We found a small, modern-looking cafe, and ate lunch there. We had a Dutch stamppot, which was basically mashed potatoes and some other items thrown into a bowl and mixed together. It was so good. We started to have a conversation with a women who was originally from Amsterdam, her accent was thick, but she still spoke fluent English.
She said that she had never been to America and had only seen it on television. She said it scared her. I realized how strange the place I called 'home' was in that moment. It truly was the overruling place on Earth, and I felt odd knowing that it was all I had ever known.
After we had eaten, we went to a small flee market that was next to the canals. There was so much art and interesting artifacts. We also saw the House of Remembrance, and I realized that many of the museums and such in Amsterdam were sad reminders of the Holocaust. Even though Amsterdam was an interesting place, it wasn't my favorite for that reason.
We quickly realized that we need to ride the underground train to the airport, because our flight would be departing in just two hours.
When we got to the airport, we were super relaxed and relieved that we had finally gotten to the airport with ample time before our flight left. However, when we tried to scan our boarding passes, they continued to not work. One of the workers told us that our flight was for the following week, not that evening. My heart sunk, and I began to get extremely worried. I thought we were going to have to stay in a hostile in the red light district that night.
We quickly tried to connect to the airport's Wifi, but the connection was so spotty, and wouldn't load the pages we need to change our flights. Annika was able to change hers, but my phone wouldn't work to change it. We went up to the flight desk to ask for help, and the man said that the flight might be closed. I was absolutely terrified at this point, and I think the man could see the worry on my face. It was going to be 120 euros to change it, but I had no choice.
The vueling worker finally said that he was able to change it, and looked right into my eyes and said, "I changed it for you, free of charge." I could've kissed that man in that moment, because I was so relieved. I thanked him so many times, and we sprinted to get my boarding pass printed.
We soon found out that the airport was really large, and we couldn't find the gate that we needed to board at. We were at the other end of the airport when a flight attendant told us that our gate was on the opposite side of the airport. We had ten minutes until our gate closed.
We sprinted as fast as we could through the airport, people starring at us as we ran past and through them. The gate was nearly closing, as we barely made it in time to walk through and board the plane. The relief was unreal. I decided that on future trips I HAD to plan ahead and not travel to another country in only one day.
We stepped off of the plane back in London, and I felt like I was home away from home.
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