Today, Emily, Caitlin and I attempted to catch a flight to Amsterdam. It was Emily's 21st birthday this weekend, so we were all super excited. Our flight was at 1:30, so we left the house around 11. We took the metro the Centrale, then a bus to Malpensa, just like we always do.
Actually, I'm going to stop right there. Back track a few weeks earlier...
We searched for flights to Amsterdam on the travel websites we always use, like Ryanair, Easyjet, Skyscanner, etc., and couldn't find anything affordable! But we all really wanted to go, so we kept searching. Finally we found a ticket for 105E on a website called GoVolo.com. The website seemed legitimate as we were going through the checkout process, so we continued without many hesitations. All three of us purchased a roundtrip ticket, and were relieved we found out at a reasonable price! The next day, while we were at a fashion show, we got an email from the website telling us that we had to email a scanned copy of our credit card and passport by 5pm that night or they would cancel the reservation. We got the email at 3pm. We thought it was really odd. 1) I have never had to do anything like that before? And 2) did they really give us two hours to do this? We emailed the site back and told them we would have the information they requested as soon as we got home. So we did, and a couple days later, Emily and I got our etickets, but Caitlin never got one. She emailed the help hotline four separate times requesting hers be sent, and they finally responded by saying they don't issue etickets. We obviously knew that was false because Emily and I both got etickets from the exact same site.
Picking back up from above. We got to Malpensa, and Emily and I handed our etickets at the check in counter, and they handed us what we thought was our ticket. However, Caitlin got 100% screwed. Apparently the reason she never got an eticket, was because her reservation had gotten cancelled, unbeknownst to her. We walked straight to the customer service counter, where we were told there is nothing they could do to help us. And the sketchiest part is, nowhere on the website we booked through, is there a phone number to call. There is only an email address given under contact information. So, that makes it very difficult to contact someone and raise hell when something like this happens. Caitlin called her dad, who happens to be an Aviation's Lawyer, and he looked into the site. Apparently there have been numerous complaints about it being a fraud site and incidents like this happening all the time. And the worst part is, nobody gets their money back. We asked the lady at the ticket counter how much the tickets were selling for currently, and she told us 350E. Obviously, she had to pass. So Emily and I went on ahead, and had to leave her behind. I felt so, so terrible. We were all so excited to go, and she couldn't have gotten more screwed. Thankfully, her dad is going to go after the site for fraud and try to bring them down. I hope he succeeds.
When Emily and I landed, we hoped on a train from the airport to the Central Station. Lucky for us, our hotel was literally a two-minute walk from Central Station, so we got there around 5:00 with no problems at all. Kristen was already in the room when we got there, so we threw our stuff down and decided to head out. The weather couldn't have been more miserable when we arrived. It was pouring down rain and freezing cold. Like winter coat and scarf weather. But we had looked at the forecast before we left, so we knew it was going to be dreary on Friday, but it was supposed to be clear and sunshine’s on Saturday and Sunday.
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| Anne Frank House |
We grabbed a map from the hotel lobby and headed for the Anne Frank Museum. We figured since it was raining, it was the perfect day to do a museum. We waited in line for about 20 minutes (in the pouring rain) then paid 8.50E each to get in. Why can't all museums be free like they are in the D.C?? 8.50E is over $12! But it was worth is, the museum was really, really cool. It was the actual house that Anne Frank hid from the Nazi's in. They tour people all the way through the different rooms of their Secret Annex. There were four other Jews besides the Frank family hiding in the Annex. I was actually surprised by how large it was. (And when I saw large, it's obviously very relatively speaking. It was extremely tight quarters for eight people who were constantly living in fear of discovery. But for some reason I had always pictured the whole family sharing one, tiny room.) There were actually four separate bedrooms and a bathroom. However, they could never flush the toilet or turn the water on, because the pipes ran through the workshop downstairs, and the workers didn't know there were Jews hiding upstairs. A bookcase on hinges hid the Secret Annex entrance. We got to walk around the Annex and all it's rooms. The rooms were completely empty, with not furniture at all. Otto Frank (Anne Frank's father) was the only Frank to survive the concentration camps. When he came back to Amsterdam, we wanted to preserve the house just as it was. Thus, the furniture that was thrown out when they Franks were discovered was never replaced. However, they did a great job of recreating it. All the windows were completely blacked out like they had been when the Franks were in hiding. They had quotes on the walls from Anne Frank's diary, and pictures of what the rooms looked like while they were there. You couldn't take pictures, which I didn't really get? There was nothing in there to ruin, no furniture, no artifacts, nothing? However, they did have the original Diary of Anne Frank, which was also really cool.
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| Sketchy street signs in Amsterdam |
On a side note: check out this sketchy street sign that was outside the Anne Frank House. You know it's a sketchy city when this in an actual sign: See right -->
Afterwards, we were starving so we looked for a place to grab some dinner. Everyone had told us that Amsterdam has amazing Chinese food, so we decided to give it a whirl. It was very easy to find a Chinese place, they were on like every corner. And they were right about its yumminess. We went to Sara's Wok, and it was delicious :) When we were looking at the menu, we decided it sounded like Chipotle! You picked white or brown rice, then steak or chicken, and then whatever other vegetables and toppings you wanted on it! Well, when it came out, it couldn't have tasted less like Chipotle, but it was still really yummy. It was like American Chinese food, which I was stoked about. We have heard the Chinese food in Italy is like actual authentic Chinese food, which apparently tastes like nothing like what we are use to. So we ate the Americanized Chinese food, and we were all totally satisfied when we were done. Which is a very rare statement when it comes to meals. We usually leave 95% of the restaurants still hungry and super bummed.
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| Chinese Food in Amsterdam! |
After dinner, we went back to our really crappy, outrageously overpriced hotel, and got ready for the night. The hotel cost us $176 a night! It was supposed to be a four-person room, but because Caitlin couldn't come, we had to split it between just the three of us. And of course they told us they were completely booked and there were no triple rooms available. However, there was a "Vacancy" sign on the door the entire time we were there, so I was skeptical of their story.
After we got ready, we took a cab to the bars. The cabs in Amsterdam are SO expensive! They don't have meters in them, which is really sketchy. So basically when you get to the destination, the cab driver turns around a just spits out a number, and you have to pay it. That's really the system. It's ridiculous. On the way there, we were in the can for about five minutes, and it cost us 20E.
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| Emily and I in Amsterdam |
When we got to the nightlife area, we went from bar to bar drinking and dancing. There were literally bouncers outside every bar, almost begging us to come in! We basically got free drinks all night, it was amazing :) They would hand us free drink tokens at the door, so we would go in, have our one free drink, and then go to the next one! It was definitely a scene I could get use to! This area was lined with bars and pubs; it was definitely a really sweet nightlife scene. We had a blast seeing a bunch of different bars and hanging out. At the end of the night, we met up with some kids at Emily had met in Brussels the weekend before, we decided to all meet at the Heineken Brewery the next morning at noon. We hopped in a cab around 4ish and headed home. This cab driver decided to charge us 30E for a cab ride that was literally four minutes long. When we told him it only cost us 20E to get there, he basically said "Sorry 'bout it. It's 30E this time." Such BS. It's such an unfair system! But it was a really fun night, and we all had a blast.
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| Kristen, Emily, and I at the bars in Amsterdam |
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