Day 128

Today we got up early to get the day going. I had a shower before we left for the day. The showers were not as bad as other hostels, but it was still small and a hostel shower. We left the hostel around 10:30 and then got some breakfast. We got breakfast at this corner bakery. I wound up getting this breakfast sandwich. It was funny because Pierre who is French got a baguette for breakfast. That is such a French thing to do. Haha We then made our way to the floating flower market and looked around. After that Brian and Richard went to the Heineken factory while Melody, Pierre and myself did some shopping. We stopped to try some Dutch food along the way. We all got croquettes. It is basically this breaded “mystery” meat. We ate it with mustard and it was delicious. At around five we all met up at the hostel. We hung around there for a bit chatting with Richard’s, Melody’s, and Pierre’s roommates. They were in a room of eight including them. The roommates were from Texas and then two of them were from Ireland. They were cool to hang out with. Brian and myself were on the next floor up in a room of six including us. Our roommates wound up being from Leeds and actually went to the other University in Leeds, which we found weird. They were nice as well. After that the five of us headed out to go to the ice bar! We had to wear these special coats, gloves, and hats. Everything inside was made out of ice. The bar, the seats and even the glasses! It was so awesome. We were in there for about forty minutes, which was perfect because by that time I was pretty cold and ready to get warmed up. After that experience we headed back towards the hostel and went to a bar. We were all tired and were not really in the mood to drink, but it was our last night in Amsterdam, well at least for Brian and myself, and I was going to try Absinthe before I left. Everyone had a shot. It tasted like black licorice and burned on the way down. It was really nothing special. To me, it was just a shot of really high percentage liquor. There was no green fair either. Haha. After that we all went and walked around the Red Light District. It is completely different at night than during the day. At night with all the lights on the girls lingerie glow from the lights and plus, there are so many girls working. You walk down the street and there are these glass doors lining the street. One right next to the other on some streets and others spread out on other street. When no one is in the room, there is a red curtain that is down, but when there is a girl in the room the curtain is pulled back and you see a girl in really really skimpy lingerie behind the glass. Some girls just had underwear on and then these strap things that just covered their nipples. The girls would wink and tap the glass at the guys. If a guy was interested he would go up to the door and the girl would open it enough to tell him prices depending on what he wanted to do. Then if a guy accepted, he walked in the door and the curtain was pulled close. The Red Light District is something that I have never experienced before and is definitely one of a kind. I’m pretty sure my jaw was open the whole time while I was walking through it, as I was kind of taken back that this was actually real. It was something else. After walking around we headed back to the hostel and went to bed.