Amsterdam is one of the few cities in Europe where I could see myself living. It’s young, there’s always something going on, the people are super friendly, the shopping is great, and most of the people speak English better than I do. Probably the only down side is that it seemed relatively expensive (not more expensive than Paris, obviously), oh and F doesn’t want to live there :(

We spent 4 days in Amsterdam, including New Year’s. I wanted to do lots of touristy things like visit the Hermitage museum, Anne Frank’s house, the Van Gogh museum, and do a canal cruise. The only thing out of those we ending up doing was visiting the Hermitage. I don’t know where the time went. We got up and went out early every day but the time went so fast. Most of our days were spent wandering around, exploring the city, as well as doing far too much shopping.

I had read quite a bit about Anne Frank before we got to Amsterdam so was looking forward to seeing where she and her family had lived during the war. Unfortunately, both times we went by, there was a massive queue. It would have been about an hour wait and in sub zero temperatures, that wouldn’t have been a great idea.

Of course, we also had to wait to get in the Hermitage. Almost an hour in the snow. Not worth the wait. Not that I didn’t enjoy the museum. I did. They had lots of beautiful costumes and dresses from the royal court in Russia. The clothes and accessories were amazing. I also found the history of the Hermitage museum and the Russian relationship with the Netherlands to be interesting. Peter the Great went to Amsterdam where he worked in a shipyard. He then tried to modernise Russia on his return because he felt Russia was a bit of a backwater compared to Europe. Lol, probably still is ;) But again, that was not worth waiting an hour for in freezing (literally) cold.

On our last night there, I was awoken at 2am by the hotel fire alarm. Actually, it wasn’t a proper alarm just a recorded message which repeatedly said, ‘you must evacuate the building immediately’ in about 5 different languages. I was lucky to wake up because it wasn’t very loud at all. F didn’t even hear it until I woke him up. I was so out of it, trying to get dressed and wondering what to take with me. I looked in the corridor and there was no one to be seen and there were no fire engines outside. I decided to call reception but it took me about 10 minutes to figure out which number it was to call them. Luckily it was a false alarm. Apparently someone had a super hot shower which had set off the alarm. Oh really? I’m sure if there had actually been a fire we would have been burnt to a crisp, lol. We were hopeless in an emergency.

I really want to go back to Amsterdam in the spring or summer to see everything I missed out on this time. Maybe I’ll even venture into a coffee shop next time :P