Allie in the UK: Amsterdam!

Hello all, it's been awhile but I'm finally getting around to writing about my trip to Amsterdam the other week. ALSO, I'll tell you about our exploits yesterday and post some pics from then.

Honestly, Sarah and I didn't do that much while I was in Amsterdam. We walked around the city and got lost a couple times (Sarah had only been there a couple weeks so she was still figuring it out). It was way way way colder there than it is in England so I definitely wasn't expecting that -- I also hadn't packed for it.

The buildings were amazing but my favorite things to look at were the canals that were all over the city. Each "block" was centered around a different canal with a crazy Dutch name. I don't know how Sarah can possibly live in a city where everything is written in a language she doesn't speak. She also said that Dutch people dislike Americans and people that speak English in general. I think it's kind of like the whole thing in the US where people get mad at Mexicans for not speaking English.

We did walk down the Red Light district but I wasn't allowed to take any pictures. The women just stood there in their windows, with the red lights on, in lingerie. You wouldn't believe how beautiful some of the women were though. They looked like models. In the side streets there were less attractive (and probably less expensive) ones.

The whole city felt really safe even though weed, shrooms and prostitution are all legal. I never felt like I was in a sketchy area. We looked for a couple museums (torture museum, Anne Frank's house) but ended up getting lost and finally I was just like, let's go back to your flat, because it was SO COLD.

By the end of the trip though I was ready to head back to the warmer, English-speaking England. Don't get me wrong, it was fun and I was glad to see Sarah, but I was pretty out of my element there.

Yesterday, the day before Lent starts, is called Pancake Day in England. It's supposedly when you're supposed to eat up all your fatty foods before Lent. So me, Cathrine, Franchi, Annie, Henrik, Pili and Annika (very random combination of people) made pancakes! It was great fun. We put M&Ms in one batch and it turned the batter green. Also, it was very hard to find maple syrup, so we had to get a very tiny, very expensive bottle of it. Here are some pictures!