Museum day!!

Today was a much more active day in Amsterdam. We started off the day fresh and headed out to rent our bicycles for the day! We got the bikes which looked like they were supposed to be for a 6’5 man and managed to lower the seats and hoist ourselves on to them and make our attempt at riding with the million other people riding bikes in this city while not hitting one, getting hit by one, running over a pedestrian, getting hit by a car, or getting hit by the tram. Even though they have sidewalks and bike lanes and car lanes it seems as though everyone kind of goes on everyone elses space so it was like playing dodgeball and trying not to get hit by people cars or trams. I had a wobbly start whenever we had to stop and at one point while looking back and chatting with Jenna almost ran straight in to a trash can. Nathalie at one point almost clipped the side of a bus but saved herself well. Jenna was pretty much a pro and didn’t have any close calls that I know of. We had little bells on our bikes which here people use like car horns to tell people to get out of the way. Well us being the tourists that we are decided to use the bells as a musical instrument and chime away in a rhythm as we frolicked down the street on the bikes surely annoying the heck out of Amsterdamians. Our first stop along the way was the Van Gogh museum which was extremely interesting and fun to see. Van Gogh led an interesting life and had a short lived career, being a professional painter only 10 years before he commited suicide. His artwork had a lot of different techniques throughout his career and it was fascinating to see his work evolve as he learned and worked with other professional artists. While walking around the museum Jenna accidently ran in to a guy and “reh reh’ed” him (the chirping sound we have been making) and he looked at her like she was straight out of a mental institution and I literally almost peed my pants laughing at it. Its like we have our own language similar to Swahili with our chirps and we all understand each other but to others im sure we look like we enjoyed some magic mushrooms from here or something. After Van Gogh museum we went to the Heineken experience and let me tell you it was quite the experience! It’s the brewery and museum and it was a super fun tour. We got to see how the beer is made and the history behind it and we also had an interactive ride/video that took us through the brewing process. Nathalie at this point was like a scared little 5 year old when she read the sign and it said that the ride might cause nausea and dizziness and stated that she hates rollercoasters! The ride wasn’t that bad and we all made it out alive and with all 10 fingers and all 10 toes. We then got to go and taste some of the beer and learn how it is poured and what its supposed to look like when poured right, so watch out friends at home now im a guiness and a Heineken aficionado and can fill you guys in with whatever you need to know! We also got to do a video message, picture message, and a music video that we got to send to ourselves. I also got to make a personalized Heineken bottle with my name on it which i was soo excited about! At the end of the tour we got another two beers! When we were in the souvenir shop at the end and we were checking out Jenna yet again “reh reh’ed” the lady when she was trying to hand her coins and the lady though Jenna burped at her hahahaha! The lady then proceeded to tell Jenna that its ok because the Chinese people burp at her all the time, how gross is that! Jenna cleared it up with her and was in no way gonna be grouped in the “I burp in peoples faces club”3 beers in less than an hour on an empty stomach made for some funny bike riding skills on the way to the next museum, but don’t worry we weren’t on busy streets this time so it wasn’t as dangerous! J We made it back up to the red light district to go to the hemp and marijuana museum which wasn’t as exciting as we had hoped it would be but it definitely gave me a lot of information about the history of cannibus and all the things hemp is used in. We learned stuff like the colonial governments when America was first being settled required settlers to grow hemp and they used it to make ship sails and paper. If they didn’t grow cannibus they were threatened with fines and forfeiture of property. Hemp was also often used for money and when Spain opened the Mississippi river for trade hemp was the official item of exchange (money). Canvas tops for covered wagons were also made with hemp as well as the original Levi’s jeans because the type of hemp fabric they used called Duck was water repellant. The declaration of independence and the US constitution were drafted and debated on hemp paper which I thought was so very interesting. Also George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Ben Franklin were all hemp farmers. Each navy ship used about 60 tons of hemp for their sails and rigging ropes. Flags and military uniforms also used hemp. I had no idea that it was used for so many things and that it was such a popular commodity back in history. My question is what did they do with the other parts of the cannibus plant, were Ben Franklin and George Washington blazing one up while they made important decisions for this country…..hmmm…very interesting! I also learned some stuff about the rastafari people and why they smoke so much marijuana. From there of course we went to a coffee shop because after learning so much about this stuff called cannibus we had to test it out J While we were there these 4 guys came and sat by us and started chatting. They had such strong accents that we could hardly understand them but they were cracking us up. They said they were from Liverpool England but their accent was sooo strange sounding. At one point Jenna asked them what other language they spoke and this rico suave character told jenna “whatever language you want me to speak “ haha I wonder if that works in his country. He then proceeded to attempt to give Jenna a compliment by saying she looks like his cleaning lady haha and tried to explain that his cleaning lady was beautiful but it was too late and all that we could think about was the fact that the words cleaning lady came out of his mouth when talking about Jenna. When walking from the coffee shop to a pub we saw a bunch of ducks in the canal and since we were still in the red light district Nathalie proceeded to say that she thinks that these ducks might be the red light district lady ducks and that they are waiting to flaunt their feathers to any male ducks who swim by! We did some more people watching at this fun pub and enjoyed a “extra cold” variety of Heineken which was lovely! For some reason we had a straw that Jenna was drinking her beer out of and she decided that the beer went down like water when drinking through a straw and so she offered it to Nathalie to try and Nathalie responded with “Yes, I never say no to beer through a straw” like in her lifetime she has just been asked to drink beer through a straw so many times that she has her standard answer haha! We have learned to take advantage of going to the bathroom wherever we buy a beer or food since bathrooms are so scarce in these parts so at the end of every meal or drink we caravan it to the bathroom in true girl style and normally cram in to these tiny bathrooms since of course we cant go to the bathroom alone and Europeans obviously don’t feel the need to make spacious bathrooms since they pretty much don’t even want us to have access to any toilet facility! After all this frolicking around we did some souvenir shopping and then rode our bikes back to our area we were staying in to move our bags from one hotel across the street to the next since the hotel we were staying at didn’t have vacancy for our extra night. This is when it started to get really funny. Remember the crazy stairs we had to walk our bags up, well walking them down turned in to quite a feat and we nearly lost our life a couple times while trying to “Sherpa” our bags down the Mt Everest stairs. Once we moved hotels we decided to make one more stroll around Leidesplein square and get some dinner. It was now 11:30 at night and we were just eating dinner, it is crazy eating schedules around here because it gets dark so late! While walking to the square we encountered this crazy old man who started talking to Jenna and waving his finger in her face which happened to be soooo caked in dirt that it looked like he had just finished harvesting a field. We had no idea what the heck he was saying and scared little me was trying to scurry us away. As we were hastily walking away Jenna stated “ was that man intoxicated, special, or foreign” and we all started busting up laughing because we really aren’t sure what his issue was or why he was so animatedly talking to Jenna. We had some sushi for dinner and it made us realize how culturally diverse we have been eating and we are so proud of ourselves. We have had Italian, thai, Japanese, Greek, Egyptian, English (pub food), Seafood, Super fresh seafood from market, and Mexican. We have realized none of us are picky eaters and we all like to eat, hence why we will all be coming back with a few more lbs then we left with! When we got back to our hotel we decided we needed a good nights sleep since we are heading to Berlin tommorow and its about a 6 hour drive so we got in bed where Jenna then was rustling around in her bed and then jumped out of bed incensed and said “they short sheeted me” Nathalie and I about died laughing and it was a great quote to end a really fabulous day! Off to Berlin tommorow and more fun stories to come for sure! Bon Jour!