Day 16: Walking Tours and Tea

Hey everyone!  I miss you all so much, I wish I could be with you in person to give you a hug.  Or in the least, a good firm handshake.

  So today, we left the house around 10am to get a quick city tour in.  We took a tram to the Central Station and bought some six day passes for the tram.  Then, my dad had a Rick Steves Audio tour downloaded on his phone so he hooked it up to a speaker and it would give us directions to different destinations around Amsterdam.  It was more than slightly embarrassing since this tour was being played audibly and branding us as proud, backpack-wearing American tourists.  We headed past the canals and bike locks and into Dam Square.  There was then a long street of high-end stores.  We wove in and out of cobbled streets and cheese-shop-filled shopping centers.  We stopped and grabbed some fries at a chip shop.  They did put a ridiculous amount of really weird ketchup on them but they were good none the less.  We then took the tram back to our apartment to get ready for my mom's mom, Grootje, and her aunt, Machteld for tea.  They came over and we had a lovely tea on the rooftop patio.  Machteld left after a bit to beat the rush hour and the five of us headed out again to explore the shopping adventures.  Tony and I headed up and down the main street with teenager-y stores while the rest had pizza at a nearby restaurant.  Tony was amazed that he Dutch Mcdonald's had McFlurries, so we stopped in after dinner to grab one.  (THEY HAD STROOPWAFFLE, an amazing Dutch cookie, FLAVOR!)  We then headed over to get catch a ride on the Dutch tour boats. While waiting for my dad to check the tickets for the boat, we were asked to join a group picture with a bunch of other tourists, it was fabulous.  We chatted with a guy from the group, Fazie, who invited us to his dry goods store in Denmark.  We regretted to inform him that we were not planning to go to Denmark anytime soon.  Sorry buddy.  After finding out that the boats would be closing too soon for us to ride one, we headed back to the apartment.  We all just relaxed for the evening, it was crazy, it doesn't even get dark here until around 10:30pm.  I did head up to the rooftop balcony after it got dark and looked at the lights for a bit.  It was so pretty!

Hope you enjoyed this look into the first day of our stay in Amsterdam!

-Sophia :)

CHEESE.

In Dam Square 

Iconic Dutch wooden shoes (Klompen)

Tony in the chip shop 

I found the man bearing the largest jar of Nutella, he's now my bestie. 

Not sure why it's speckled, but here we are at the pizzeria 

Central Station