Tuesday began exceptionally early with us all waking up at 7 a.m. in order to get across Paris to the Eurolines bus station and buy a ticket for a bus to Amsterdam (remember, our train tickets didn’t exactly pan out). We were all incredibly exhausted from our two jam-packed days of sightseeing and our marathon in the metro the previous night. Somehow, we all managed to wake up and drag ourselves to get ready even though every muscle in our bodies ached.
We left Amanda’s apartment, dragging our luggage to train station; it seemed to take twice as long as normal with our big bags and heavy backpacks in tow. We got on the train from Bondy, stopping somewhere in Paris to transfer to another line. We had to ride the metro to the end of the line, and it was easily the longest metro ride of my life. Fortunately, we didn’t have to go far after getting off the train, since the station was connected to the bus station.
When we finally got to the ticket desk, we learned that our bus wasn’t leaving for another two hours, so we sat in the little coffee/gift shop and waited. We had bought a bunch of pastries and a baguette at a bakery earlier that morning, and, since we hadn’t eaten yet, we figured we now was as good of a time as ever. Due to being exhausted, I gracefully fell asleep at the table while Abbie and Amanda were talking, waking up a little bit before our bus left.
After using possibly the dirtiest bathroom in the world, Abbie and I said our goodbyes to Amanda and got on the bus for our…wait for it…eight hour trip to Amsterdam. After staring at the French countryside for about a half an hour (it kind of looks like Northern California…no joke) I finally succumbed and went to sleep. When I woke up, we were just on the outskirts of Brussels, the halfway point. After a debate about whether Brussels was in Germany or Belgium (it’s in Belgium) we got off the bus for a half hour break in which we got sandwiches, a bag of chips, and sodas from the supermarket across from the depot. We had just enough time to eat our sandwiches in the square somewhere in the middle of Brussels before getting back on the bus.
Once again, we both fell asleep. Turns out, sleeping really passes the time on an eight hour bus ride (to think: we could have flown from Dublin to Chicago in that time). When we both woke up, we stared out the window at the Dutch countryside as we entered Amsterdam. No there were no windmills. And no there were no people dancing in wooden shoes.
From the station in Amsterdam, we caught the metro (and when I say “the metro” I mean “THE” metro—there’s only one line in the whole city. The rest is above-ground trams. Something was wrong with the ticketing, so we didn’t have to pay for it, which was cool. We made it to the station and asked how to get to our hostel from there. It was relatively close, but still a god ten-minute walk dragging luggage behind us.
Our hostel was situated right along a canal, pretty much right next to the Red Light District (though we didn’t know this yet). We checked in and ended up being on the top floor, so I had the pleasure of carrying my heavy bag up four flights of stairs. Compared to chilly and rainy Dublin and moderately cool Paris, we were sweltering in Amsterdam, so we changed our clothes before walking around to explore the area. We ended up stopping at a fairly empty place to have a pint (Heineken is the beer of choice—heh) before walking back along the canal as it got dark. After going on the internet for a little bit (we had to pay by the hour) we decided we were both exhausted, since it was around 1 a.m., and went to bed.
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