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| view of Centraal Station from the bell tower |
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| Tracy, Anna & Erin |
Today we visited the original stock exchange building of Amsterdam. There were a lot of mosaics and stain glass windows that had symbolism of socialism but even these were not very visually striking. The whole tour was rather short and a bit bland...after all, it is the stock exchange! The building is no longer the current stock exchange but is a place for parties and other events. The best part of the tour was when we got to go up into the bell tower. The stairs were steep and narrow on par with every other staircase in Europe, but the view was pretty cool. We could see the train station, part of the royal palace, and the Western Makt Church. So of course we had ourselves a little photo shoot up there, obvi.
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| American Diner, yeehaw |
After the tour Angie, Tracy and I went to an "American Diner" where I was served an amazing club sandwich and fries while listening to Salt n' Pepper. Even though it said American there were still a few oddities: the three milkshake flavors were Banana, Vanilla with Chocolate Sauce, and Carmel....what?...and there was no mustard only a tube of mayo on the table. Nonetheless, the place was pretty decent and not too horribly priced considering its close vicinity to Dam Square-tourist mecca.
Then we went for a little touristy shopping ourselves. H&M, Mango, and Zara seem to be extremely popular. H&M is on every corner here...the Starbucks of Amsterdam. The cool thing is that these places are so cheap! Way cheaper than at home or probably even other European countries. Literally every store here has 30-70% of signs on everything. Apparently the Dutch are very frugal people and will only buy things on sale...their tightfistedness is where the phrase "dutch date" (or other variations of this) come from. The clothes in Zara were cool but when I went to try things on they told me I could only take six in even though I had nine items. So I left three with the lady and when I had tried on my six I asked her for the next three. She replied to me, "what, did you think I was going to save them for you? We are busy I can't just do stuff like that." At first I was completely shocked and stood there all deer-in-the-head-lights but then responded, "well, well I think you are very rude." Needless to say I was done shopping for the day. The stores were busy but no need to kill my shopping buzz! I can definitely tell tourist season has begun here. There are less Dutch people since they go to the sea for summer while everyone else floods in.
Then we went for a little touristy shopping ourselves. H&M, Mango, and Zara seem to be extremely popular. H&M is on every corner here...the Starbucks of Amsterdam. The cool thing is that these places are so cheap! Way cheaper than at home or probably even other European countries. Literally every store here has 30-70% of signs on everything. Apparently the Dutch are very frugal people and will only buy things on sale...their tightfistedness is where the phrase "dutch date" (or other variations of this) come from. The clothes in Zara were cool but when I went to try things on they told me I could only take six in even though I had nine items. So I left three with the lady and when I had tried on my six I asked her for the next three. She replied to me, "what, did you think I was going to save them for you? We are busy I can't just do stuff like that." At first I was completely shocked and stood there all deer-in-the-head-lights but then responded, "well, well I think you are very rude." Needless to say I was done shopping for the day. The stores were busy but no need to kill my shopping buzz! I can definitely tell tourist season has begun here. There are less Dutch people since they go to the sea for summer while everyone else floods in.
Moar updaytz plz
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