For the first time ever I thought I would be a productive grown up on a flight, so this post is being written as I am on my way home from my most recent trip – Amsterdam.
I’ve always dreamt of strolling around the stunning canals and pretty streets, so as part of my recent vow to travel as often as I physically can, I jumped in on a short trip to Amsterdam with three blogging babes – Ashton Jade, Tamzin and Laura. ️✈️
?? Amsterdam, Day 1
The trip technically started Friday night for me, as I had to get the last train into Birmingham Airport to be able to make my early flight. It wasn’t ideal, but to save on the coast of a hotel for the sake of five or six hours I decided to do an all nighter at the airport instead.
Of course, this didn’t go exactly to plan, and I ended up pushing two seats together in a closed cafe so I could get a few hours kip. It was so uncomfortable, but it passed time before Frankies and Bennies opened. By around 5 am I was feeling a little more alert as the excitement finally hit me – I WAS GOING TO AMSTERDAM!
I was the last person to land so I met the girls in the Arrivals area at Schiphol, which was absolutely huge. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an airport as big as that, so I’m looking forward to seeing if it can be topped. I guess I’m just going to how to travel more to find out, aren’t I? 😉
Anyway, after dropping out bags off at our AMAZING quirky hotel (Hotel Teleport FYI) we booked an Uber into the city.
Just took a quick break for a snack on the plane and I felt that it was important to add how amazing ham and cheese croissants are on a plane. My fave.
Anyway, we spent half an hour walking around taking photos before getting some lunch near Dam Square.
After a quick walk up Kalverstraat towards Damrak, our Amsterdam Tour Guide (read: Tamzin) showed us one of the most popular areas to grab some Dutch delicacies (aka frites, hot dogs, waffles and bitterballen). We’d just scoffed a massive pizza and chips so didn’t try anything, but don’t fret – we went back the next day 😉
The back streets eventually took us to the Red Light District, which was surprisingly quiet.
It was a surreal experience and to be honest it was nothing like what I had been expecting. Before visiting I didn’t realise that girls stand in lit up windows with a small room behind. When someone goes in, the curtains are drawn. When we walked around the second night it was a lot busier and most of the windows were full or curtains were drawn.
After a quick stroll around the Red Light District, we spent a good few hours walking around all the canals taking photographs, which was so fun to do in the gorgeous weather. Eventually, we got tired and stopped at an Irish bar for a few cocktails and some food.
As it had been a looooooong day we decided to call it a night and head back to the hotel room to relax.
??Amsterdam, Day 2
I’m not going to lie, we had quite a late start. By the time we’d all got ready and had breakfast it was much later than we had planned to leave but I didn’t care because we were having such a good time in each others company.
Rather than getting an Uber we decided to get the train in as it was only a six-minute journey from Sloterdijk to Central station. We had a list of places we wanted to go, one of which was the Sex Museum which we stumbled upon by complete chance on Damrak.
I’m thinking of doing a whole (NSFW) post on the Museum as I took a lot of pictures so all I’m gonna say now is it was absolutely amazing and I would 100% recommend going if you’re visiting Amsterdam.
After the museum, we went back to Warmoesstraat and tracked down some Dutch Frites with hot cheese sauce, tried out the Bulldog Coffeeshop and then walked around the canals again until we found Ice Bakery where I had Nutella and Kinder ice cream.
There was a little bit of a foodie theme to the second day, can you tell?
We decided to grab all the souvenirs we wanted from the gift shops on Damrak then made our way back to the hotel to get ready for a night out.
We ended up having the best time and drank tonnes of cocktails, did A LOT of shots and didn’t make it home until 5.30am. One thing I did notice is that there was absolutely nowhere to grab some drunken food at 5 am in the morning, incredibly disappointing for a city when you’re starving and drunk ?
??Amsterdam, Day 3
After a very early wake-up call, we got up and very delicately packed our suitcases. Not gonna lie – I think I was still a little drunk as we’d only had 3 and a half hours sleep.
We said goodbye to the hotel and jumped in an Uber to the I Amsterdam sign at the Rijksmuseum. In my hungover state, I tried to say thank you to the taxi driver as he handed me my suitcase, but ended up saying ‘Amsterdam’ instead, so there’s that.
As it was almost lunchtime the sign was SO busy so it was hard to take any pictures of it, bummer. I did get a pretty cool one of me standing on the wall at the bottom though, which I liked so much it replaced my Disneyland Paris profile picture on pretty much all social media – cheers Ashton 😉
By that point we were knackered and felt even worse, so I bought a fresh stroopwafel in hopes it would magically cure my hangover. Spoiler alert: it didn’t.
As I had an earlier flight I went to the airport a little earlier than the others but turns out it was pretty pointless as my flight was delayed and left last. ?
So, there you have it. A weekend of canals, cocktails and A LOT of food. There’s still so much on my Amsterdam bucket list too, so I’ll definitely be back.
Kirsty Leanne
xoxo
PIN IT FOR LATER
