What Do Wiz Khalifa and Anne Frank Have In Common?

This might sound crazy, but over the past two and a half weeks I've been to Amsterdam, not once, not twice, but three times. Amsterdam isn't even a place that I’ve been dying to go, but somehow I keep ending up there .The first visit was just me being homesick and wanting to see my girlfriends. My  second trip, I had a very important destination: The Wiz Khalifa Concert.

Since August, my friend and I have been trying to see Wiz on his European tour, but the dates just weren't working out. We wanted to see him in Ireland, it sold out. He was playing in Brussels, but we were already booked for a school trip in Amsterdam that day. He was playing in Amsterdam,but just two days before we were going there for our Loyola trip. It's safe to say that I was DEVASTATED.

What sheer devastation looks like.

 A couple of weeks ago, Meaghan and I thought it would be incredibly stupid and irresponsible of us to go to Amsterdam for a concert on Wednesday, have to come back to Leuven for Dutch class on Thursday, only to board a bus back to Amsterdam on Friday morning.



But, as the date slowly approached we decided that the stupid and irresponsible route was for us, so we YOLOed .We bought our tickets and booked our bus for a 17 hour stint in Amsterdam. Sometimes you just have to be young, wild and free ya know.

My fellow yolo-ers

Somebody needs a manicure....

 The concert waas so good! I was kind of worried it wouldn't live up to my expectations, but I can happily say it was worth it.

My third and final excursion to the Netherlands was for educational purposes. For the past two trips I had basically only seen the city at night, so it was kind of like a whole new place in the daytime- making me feel a little bit less nuts for going three times.

Pretty Houses(Huis's?)

The first day we just walked around and DH showed us some sights, then let us loose into the wild. And when I say I wild, I basically mean we walked around the city for about 25 minutes, hit up H&M(THEY HAVE A HUGE 4 STORY STORE) then we splurged on 3 euro salads from the grocery store . We ended our evening with the Disney channel.

So beautiful!And the canal's not too bad looking either.

I'd love to!

Very important and historical spot.

Sinterklaas and his black friend.

AHHH Christmas.

I'm reckless and out of control. Somebody stop me.

Our second day started out with a quick walk to the Rijks Museum. I had no idea how art centric the city of Amsterdam is. I'm not going to lie, before this trip when I heard anything about Amsterdam, Van Gogh and Rembrandt weren’t really the first things to come to mind if you get what I mean. Now, I see that Amsterdam has way more to offer then 2 euro peep shows and coffee shops on every corner, it has culture!

The Museum itself is under some intense construction, so a lot of the work wasn't on display. I still was able to see some pretty famous works such as The Kitchen Maid. There was even a piece of Andy Warhol's work on display. I'm from Pittsburgh, so I was siked to see him make an appearence.

The Kitchen Maid

Queen Beatrix Of The Netherlands

The rest of the day was composed of walking to a Beijnhof, visiting the mini "I amsterdam" sign and then a scenic boat ride through the canals. I know that I may come from the city of bridges, but I’m pretty sure that Amsterdam may be the clear winner with 1,281.

Bridges everywhere

Classic

Shes on a boatttt

One of the 165 canals in Amsterdam

We were all pretty exhausted at this point; since we had an 8:30 wake up call. Anytime before the 10 o’clock hour is basically non-existent to most of my fellow travelers.

Sucking it up !

Sunday started early as well, but for good reason. We had to be first in the que at Anne Frank’s Huis! I honestly can’t believe some of the stuff I get to see.Two months ago if you would have asked me where she resided, I would have easily responded, " Germany, duh," but once again Amsterdam is gaining major historical points. Seeing the physical pages of her journal was unreal. She had so many dreams and aspirations, at such a young age. It really makes me appreciate that I have the opportunity to make my goals a reality. Definitely one of the highs of the trip.

 Anne Frank is a hard act to follow, but I guess the Van Gogh Museum put up a tough fight. I feel like the dumbest person in the world, because I had no idea Van Gogh museum was here either. I need to hit the books ASAP. Hopefully after these multiple trips here, Amsterdam’s culture rubbed off a little bit on me.

 We also took an obligatory "group" picture in front of the big" I amsterdam sign". I use the word group very loosely here, as our director accidently cut out two members who were chilling on the "I."

Just pretend that Steve and Maeda are there

It’s safe to that I AM exhausted and I can't wait to just lay in my bed and be lazy for the next couple of days. All this traveling has been fun, but visiting 3 countries in a matter of 1 week is plenty for me.



Tot Ziens,

Shayne

P.S.  I didn't fail my Dutch test!