Amsterdam and Noordwijk

       I arrived in Amsterdam on Wednesday afternoon and the crowds were insane. The plan was to catch a shuttle bus to my hostel in Noordwijk, but I had a couple hours to kill before it left, so I wandered around for a bit. Honestly, I was not that impressed with Amsterdam. It's not that it's a bad city, it's just that people talked it up a lot and it didn't really live up to the standards I had formed. At this time of the year at least, Amsterdam is very crowded. The only real attractions of the city are its "coffee shops", head shops, and the Red Light District. I guess I didn't stay in the city, so I didn't really get to experience the nightlife, but I could party hard in almost every city I went to, and Marijuana is legal in Oregon now, so I don't think I would've been that impressed.
Noordwijk was a nice, small, coastal town. The hostel I stayed at was very relaxed and I was able to make trips each day into Amsterdam and back. On the first night there I hung around the hostel and met some new people. The problem with this hostel was that everyone was staying for only one night, while I was staying for four, so I was unable to really form any good friendships.
On Friday I went back to Amsterdam and wandered around checking out the shops and such. I was going to go to the Anne Frank house, but the line to get in went all the way around the block, so I decided not to go in. I went to the Body Worlds exhibit, which was a museum full of skinned and preserved cadavers in different positions. It made me a bit uncomfortable. I didn't do much else that day. I went back to Noordwijk, got some dinner, and took a walk on the beach before going back to the hostel for the night.
The next day I went back to Amsterdam and visited the Heineken brewery. It was fun tour, but it was mostly like walking through a giant Heineken advertisement.
The beer was good. I had been told that Heineken tastes best in Holland, but I didn't believe it. The beer they gave us at the brewery was actually much better than the Heineken I've had out of the bottle back home. After that I walked around a bit and found myself in Vondel park. I spent some time walking around and hanging out there. It was a really nice park and there was some sort of musical festival going on. After that I headed back to the hostel.
On Monday I decided to go into Amsterdam one last time to do some last minute gift shopping. I was unsuccessful and headed back to Noordwijk a few hours later. I spent much of the afternoon on the beach and even took a nice nap on a sand dune in the sun. That evening I packed up and made sure I had everything in order for yesterday. 
       The flight to Vancouver was fine, but I was exhausted when I got here. The strangest thing about getting here was that everyone automatically speaks English.
I'll be back home in Eugene this evening. I'll see you all soon!