iamsterdam.

Today, Tucker, Sasha, Alex and I got free plates and utensils sets from accomodate, which was really nice. They're our property now, which is nice to know because if anything breaks, we don't need to pay anyone back!
We decided to go to Amsterdam and do all of the touristy stuff. We walked to the train station and I finally saw the big windmill in Leiden on the way and it was truly soo cool. I actually ended up seeing a lot of parts of Leiden which I hadn't previously seen. We got to the train station eventually and got sandwiches and juice and tried to figure out how to get our tickets. Eventually, we figured it out and headed to catch our train. The trains here are really nice and double-decker. We sat on the second level and chatted until we got to Amsterdam about 30 - 40 minutes later.
When we arrived, we realized we hadn't actually planned to do anything, so we just walked around and took pictures, which was actually really fun. There are so many whacky things in Amsterdam to see. We tried to get into the wax museum, but decided to cover was too high, so we went and looked at a couple churches and decided to find the Red Light District, which proved to be more difficult to find than we had imagined. After looking at a couple of maps, we found the Red Light District and walked through it for a while. It wasn't so bad during the day, but I can imagine it being reeeally sketchy at night. We passed several coffeeshops (legal weed-selling shops) and head shops (shops that sell weed paraphenalia), along with many sex shops.
One of the most unnerving things about the Red Light District is that prostitution is legalized there and they display women like objects in a window. There are these little cubbies (all glass and kind of telephone-booth-like in shape) in the sides of shops and in each one there is a one in lingerie. If someone were to be interested in one of these women, they could go up to the window and buy them. It's really sketchy and it just made me feel really sad to watch. I feel bad for the women, they must feel so objectified...
On a happier note, after three or four hours of continuous walking, we decided we would get frites with frites sauce (French fries with a mayonnaise sauce) and go back to Leiden. On the way, we stopped at a shop so Alex could by incense and there was a cute little kitten who may have been high on marijuana because the shop was pretty sketchy and when I went to pet it, it barely moved and just kept sleeping while I petted it vigorously. Maybe it was just tired. We also stopped at a free space where artists could show there work and there was this weird, abstract video display up, so we checked that out for a while, which was interesting.
Finally, we got our frites, which we scrumptious, and headed back to Leiden. I can tell I'm growing accustomed to Leiden because I felt a sense of ease when we pulled back into the station. We picked up some cheap groceries (huge 1.5 L water bottle for 25 euro cents!) and went back to our building. I was so pooped and ended up talking to David for a bit and then just falling asleep at 8 for what was supposed to be a one hour nap and sleeping until midnight. Then, I talked again to David for a bit and then to my mom, which was nice. Tomorrow, I think I'm going to play it cool. Might go to Bagels & Beans (miss it already!).

























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