I think I've just gotten back from my most favourite trip yet.
I am the luckiest person in the world wherein not only do I have the opportunity to travel pretty much wherever my budget allows me, but I also get to do it with my best friend.
On the 10th of March, I was fortunate enough to fly off to Amsterdam with Patrick. Before I begin I'll say that if he could change anything about me, I would have to guess and say that it might be my obsession with boundless 'things-to-go-see' lists. So, be wary of how many times I'm going to say 'visit' and the amount of photos I'll put up, although I'll sure try to minimise them.
Zaanse Schans
Before we left, I had a look through getyourguide.com. This website offers a tonne of different activities and excursions to book and do in countries all around the world. Myself and Patrick had been to Amsterdam before, so naturally we both had ticked off all the top things to do and see while you're there. Patrick likes to flatter me and say that I'm his only opportunity to go and see things that otherwise, he would never think of visiting.
Everyone knows of Zaanse Schans, you've seen it but never known where it was. And so when I saw that this website offered a day-trip to it, I bought tickets for us the day after checking with him to see if he was interested.
It's an amazing place that gets completely overlooked because it isn't located in Amsterdam's central city. The voucher includes a coach trip to this historic windmill village, a clog demonstration, a cheese produce and storage demonstration, and entrance to the A'dam Lookout.
When I realised that Pat had fallen asleep on the coach even with a frenzied woman voicing over the entire drive there, I thought I had wasted whatever money I spent on these tickets and was dreading the next few hours we had to endure. However, my assumptions were quickly turned on their head.
It was a wonderful trip and I'm sure that I'll never see anything like it again unless I return. We were given enough free time to roam around and scout the beautiful village ourselves which I thoroughly enjoyed. The demonstrations were totally inclusive and however boring an exposition about making clogs sounds, it was surprisingly interesting and definitely something I didn't know I wanted to see until I had.
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Because Zaanse Schans was the only thing we had scheduled to see in Amsterdam on our first day, every hour afterwards was even more relaxed and spontaneous. We saw the rest of our sites as we happened to walk past and realize where we were.
The rest of our first day was spent casually walking through Vondelpark and the Red Light District, with a canal cruise separating the two. It was drizzling rain and freezing but that was my favourite night and nothing will beat walking around Amsterdam's streets wetting myself laughing with Patrick.
Our intent was to get everything done that was quite time restrictive done in the first day so that we could spend the second exploring and falling upon things by chance.
For sure, we knew two things we definitely wanted to visit on the second day; The 'I Amsterdam' sign and the Moco Museum.
Moco Museum - Banksy & Roy Lichtenstein
Since forever, I have always found Banksy's pieces to be very formidable and inspiring. Before then, I had never seen any of his works so I was naturally very excited when I realised the exhibition would still be running while we were visiting.
I'm a big museum lover, I mean I dragged Patrick around the Louvre for about 4 hours. Thing is, I could've stayed there for so much longer if the signs of his absolute dire torture didn't start to show itself audibly in the form of loud groans.
However, Patrick actually really enjoyed the Banksy part of this exhibition, no offense to you Roy Lichtenstein. And this made the visit that much better because I didn't feel our museum visits would soon be a reason to break up with me.
If I could call myself an amateur artist I would, but I've stopped drawing altogether since leaving school. But as an enthusiastic draw-er who occasionally devotes my time to art, I really appreciate art like that of Banksy. Objective and to the point, together with the seemingly simplicity of them. I admire art that has a message behind the materials themselves, and Banksy's art requires no reading into its substance. Universally coherent.
I was only in Amsterdam for two days but I saw everything I wanted to see and more, all the while having a huge smile plastered on my face.
This is the first part of my two part mini 'interrail' trip that has usurped any other holiday that I've deemed my favourite.
A big thank you to Patrick for bringing me and a big thank you to you whoever you are that's taken the time to read this post.
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