Thursday June 7th

Even though we felt like we had just arrived in Prague, Wednesday afternoon marked the beginning of our free days. The group took various modes of transportation to arrive at the Prague airport for our short flight to Amsterdam. One thing I have started treating myself to on our travel days is the International Herald Tribune, the global version of the New York Times. It normally costs about the equivalent of $3, so I try to only buy it when I need to kill some time traveling. Our flight to Amsterdam was very smooth and only about an hour and a half long. Landing in Amsterdam around 7 PM, the group again went their separate ways to navigate to their housing for Amsterdam. While the vast majority of the group stayed at a hostel in the heart of Amsterdam, my two Switzerland travel partners and I decided to stay in a hotel a little farther from the city center. The hotel was actually perfect for our needs with three single beds, quick Internet, and was surprisingly cheaper than the hostel the rest of the group was staying in. After checking in and dropping our bags of, the three of us decided to meander around the city for a while since we would only be in Amsterdam for one night.

Even though we didn’t actually begin walking around until probably 8:30 or so, the sun was still out and shining like it was 5 o’clock in the afternoon. Because Amsterdam is so far north the sun didn’t fully set until about 10:30 PM Wednesday night. After working up our appetite walking around for a while, the three of us grabbed a quick bite to eat at a to-go Asian restaurant and sat outside to do some people-watching. Because of all the legal vices in Amsterdam, the city draws a very interesting crowd of people from all over the world. After getting our fill of some strange characters, we decided to grab a couple of beers before calling it a night. This task was harder than one might imagine, as much of the center of the city is comprised of “coffee shops” and brothels. We finally found a bar after a few laps around the city center and sat down to enjoy our beers and laugh about all the different characters and places we had just seen. 

Heineken Brewery

The three of us woke up fairly early Thursday morning to eat a quick breakfast and take-in some of Amsterdam’s famous places before training to Zurich later Thursday night. Our first stop was the Anne Frank House; the place of the famous Jewish girl’s hiding during the Nazi persecution of Jews in World War II. Apparently we weren’t the only tourists interested in visiting the house that morning because we waited in line a little over an hour before we were able to enter the house. While the hiding quarters of the family are very similar to their appearance at the time of the diary, the rest of the house is now a museum. It was very moving to tour through the house and see how one Jewish family lived in hiding for over two years during the war. We considered visiting the Van Gogh Museum after our trip to the house, but the 14 euro price tag deterred us from going to see the famous painter’s works. As I wrote in an earlier blog, at this point in my life I just don’t fully appreciate art enough to spend money to go see it. After nixing the Van Gogh idea, we decided to visit somewhere we all would fully appreciate; the Heineken brewery. We went on a tour of the brewery to learn more about the history of the iconic beer brand and exactly how their beer is brewed. It was definitely an interesting and fun way to spend the afternoon. After our tour we headed to the train station to grab a quick bite to eat for dinner and board our train to Zurich. 

Unlike our last overnight train, the train from Amsterdam to Zurich was comfortable and well air-conditioned. The three of us were incredibly happy with our decision to upgrade our cabin for the almost twelve hour train ride. Friday morning we arrived in Zurich and boarded a train to Bern, stopped in Bern to board a train to Interlaken, and finally made it to Interlaken almost fifteen hours after our departure from Amsterdam. While it was a lot of travel, we were happy to leave Amsterdam and spend a few days in Switzerland.