Blast from the Past

Apparently I can’t stay still…after everyone left Munich, I got a bit antsy and decided it’d be a great idea to go to the Netherlands and revisit some old stomping grounds.

Revisiting the stranger turned friend: I flew in Thursday night and actually stayed with Anne – the Dutch woman from three years ago who saw me wandering hopelessly with a ton of luggage in hand trying to find my Rotterdam apartment. While I hadn’t spoken to her in years, I thought it’d be a nice gesture to come visit and bring a few gifts to show my extreme gratitude for her kindness and family’s welcoming me with open arms when I was a student. We didn’t do too much: caught up on life (in the past two years, Anne wrote a book and her husband started his own catering business and a new job as a counselor), played w/ her two daughters (one who can understand more English than I do Vietnamese probably – made me feel really dumb), hung out and ate vegetarian food (if I had their family cooking for me every day, I would seriously consider turning vegetarian). Loved seeing them again – they are truly some of the kindest people I’ve ever met! They even packed me a take-away meal, complete with Capri-Sun on my way out.

Weekend adventures in Amsterdam: So I met up with Dan for the weekend in Amsterdam; we somehow managed to really only do things I had never done in Amsterdam. It’s weird going back – it is definitely dirtier than I remembered (maybe it was the cloudy weather or that I am just more aware of my surroundings now?). It’s still a beautiful city full of canals and great restaurants; definitely still one of my favorite cities in Europe, but I now see why the city is known for its sex and drugs – literally saw “coffeeshops” along with other drug shops and sex shops everywhere!

Of course, there’s so much more to the city than that though. Dan and I were able to tour the Heineken Brewery – it’s super thorough, interactive, and high-tech (even had a Kinect at one of the stations)! I highly recommend going if you are ever in Amsterdam. One cool thing I learned there about the Heineken logo is that the “e”s are “smiling.” Take a look for yourself in the next time you drink a Heineken!

Side story: for the past few trips, Dan and I have a theme of saying “Hell yeah, f*ckin’ right,” which is just a line from a song. Anyway, we decided to put that on our commemorative bottles and I definitely got chastised for imprinting “swear words” on my souvenir Heineken bottle – hah.

Other than the Heineken brewery, Dan and I went to a couple of markets and parks and the museum quarter – pretty typical touristy things. The only other real highlight of our trip was our decision to go to a massive rave on Saturday night in Utrecht (Energy: The Network - apparently, the Netherlands is one of the best party scenes in Europe) – a Netherlands city 45 minutes south of Amsterdam. We left our rooms at 11:30pm and didn’t get back until 7am…imagine a giant warehouse full of drug-induced randoms from teens to 50+ in age. The music was unreal, and I was roughly 20 feet away from DJs Tiesto, Hardwell, Eric Prydz, Sander van Doorn – it was insane! Tiesto and Sander van Doorn below.

My body thoroughly hates me for the abuse I put it through - stayed in Munich the past weekend to recuperate!