Landing at 6:00am, jet-lagged and with barely 7 hours of sleep is no easy feat. It takes the brave of heart to be able to fight through it and still explore a city. When we got out of the airport around 7:30am, we met with our king (chaperon), Brian. He had a large tour planned ahead of us, with a scavenger hunt to win a mysterious gift. After leaving our luggage at the hotel, we went out to central Amsterdam to start our tour off.
As we arrived out of the metro, we quickly got accustomed to the surrounding canals, walking paths, and city structure. Brian handed out our scavenger hunt clues and questions, and our five man group started getting to work. We started off slow, struggling to understand one of the first clues we were given. However, we realized that our first stop was in-fact the St. Nicholas Basilica, a ginormous and historic structure. We then went towards the oldest street in Amsterdam, and struggled our way through many “interesting” shops. The clues further confused us as we tried to find the oldest house in Amsterdam, which was now a famous gay night-club known as The Eagle. We then rapidly treaded through many other historic buildings and small details that were nearby. However, as we entered the Dam Square, we encountered our hardest challenge. The clues we were given said to look for a “mirror” and a “snake”, so we ended up walking off track and into a former snake museum that no longer existed. After some consultation with Brian, he pointed us towards looking closely at the Royal Palace Amsterdam. Thanks to Gary, we realized the specific thing we were looking for was a statue on top of the palace holding a snake and a mirror. After these mishaps, we continued to walk and soon got to the Anne Frank house, which was near the area with more canals and greenery. This view was incredible and showed off the classic Amsterdam vibe that people imagine when they think about Amsterdam. Finally, we slowly finished our tour off by finding the Rode Hoed, and went to the Noordermarket to meet Brian, who crowned us the record-breaking champions (kings).
As we slowly recovered from the intense walking we’d done for this trip, we sat down and relaxed for an hour and then headed to the hotel since it was close to our check-in time. After trying the local McDonalds (as one does), we went into our rooms and took 2 hour power naps. After waking up sweaty and tired, I cleaned up and we went to dinner as a group. At dinner, we enjoyed a classic Dutch sausage and mashed potato meal, which was a great start to many more dinners to come.
Overall, the tour of Amsterdam showed us a lot of the central city, much of the general history, and made it all enjoyable.