We arrived in Amsterdam around 5:30AM and got off the bus. Tim's Switch had been delivered to a nearby hotel, so we made our way there. It was only about a 10 min walk. Once we had arrived, we asked the front desk attendant if he had our package. He checked the storage room, luggage room and a few other places, but was unable to locate the case. We knew it had arrived because Tim had received a message from the bus lines confirming its whereabouts. So we drank some coffee and refreshed ourselves while we waited for the previous night's front clerk to arrive around 7AM. Once he arrived, we found out that the case was in the safe! We said our goodbyes and then walked to the closest Tram station.
The ride into the city center was gorgeous! We dropped of our bags with our hotel's front desk clerk and started meandering toward a place called Yoga Delight for Aftyn's Singing Workshop.
Aftyn had learned yesterday that a musical artist she was listening to - Ayla Nereo - was actually going to be in Amsterdam on the same day hosting a workshop! Unfortunately, Tim had made a mistake and accidentally saved the incorrect location and we ended up on the other side of town from where we needed to be. Well, what’s a morning without a little drama? We quickly hoofed it across town, on foot, until we got to a main road where Aftyn was able to catch a bus to her destination. Miraculously, she made it to the yoga studio just in time! :-)
The workshop was absolutely amazing! Her music is so touching and inspiring, and it was just such an honor to be in the same room with her in such an intimate space. We started with some breathing exercises and centering ourselves, then moved on to making sounds together as a group. It was stunning how we were all able to randomly come together and make beautiful harmony, with absolutely no plan. She walked us through several vocal and writing exercises, which continued to amaze me. At the end of the workshop we swayed, hummed, danced, sang, and prayed as a group of glorious individuals. I was able to speak with Ayla after the workshop and tell her how much her music has meant to me since I was introduced to it just under a year ago. She was just the most authentic, bright-spirited person I've ever had the pleasure to meet, and I'll be forever grateful that I got to experience this workshop with her.
After wandering through the city for a bit, we decided to make our way back to our hotel to check in. When we got there, the front desk clerk did not find our reservation and we realized that Hotels.com had cancelled our reservation for some reason. So, we started another search for another hotel... Luckily, Tim was able to find another hotel fairly quickly that was actually in a better location (in the city center, not on a busy street, elevator, and a nicer lobby) and was only a little more expensive. We grabbed our bags and went for another walk downtown.
Once checked in to our final location, we were exhausted. It was only around 3PM, so we decided to shower and then take a nap to rest up for the night. We had already purchased online tickets for a Red Light District Bar Crawl tour, and we knew we were going to be out very late.
THE BAR CRAWL
Since we hadn't eaten much that day, we decided to arrive early to our Bar Crawl's meeting point, a bar called "Players". It was a sports bar that was very unique. Upstairs was a pool table and a smoking room with a bar, while downstairs was the actual bar. We met up with our tour guides, who were pretty cool, and were greeted with our first shot and a wrist band. Once everyone for the tour had shown up, the other tour guide was walking around with a vodka drink and was pouring it into our mouths! We must've had 3 mouthfuls of the stuff. We chatted for a bit with other crawlers, and then it was on to the next bar.
Fair warning, we do not remember all 6 of the bars we went to as we only spent a limited amount of time at each one, but we will try our best :-)
The next stop was a bar at the hostel where one of our fellow pub crawlers was staying. They had a drink deal of 2 shots for 2 Euro, or two Heineken for the price of one - which we somehow resisted partaking in buying. They were playing really awesome music here, so we spent most of our time here singing along and having a great time with our pub crawl crew!
At the next place we were supposed to get a jello shot, but we were engrossed in conversation with some of our fellow crawlers, and somehow missed it on the way in. We chatted for a while before we started to wonder where our drink was, so we found our guides and told them the situation. At first they didn't believe us, but after we insisted we didn't get the jello shot they gave in and got us some shots at the bar.
Then we went to a place called "The Black Tiger", and was in the heart of the Red Light District. In here, anything goes. A lot of people were drinking and smoking in the street, and women were dancing in windows as you'd walk by. We made it to the bar, got our shot, and headed upstairs. There was good music on, and we kind of started a bit of karaoke for everyone in the bar and got them singing along with us!
Monday July 2, 2018
The rest of the bars were pretty much more of the same. We would show up and get a shot, then we would talk with people in our group for a bit. Aftyn got to play a game of pool at one of them and she won!
Our final stop however, was a very unique place. It was about a 15 min walk from the rest of the bars, but it was worth it. We had to go through their security and we were in. Lots of rave music on with lights and smoke filling the air. We didn't stay long since it was already 2AM and we were both still exhausted and had to get up early.
After crawling into bed around 3AM, we were only able to get about 5 hours of sleep since we had to get up early to go to the US Consulate for Tim's passport replacement.
Zzzzz...zzzzz....zzzzzz....zzzzzz..zzz.....zzzzz.
Surprisingly, we did not feel too bad the next morning. We were not hungover in the least since we did not buy any extra drinks. The worst part of it was that we were still tired. Oh well, at least the hotel had a decent breakfast! So, we charged ourselves up and headed to the US Consulate.
We arrived a little after 9:30 and waited in line. Once we had been seen however, we learned that we would need to get a Passport photo printed from somewhere, and we would not have enough time to come back today (they are only open for Passport services from 8:30-11:30?). Well, darn. We had non-refundable plane tickets to Dublin that night! The guard at the consulate gave us a paper with directions to the nearest passport photographer, and we headed there and got them done. Afterwards, we headed back to our hotel and used their computer to print and fill out all of the forms for the replacement passport. Our thinking was that we would do it in Dublin if we could get there. So, we headed to the airport. We made it through security and even got our paper stamped by the guard there, but when we went to board the plane, they wouldn't let us on...
We booked another hotel, this time close to the US Consulate, and made our way there to at least get a decent night's sleep before trying to get an emergency passport again tomorrow...
Tuesday July 3, 2018
Tim headed to the US Consulate around 7:45. Once he arrived however, he learned that he could not be seen until 10:30, since that was when they help "emergency" cases. They are open for Passport services at 8:30, but for appointment only. Why didn't they tell him that yesterday?!?
We got some food at a grocery store and then sat outside of the US Consulate and ate a bit of it until Tim could be seen. While we waited, another man got in line who had also been pick-pocketed, but in Amsterdam the day before. We chatted with him until it was finally time for them to help us. Tim went in alone, since nobody is allowed to go in with you, even if you are married. So I spent the time waiting at a cafe down the street, and looking into possible flights into Dublin in the event we were able to get Tim a replacement passport in time to still make the trip that evening.
Eventually, around 11:45AM Tim met me at the cafe and said they told him they would have his passport ready by 2:30PM. So we stayed at the cafe and worked on getting any plane, bus, etc... tickets we would be needing when the time came. Around 2PM we left the cafe and arrived at the US Consulate by 2:10, in hopes they would maybe have the passport ready a bit early for us. They might have had it ready, but we couldn't know for sure because they refused to let us in to get it until 2:30 - On - The - Dot. We ended up sitting in a park across the street and eating a bit more while we waited, then Tim walked over when 2:30 finally rolled around. Thankfully, he was in and out in less than 5 minutes, and we were immediately on a bus for the airport since our flight was at 4:55PM and we didn't want to miss it.
Our journey to and through the airport was uneventful, and we made it to our gate with a bit of time to spare. The airline - Aer Lingus - was delightful, and we only had one little hiccup once we got to Dublin when the Airport Hopper bus to our B&B was 15 minutes late. We got a little nervous that we somehow missed it, but in the end everything turned out just fine, and we made it to our B&B safe and sound... if not a bit burnt out. Our host was super kind and sympathetic to our plights, and made us some tea, which we enjoyed along with a much needed rest before we left for dinner.
Dinner was good. We basically just walked down to the village and went to the first restaurant that we came across, which happened to be an Italian place that made their own homemade pasta. The food was yummy, but honestly, at this point we were so tired that we just didn't care how good or bad it was. After dinner it was straight back to the B&B and off to bed for us, for some much needed sleep.
The ride into the city center was gorgeous! We dropped of our bags with our hotel's front desk clerk and started meandering toward a place called Yoga Delight for Aftyn's Singing Workshop.
Aftyn had learned yesterday that a musical artist she was listening to - Ayla Nereo - was actually going to be in Amsterdam on the same day hosting a workshop! Unfortunately, Tim had made a mistake and accidentally saved the incorrect location and we ended up on the other side of town from where we needed to be. Well, what’s a morning without a little drama? We quickly hoofed it across town, on foot, until we got to a main road where Aftyn was able to catch a bus to her destination. Miraculously, she made it to the yoga studio just in time! :-)
The workshop was absolutely amazing! Her music is so touching and inspiring, and it was just such an honor to be in the same room with her in such an intimate space. We started with some breathing exercises and centering ourselves, then moved on to making sounds together as a group. It was stunning how we were all able to randomly come together and make beautiful harmony, with absolutely no plan. She walked us through several vocal and writing exercises, which continued to amaze me. At the end of the workshop we swayed, hummed, danced, sang, and prayed as a group of glorious individuals. I was able to speak with Ayla after the workshop and tell her how much her music has meant to me since I was introduced to it just under a year ago. She was just the most authentic, bright-spirited person I've ever had the pleasure to meet, and I'll be forever grateful that I got to experience this workshop with her.
After wandering through the city for a bit, we decided to make our way back to our hotel to check in. When we got there, the front desk clerk did not find our reservation and we realized that Hotels.com had cancelled our reservation for some reason. So, we started another search for another hotel... Luckily, Tim was able to find another hotel fairly quickly that was actually in a better location (in the city center, not on a busy street, elevator, and a nicer lobby) and was only a little more expensive. We grabbed our bags and went for another walk downtown.
Once checked in to our final location, we were exhausted. It was only around 3PM, so we decided to shower and then take a nap to rest up for the night. We had already purchased online tickets for a Red Light District Bar Crawl tour, and we knew we were going to be out very late.
THE BAR CRAWL
Since we hadn't eaten much that day, we decided to arrive early to our Bar Crawl's meeting point, a bar called "Players". It was a sports bar that was very unique. Upstairs was a pool table and a smoking room with a bar, while downstairs was the actual bar. We met up with our tour guides, who were pretty cool, and were greeted with our first shot and a wrist band. Once everyone for the tour had shown up, the other tour guide was walking around with a vodka drink and was pouring it into our mouths! We must've had 3 mouthfuls of the stuff. We chatted for a bit with other crawlers, and then it was on to the next bar.
Fair warning, we do not remember all 6 of the bars we went to as we only spent a limited amount of time at each one, but we will try our best :-)
The next stop was a bar at the hostel where one of our fellow pub crawlers was staying. They had a drink deal of 2 shots for 2 Euro, or two Heineken for the price of one - which we somehow resisted partaking in buying. They were playing really awesome music here, so we spent most of our time here singing along and having a great time with our pub crawl crew!
At the next place we were supposed to get a jello shot, but we were engrossed in conversation with some of our fellow crawlers, and somehow missed it on the way in. We chatted for a while before we started to wonder where our drink was, so we found our guides and told them the situation. At first they didn't believe us, but after we insisted we didn't get the jello shot they gave in and got us some shots at the bar.
Then we went to a place called "The Black Tiger", and was in the heart of the Red Light District. In here, anything goes. A lot of people were drinking and smoking in the street, and women were dancing in windows as you'd walk by. We made it to the bar, got our shot, and headed upstairs. There was good music on, and we kind of started a bit of karaoke for everyone in the bar and got them singing along with us!
Monday July 2, 2018
The rest of the bars were pretty much more of the same. We would show up and get a shot, then we would talk with people in our group for a bit. Aftyn got to play a game of pool at one of them and she won!
Our final stop however, was a very unique place. It was about a 15 min walk from the rest of the bars, but it was worth it. We had to go through their security and we were in. Lots of rave music on with lights and smoke filling the air. We didn't stay long since it was already 2AM and we were both still exhausted and had to get up early.
After crawling into bed around 3AM, we were only able to get about 5 hours of sleep since we had to get up early to go to the US Consulate for Tim's passport replacement.
Zzzzz...zzzzz....zzzzzz....zzzzzz..zzz.....zzzzz.
Surprisingly, we did not feel too bad the next morning. We were not hungover in the least since we did not buy any extra drinks. The worst part of it was that we were still tired. Oh well, at least the hotel had a decent breakfast! So, we charged ourselves up and headed to the US Consulate.
We arrived a little after 9:30 and waited in line. Once we had been seen however, we learned that we would need to get a Passport photo printed from somewhere, and we would not have enough time to come back today (they are only open for Passport services from 8:30-11:30?). Well, darn. We had non-refundable plane tickets to Dublin that night! The guard at the consulate gave us a paper with directions to the nearest passport photographer, and we headed there and got them done. Afterwards, we headed back to our hotel and used their computer to print and fill out all of the forms for the replacement passport. Our thinking was that we would do it in Dublin if we could get there. So, we headed to the airport. We made it through security and even got our paper stamped by the guard there, but when we went to board the plane, they wouldn't let us on...
We booked another hotel, this time close to the US Consulate, and made our way there to at least get a decent night's sleep before trying to get an emergency passport again tomorrow...
Tuesday July 3, 2018
Tim headed to the US Consulate around 7:45. Once he arrived however, he learned that he could not be seen until 10:30, since that was when they help "emergency" cases. They are open for Passport services at 8:30, but for appointment only. Why didn't they tell him that yesterday?!?
We got some food at a grocery store and then sat outside of the US Consulate and ate a bit of it until Tim could be seen. While we waited, another man got in line who had also been pick-pocketed, but in Amsterdam the day before. We chatted with him until it was finally time for them to help us. Tim went in alone, since nobody is allowed to go in with you, even if you are married. So I spent the time waiting at a cafe down the street, and looking into possible flights into Dublin in the event we were able to get Tim a replacement passport in time to still make the trip that evening.
Eventually, around 11:45AM Tim met me at the cafe and said they told him they would have his passport ready by 2:30PM. So we stayed at the cafe and worked on getting any plane, bus, etc... tickets we would be needing when the time came. Around 2PM we left the cafe and arrived at the US Consulate by 2:10, in hopes they would maybe have the passport ready a bit early for us. They might have had it ready, but we couldn't know for sure because they refused to let us in to get it until 2:30 - On - The - Dot. We ended up sitting in a park across the street and eating a bit more while we waited, then Tim walked over when 2:30 finally rolled around. Thankfully, he was in and out in less than 5 minutes, and we were immediately on a bus for the airport since our flight was at 4:55PM and we didn't want to miss it.
Our journey to and through the airport was uneventful, and we made it to our gate with a bit of time to spare. The airline - Aer Lingus - was delightful, and we only had one little hiccup once we got to Dublin when the Airport Hopper bus to our B&B was 15 minutes late. We got a little nervous that we somehow missed it, but in the end everything turned out just fine, and we made it to our B&B safe and sound... if not a bit burnt out. Our host was super kind and sympathetic to our plights, and made us some tea, which we enjoyed along with a much needed rest before we left for dinner.
Dinner was good. We basically just walked down to the village and went to the first restaurant that we came across, which happened to be an Italian place that made their own homemade pasta. The food was yummy, but honestly, at this point we were so tired that we just didn't care how good or bad it was. After dinner it was straight back to the B&B and off to bed for us, for some much needed sleep.
Checkout all of our photos in our European Adventure 2018 album:
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