Interrailing- Day 1 in Amsterdam

 So, as I've said, we arrived in Amsterdam (Jenni, Milly, Laura and me) at around 1:30pm, expecting the walk to the hostel to take around 1 and a half hours. We had decided to make this journey a while before we went inter railing and yet neither, Milly, Jenni or I had remembered to print out directions. Luckily Laura, the only one of us who actually wanted to get a bus rather than walk, had remembered to print off directions from googlemaps.  Unfortunately they were difficult to understand and the small bits of map it showed us were not very helpful in showing street names so, perhaps inevitably, we got lost. We thought we knew the way for a while so Milly and I ran along with our bags singing Taylor Swift at the top of our voices.  All the locals stared at us, a few actually joined in or smiled and waved which I appreciated. We had a break by the side of the road because carrying massive rucksacks, running and singing all at once is tiring. Laura took the opportunity to look at the map, deciding that we had gone too far along that particular street so we turned back and were still not sure which way to go. 

At this point we decided it was best to ask someone for help, thinking that even if they didn't know the way they could use google maps on their phones. We stopped two men and asked them if they knew where a particular street was, they asked us "do you not have phones?" as if we were stupid.  We replied "it's too expensive" (meaning; using the Internet on our phones in a different country was too expensive). In the end one of the men got out his phone and searched up the name of our hostel "Hotel Nieuw Slotania", he told us the way to go but suggested we ask someone later on as well because it was quite a distance, he seemed to think we were crazy for not just getting on a tram, maybe we were. 

 We walked in the direction the man showed us for a while but we got lost again and sat by a busy road for a while, sweating and exhausted in the heat of the day. Milly turned on her Internet so I could look at the map and screen shot various parts of it so we could check the street names when she turned her Internet off. The map suggested we carry on walking next to the busy road which would have been okay if there were a footpath.  Unfortunately for us, in Amsterdam the hierarchy is; bikes, cars, foot, so there was only a bike path next to the road and as we had been told off earlier on for walking on the bike area we didn't much like the idea of trying to walk along it again. Instead I decided we should turn left walking down what looked like a nice footpath leading away from the road and then walk parallel to the road.

After walking along this path for just a few minutes we ended up in an area of flats that seemed a bit rough but I felt perfectly safe. We weren't exactly sure which direction to walk in yet again so we asked a woman who was walking with her son and she knew where our hostel was.  She walked with us for a while and then pointed us in the right direction telling us to turn right at the traffic lights and then we would see the hostel because there was a big sign down the side of the building. We didn't see the sign so asked another woman.  She said we were going the right way and we ended up walking behind her. I saw the sign first, I shouted in excitement "I CAN SEE THE SIGN!", the woman laughed at me, the others cheered up when we could see our hostel as well. 

We reached the hostel after a boiling 2 and a half hours, went to the desk and told the man that our friends had checked in earlier, he asked what our names were, we answered and he replied (as if we had got A*s in an exam) "correct!" so I cheered. He gave us the key cards, we ran (sort of) up the stairs to the first floor and found our room. 

 Our room was cosy and very clean but also boiling.  We had little energy by this point so for a while just sat, ate Pringles and slept. One of the proudest moments of the trip was fitting all four of us in to one top bunk bed. After a while the others phoned to ask if we could buy some supplies from the Aldi across the road as they wouldn't be home in time to go themselves so we did. We journeyed across a road that would later seem much more dangerous than it first appeared and entered Aldi

We headed back into the hostel through its rather grand reception and back to our room where we waited for the others to return. We again spent our time eating, drinking and generally making a mess. I think we were getting a bit bored of being in the hostel so were a little frustrated at the others for taking their time but it was okay and when they arrived we were very excited to see them. For a while we spent time in our room talking and then decided to go and visit their rooms (which were next door to each other) because some of the others were there. 

The other rooms were different to ours, one of the first things I noticed was they were a more comfortable temperature, also they both  had stairs leading down from the door to the main room which I quite liked, it adds a bit of character. I went to sit on Orla's bed, a top bunk, she told me I wasn't allowed to put my feet on it (weirdo) so I tried my best not to. Once I was settled Tesni gave me a pizza she had bought me earlier for dinner (very exciting), I ate it and it was delicious but messy. I managed to get crumbs all over Orla's bed, while trying to brush them off I had to turn round, in the process putting my feet on Orla's pillow! Not just her bed but her PILLOW! I was quickly and subtly told to leave the bed.  

Laura, Jenni, Milly and I decided we would go out earlier than everyone else because they took ages to get ready and we had already been in the hostel too long so we set out on the tram to an area of Amsterdam called Leidseplein. We went into the first bar we saw called "The Bull Dog", we went downstairs to order a drink however when Milly asked if they had gin and tonic the barman replied "no no no what do you want to smoke?", we are perhaps the only people on the earth to not only accidentally walk into a coffee shop in Amsterdam but to leave as soon as we found out what it actually was. We realised that the downstairs of the bar was just for smoking and the upstairs was for drinking and smoking so we walked upstairs. Milly and Jenni ordered drinks, they were very expensive so I decided not to although I think they probably got their money's worth because they were very strong! 

 Later the others arrived and met us out side the bar, we decided to go somewhere else because the bar had gotten quite empty. Sowmya had researched places to go earlier and had found a club called "The Sugar Factory" so we went to find it, however when we got to it, it wasn't yet open so we decided to find somewhere else. Milly and I thought we should go into the bar next door to the club because it looked really cute so we persuaded everyone to follow us.

 We went into this bar called "Biblos", it is really small so our group pretty much filled it which was good because this night it was quite empty (to be fair it was a Tuesday). We sat down and bought drinks which were a fair price, the bar man gave us a pad of paper and pen and told us we could write down names of songs and he would play them, this got us extremely excited. When we were first thinking of songs we were careful to be in keeping with the general theme of the songs that were originally playing which were older, reggae-ish songs, some one (I don't know who) broke this trend with a Bruno mars request, we were not happy. So anyway, we stayed in this bar for the rest of our evening (which was not very long because we were aiming to get the last tram home at 11:45), we really liked this bar so we decided that we would go back the next day before we went to a club. We said bye to the barmen and told them we would be back the next day. 

 Back at our hostel we went straight to sleep, Jenni, Milly and I had the idea we would wake up very early the next morning to go to the Anne Frank House.