Day 20- Amsterdam Day 2

Today we got up feeling quite refreshed and headed into town. Side note, our Airbnb host had breakfast set out for us, which was super adorable and also really nice because the convenience store at the train station literally only took MasterCard, which neither of us had.

Our plan for the day was to wander in the direction of things we wanted to see, but to stop if we found something else to do. This was the first time I’ve ever utilized such a laid-back vacation/sightseeing technique (looking at you, dad), and it was actually quite nice. We found lots of cute cafes, visited a giant Bulldog shop (which I think was the first “coffeeshop” aka weed dispensary in Amsterdam), went to the sex museum, found the spot where you can see the most bridges over a canal in a row in all of Amsterdam, ate stroopwafels, and went to a freaking cat boat!!

We had been trying to get tickets to the Anne Frank Museum since we planned the trip, but they were all sold out, and we were unable to find any. However, the next most visited museum in Amsterdam was the sex museum, which at €5 was also much cheaper than the others, so we went there instead. It was definitely interesting, and more informative than I had expected. Here’s one of the first nude/sexy photos ever taken (from 1890!!):

And our favorite exhibit, the 7ish foot tall peen:

And my personal favorite smaller-scale statue:


All in all, 100% worth the entrance fee. We grabbed a coffee at a cute spot by a little church square, and watched the interesting medley of passers-by. 

Here’s the spot where you can see 7 bridges in a row (technically... realistically you can see like 3, but it was still a lovely view):

We then found a spot called Hasta La Pasta for dinner, which we decided on literally just because of the name, but ended up having delicious authentic Italian pasta!

When I was looking up things to do in Amsterdam, a catboat was recommended in a blog post. I was very confused as to what exactly a catboat was, but I liked the sound of it. So I found where the houseboat was moored, and we went there after dinner. It was absolutely wonderful. Essentially, once upon a time someone rescued a stray cat and her kittens and kept them on their houseboat, and now there are about 15 permanent residents and a small number of cats that are rescued and then adopted from the boat. It’s an adorable and trendy nonprofit, and there were only 4 other people there!

After the catboat, we joined 2 of the others from the large group and went to Vondelpark, a massive park just south of Amsterdam itself. Amsterdam has a reputation for being hip and trendy, I think partially-if not mostly-due to the fact that a number of drugs are legal there. I think one of the kids-I mean young adults-came to Amsterdam only for this reason. We spent a lovely evening at the park, and then got waffles on the way home.