Saturday
We got up and had probably the best breakfast I have ever had at a hostel. Lots of fresh fruit, eggs, and a large selection of breads and some cereals. Nutella and Pb sandwich is my new fav. Thank you Marai. Wandered around town, starting our habit of getting lost in the city. We happened upon a cute street market where we both purchased dresses - they came in very handy over the weekend. We then found our way over to the National Monument/Palace so that we could hop on one of the fabulous "tips only" tours. Our tour guide was Australian (I'm moving to Australia) and I think Katie and I were laughing a lot more then the rest of the crowd. . , Strange blokes. We meandered through the city, learning about the history and checking out some of the main attractions: The Red Light District and the Coffee Shops. The Red Light District and the Church in the center of it have a strong bond that has been developed over the centuries. Very interesting.
Sunday
Started the day with the delicious breakfast and then found our way to a boat tour. It was fun to be on the river. I would love to have had my own little boat for drinking wine and eating cheese (goat's of course) and sailing with friends but Katie and I coped with the canal cruise. :) There are so many canals! I didn't realize that Amsterdam is a mini Venice! I love the architecture - the skinny buildings with the super steep and narrow stairs. Housing tax used to be (or maybe it still is?) based on the width of the house aka the house could be as tall and as long as it wanted to be but the wider it is the more you were charged! One of the "houses" was just barely wider then a door - I want to go in there! Walked around town some more, bought some flip flops, found Vondelpark, or fondle park as I named it (after 2hrs of walking in circles) where we laid out and got burnt while people watching. Then we headed to the Anne Frank house. This was a very eye-opening tour. I hadn't realized how much space they had! I mean, it was terrible - they couldn't leave for two years and then only the father survived, but the father was a very smart man and had set up this whole little apartment for them to hide in at the back of his store. 
We went and bought a brownie, had a photo shoot on the canal, and then went to a pub to have some Heineken where I was hit on by the bartender and then Katie attracted over some goofy Irish lads who then accompanied us the rest of the night. Drinks (on Katie's part :) ), wandering the red light district (in search of blue lights but then we discovered there aren't any or they are not what we would want), cheering on the women who got business, had more drinks, and then we ditched them to crash at the hostel. I must say that I have never felt safer in a city. Even in the Red Light District at 1AM - one does not feel threatened in the least. It is such a clean city and the people are so friendly and I think their tolerance and acceptance of all people is what makes Amsterdam such a fabulous city! I loved it.Monday
We were hoping to catch a bus to the beach but it didn't end up working out so we went wandering around town again, working on getting lost some more. The market we wanted to see was closed (WhitMonday) so we sat on the side of the canal people watching and chilling. We were approached by a native Amsterdamer who had just finished up at an after party (at 10:30AM) and wanted to continue the dance party with us. He was definitely still on something! Very interesting guy. I asked him about his experiences in Amsterdam and he told us he had had two experiences with the prostitutes - the first lasting 15min and costing 30euros and the second 5min for 15euros. Our tour guide told us the average price was 50euros for 15minutes. Mr. Dancer eventually danced off, bestimmt to find the next dance party.
Katie and I wandered some more, picked up some food, and found another canal to sit next to. A man was standing a bit of a ways from us and he was smiling and I couldn't tell if he was smiling at me (I had my sunglasses on being very stealth) or at someone behind me. About 10min later he came over and started talking with us. We were then also approached by his brother who informed us that he had seen us earlier when we were sitting in a different square and wanted to approach us but we had got up and left. Kind of strange how he ended up hanging out with us anyways. The next three hours passed hanging out with the two giant dutch brothers (6ft 5in) who treated us at a coffee shop and to some drinks later. They didn't get our humor very much - I tried to teach them about sarcasm and I think brother 1 got it but brother 2 did not, or he was just a few beers too deep to catch on. Brother 1 said that our flight was canceled and we could not leave. Brother 2 said we must stay forever. We got some quite valuable quotes out of these two gentlemen! We said our goodbyes Dutch style and headed off to catch our train/plane back to good ol' Frankfurt. I would say our Amsterdam was an absolute success!
