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Amsterdam Day 3
It was nice being able to take our time in the morning since we didn't have to be anywhere at a certain time on Saturday. We ate our free, carb-loaded breakfast and then took the bus into the city center. We decided that we were going to spend our Saturday biking around so that we could experience Amsterdam the true Dutch way.
Although I was a bit nervous to ride around such a busy place, riding the bikes was a nice change of pace from walking everywhere and it actually wasn't too bad navigating around. There were only a handful of streets that were too busy to ride on.
The first place we biked to was a botanical garden. The place was absolutely beautiful, but I could feel my allergies starting to act up so I wasn't able to enjoy it as much as I wish I could've.
After we walked through the gardens and sat by the water for a while, we started getting a bit hungry so we decided to bike to find some food. Kendyl and Liv got some food from a small bakery which Sarah and I also got a pastry each from, but Sarah and I walked to a nearby street market for our meal. I ended up getting a Japanese chicken panini which was very good. We had a nice little picnic on a small dock on the water in a nice park.
Fun fact: Olivia was actually born in Amsterdam and lived there until she was about 3 years old. Since we had the bikes for the day, we figured it was the perfect day to go visit her old house. It was only about a 15-20 minute bike ride to get to her neighborhood which was so cute! The bike ride to her house was one of my favorite memories of the trip. We all felt so free and every street we turned down was more beautiful than the last. For such a busy place, Amsterdam is also so incredibly peaceful.
When we got to Liv's house, she got very emotional and I was so grateful to be a part of that special moment in her life that she will remember for years and years to come. After visiting her house, we walked around a small street market a few streets over and then just sat in her neighborhood relaxing for a little while before biking back to the city center to return the bikes.
We started biking back with about an hour to spare before the bike place closed, thinking that would be plenty of time. The only problem was, when we got closer and had about 15 minutes left, we couldn't find it. We new we were in the right general area but for some reason we just couldn't find the place. We were ready to give up when we had about 8 minutes left before they closed and we were completely clueless as to where we were. Then, by some miracle, Sarah had one more idea of where it might be so we followed her underneath a bridge and BOOM, THERE IT WAS! We pulled into the shop with a solid 3 minutes to spare. I still can't believe we pulled that off.
With the bikes off our hands, we walked around in the city to find something to eat for dinner and ended up getting some Chinese food which was actually very good. Then we went and got some more gelato (but I still like American ice cream more).
Before hopping on the bus to go back to our hostel, we sat by the canal for a while in front of the Centraal Station. This was our last night all together in the city because Kendyl and Liv flew back the next day. It was so peaceful just sitting there listening to music and looking out at the city lights twinkling on the water. It was a great way to end our last day all together.
