|  Mrs. adventures - part 3: amsterdam, what a trip!
It all started at about 11:30 on a friday night. the army's USO sponsors trips to all around europe, so we decided to finally take advantage and got these tickets. the bus picked us up at about midnight and we began the eight hour drive to amsterdam.
Between the mandatory stops in between and how cold it was outside, this was really beginning to suck. as i snacked on my late night dinner of pringles and delicious german chocolate from one of the rest stops, i thought more than once that this might have been a bad idea, and i could see myself laying in the nice warm bed we left behind for all of this. we didn't have the forethought to bring any pillows, so trying to rest was a real pain in the neck.
our arrival was originally scheduled for about 9 am. the USO escort and the bus driver kept getting off the bus and talking, and by now it was about 10:30/11 am. our driver was so terribly lost and apparently this was his first trip there. the company he worked for didn't give him any maps, either. this guy was visibly pissed and just didn't give a fu*k. he stopped in the middle of this one road and just started backing up. needless to say, our presence was not appreciated by the locals. somehow he found his destination (after getting one of the dutch-speaking passengers to ask for directions at a gas station) and stopped the bus in the middle of a narrow road. our tour guide didn't know what the heck he was doing either. we all decided we should just go inside a nearby museum.
what a horrible day. it was colder than a witch's tit, and the sideways rain didn't let you forget it. we ran anxiously around the museum to find the entrance, only to discover the line was out to the end of the world. i believe my exact words were "fu*k this," and we walked across the street instead to buy an umbrella at the gift shop. we found a really cool black umbrella with Rembrandt's Nightwatch on the inside. i would say this umbrella was a life saver, but omg i'll tell about that later.
standing in that godforsaken line with the umbrella wasn't so bad, and actually it stopped raining after a little while. we stood there and ate the pringles that had spilled all over the inside of my backpack. we were cold, tired, and starving. but there was art to be seen at the Rijks Museum.
a lot of the dutch speak english, and luckily i speak english, too. my understanding of the sign "no bags allowed" was that if you had a bag, you were not welcome. so we checked our bags (my purse with camera inside included, sorry again) and entered. everyone else brought their bags in anyway. that was pretty pointless.
they had all kinds of stuff up about their history and whatnot. my favorite were the dollhouses. i don't know what it is about things that are smaller than they rightly should be; i love that s*it. at the upstairs gift shop, we purchased one of those "the best of[city]" books. To be continue.
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