4th of July, Amanda's Arrival, and Amsterdam

Well, on the 4th of July Amanda finally got here around 6pm into the Rotterdam central station. Frans, Lotte and I went to pick her up. It was so awesome to finally have her here! The whole family was excited to meet her, especially Lotte. We got home and after giving Amanda a tour of the house we decided we were going to walk to the store to get some beer for the beginning of our night but since dinner was going to be ready soon Frans drove us. We picked out two different kind of beers to try and Frans bought them for us, he said it was his treat to us for our celebration. We had pizza for dinner and then went upstairs and visited for a while and got ready, then came downstairs to visit with the family. Margreet, Amanda and I talked for a very long time about lots of different things and it was a really nice visit. We got a pic together...

Then the boys came over. It was Brandon (the american pitcher), Henk, Wauter, and Reineer. We hungout until around 11 here at the house just drinking and visiting and taking some pictures. The family had a U.S flag and when I came downstairs that morning he had hung it up in the garden for me. That was really nice to see, so of course we took more pictures with it. This is all of the Americans with our flag..

We then all rode our bikes into the city and I refused to go to the same place we always go that plays the techno music and is downstairs so we tried a different bar/club called Coco Nuts. Amanda is much worse at riding her bike then I am. It was actually a lot of fun. We sat outside and drank before going inside and proceeding to drink a lot more. We made lots of friends, especially with the bartenders and they took some pretty funny pics with my camera. We ended up taking a cab back home because there was no way we would be able to ride our bikes. Henk went back and got our bikes for us the next day. We didn't do anything on the 5th because we were both way too hungover to move. We did go into town and get lunch at place i've never tried before and it was delicious. Here are some pics from the 4th..there are plenty more though...

<--us with the whole fam

On tuesday July 6th, we went to Amsterdam. Henk, Reineer and Wauter were our tour guides. We had a lot of fun. We walked through the streets for a bit before deciding to go into The Amsterdam Dungeon, which is the history of medieval times in Amsterdam, covering things from witchcraft to the Plague. It was very scary though and Amanda and I spent most of the hour stuck to each other. All of the lights are out and its dark and there are real actors that you see throughout the entire show. Reineer, Amanda and I all got chosen during different parts of the tour by the actors. I was chosen in the room with the judge and had to go up to the stand in front of the whole group we were with. He asked me my name and then said that "Olivia is a sinner's name. and I had been seen praciticing withcraft and dancing naked in the streets throwing frogs into the fire". He asked me if I remembered that and I said no and then he made me go back down in the crowd while he picked on two different people. Then he came back to me, made me go back up there and after more dialogue I was told to go knock on the next door 3 times. I stayed as far away as I could while I knocked and there were 3 knocks back and the door opened. He then told me I had to go into the room and I looked back like I wanted to cry, because I did. I slowly walked in the room when a lady came walking out at me from the other side of the door. I screamed so loud and she shut the door, told me to sit down and then everyone else came through. It was funny but terrifying. After enduring that anxiety for about an hour we finally made it out alive and then went over to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum and walked through there. We took some fun pics with the wax pictures. Here are a few fun ones..

Me and Lance just kickin it on our bikes

Ab workout with David Beckham

George W. Bush

After that we walked over to the Red Light District which I found to be pretty boring and not that cool. There was basically just advertisements for sex everywhere, and we saw the girls in the windows but it was different then I thought it would be. We also saw the museum of Hash, Marijuana and Hemp. We didnt go inside though. I took some pics around the Red Light District...

After we left the Red Light District we went into the Sex Museum, which is the history of sex. It was more for the boys then for me and Amanda because we basically sprinted through every room with our sunglasses on. Not for me. They do have quite a bit of museums in Amsterdam though. I also saw the Vodka Museum which I thought was cool but we didnt go in there either..After the Sex Museum we went into a souvenir store because I wanted to get some things for Mom, Dad and Soph. I'm going back to Amsterdam in a few weeks with my host family so I plan on doing better shopping then. I used this day more for observing. After the souvenir shop we went and sat down and had a few beers. Then we walked back to the car and came back to watch the Holland game at the Orioles. Holland won and now we are in the final game on Sunday night. I think that were all planning on going into the city for the game because it will be so crazy after we WIN! hahaha. Amanda leaves on saturday and i'm really not looking foward to it. Especially with the family gone for another week. Tomorrow we plan on going shopping in Rotterdam and then we are watching a baseball game tomorrow night. I'll be sure to update about that in the next blog. Until then, Hugs and Kisses from Holland!!

Love, Olivia