A Great Beginning - A.M.S.T.E.R.D.A.M.

My addiction to traveling became severe after my European backpacking excursion in summer 2009.  And I just want to add that this was the most eye-opening, craziest, thrilling, confusing, fun, mind-blowing, loving, out-of-this-world experience.  I went with my two best of friends, Carley and Sarah who are the most precious humans in the world to me, absolutely nothing can come between us.  All three of us are so uniquely different and special in our own ways.  Carley, a hippie, artistic princess from Maine who's love for people is greater than anyone's I have ever seen.  She loves the finer, simple things in life and will  never leave your side.  Sarah, who has been there for me since day one of college - 4 years and going strong.  She's the most brilliant, determined and selfless person I have ever met.  Will do absolutely anything for a friend and what I love most about her is her wisdom and ways she gives advice she can calm and comfort anyone.

Picture this: three 21 year old girls, backpacks larger than our bodies, broke and lost 24/7.  The stories from this 3 week adventure are absolutely unreal.  Picture the sisterhood of traveling pants meets the hangover meets eurotrip.  I have never laughed so hard, cried so hard, felt so lost and not in control and yet - so unbelievably free.

The day we arrived, everything went wrong, from the moment stepping into the airport.  We couldn't even find the exit to it.  We finally found the train station (2 hours later) and tried to get us a overnight train to Amsterdam to meet up with our 15 friends from back at school (who were studying at the University of Innsbruck).  No luck.  We had to take a 9 hour train during the day after our 16 hour flight and jet lag.  On our way - just our luck again, the railroad catches on fire a few miles away from our train.  We are stuck in bum fuck Germany for 5 hours.  We have NO idea what's going on and if we are ever going to make it.  We finally meet a sweet boy from Amsterdam that tells us everything is okay and to just listen to him.  Our instincts should be hmm should we believe him? But he was completely harmless and was our first guardian/trial angel. We finally arrive to Amsterdam - delirious, drunk, lost, tired and dirty.  Everything turned out A-okay, of course!

We wake up in beautiful Amsterdam with the sun shining on our faces and we decided to do the best thing ever.  Rip up our entire itinerary.  We decide to wing the rest of the three weeks.

In Amsterdam we met up with all our friends from Stetson.  All 15 of us went to get breakfast at the most delicious pancake restaurant.  We all explored the cobblestone streets, walked the Red Light District, explored the Van Gogh Museum and Heineken Brewery tour, sat in the famous Vondel Park and people watched.  At night of course we went on a Pub Crawl and had some extra wild adventures after :)  This was my second time in Amsterdam and it was great to be back.

The whole crew in front of the famous sign! ^^^                Me, Callie and Coleman - loving life!

Sarah, Carley and Me in front of Van Gogh        The was the best and most special moment -so FREE!

                         Vondel Park

                  The canals

                   Going to bed as the sun rises <3

By the end of this journey, us women left with many new experiences and learned an immense amount our lives.  Some of us learned that maybe love doesn't exist, to love more than we could ever love before, and when you think you lost that person so special to you - that there IS someone else out there and there is more than one soulmate.  We became the best of friends and I could have never done this trip without these two amazing women.