Moving forward with my Christmas 2023 solo travel, my next destination was the daring and turbulent city of Amsterdam. Despite the anticipated absence of tulips and the sun, I still had my hopes up because, quite frankly, I have heard a lot of nice things about this city. Honest to goodness, it delivered the goods. My only regret was over-tightening it out on the accommodation budget side, directly exposing me to AMS’ dirty laundry, I hoped I never found out. Sleeping in a filthy overpopulated hostel room was not an ideal way to spend such wonderful holidays. Once again, I made that careless choice and paid a hefty price in the end. Definitely not a worthy trade-off.
Other than that, the rest of it all was no less than amazing, at least at
the surface level (for now). I spent most of my time walking around and along most of the busy
canals from the Prinsengracht & Herengracht to the famously sin scenic district aka Red Light , and occasionally sitting intently in coffee shops and bars for coffe (of course!?) and beers. Honestly, I was not able to fully maximize the trip due to poor planning OR the
lack thereof, hopelessly and miserably failing to book in advance tickets. Rijksmuseum,
Anne Frank’s House, and the van Gogh’s museum (with limited edition
pokemon features at that time), would have to wit :(
So that’s pretty much how my first ever Amsterdam trip went – not very bad, but definitely not very good. It's officially unfinished business, warranting a better-planned follow-up visit next time. For takeaways: plan better next time + invest in quality👌
