art x beer

15 April

Today we started with a pancake brunch at MOOK recommended from the one and only Mira Marko (friend, roommate, traveler). Not only were these pancakes insanely delicious they reminded me of home. : ) also just let me mention the ginger shots Joe and I took. I’ve getting really into the whole ginger = immune boost shot thing because IT WORKS. But whoahhh. I kid you not, these were pure, pressed ginger. The burn was real. So real. I would 100 percent recommend if you think you’re coming down with something.

Fast forward to arriving at the Rijks Museum on a full belly. We all purchased tickets (no student discounts ugh) and spent the following 2 hours exploring all the galleries. I saw some Rembrandts! and a Van Gogh! and the iconic Yves Saint Laurent color block dress! There also was this really cool textile on the modern art floor and I think it’d look really good as a pair of pants.

Ben and I skipped out before everyone else had finished and sat in the park outside near the most entertaining fountain of all time. Rows of water shooting out of the ground forming a square. People kept going inside and unsuspectingly got soaked. Ben and I sat there for a while just getting good laughs at other people’s expense… oops.

When everyone rejoined us we found food at a street cart nearby and admired the I Amsterdam sign covered with tourists.

We headed to the Heineken experience next where they provide you with 3 mini pints!!! First they walk you though the history where they mention Louis Pasteur (cool for a biochemist) and then show you the water, barley, and hops. Next you see how the beer is brewed and you taste the wort (bleh!) before entering into a 4D movie where you get rocked back and forth and sprayed with water all because they want you to “Be the beer.”

You get to do a tasting and then see Heineken advertisements and do a walk-through of cool stuff like green-screen videos and black-lights before finally reaching the main event of drinking 2 baby pints in the roof-top bar. We all decided that if they put the Heineken tour together with the Guinness gravity bar it would be the best experience. HINT HINT

Ben, Joe and Andrew dipped out early and the rest of us went back to check out the I Amsterdam sign again. Still crowded. We walked through the park and took some photos with the beautiful Rijks Museum in the background.

We all reconvened before dinner at the hostel and ended up at a place with Mexican food and margaritas. After dinner we stopped into a few really cool bars. In the last bar a guy approached us and told us to ~shake it like a polaroid picture~ Just kidding, but we did buy a polaroid of us off this guy. Probably the peak of the night – remind me to get a polaroid camera and start offering to sell the photos in bars from now on…