I love the Netherlands! Who knew?

SO. Amsterdam was AMAZING. First of all, it is gorgeous and filled with canals, adorable little buildings, and approximately nine billion bicycles. I had no idea how cute it would be! Second, it has amazing food and a lot of variety in cuisines. Third, the people are extremely nice.
Jane and I arrived Friday morning and immediately began the greatest travel itinerary ever: wander around until you get hungry, eat, and repeat as necessary. We had an amazing salad with avocado and without dressing - I was pretty much sold from that moment on - and followed it up with a piece of chocolate cake. And yes, my retelling of this trip will primarily revolve around the food. Jane and I got to catch up and chat all day long, see random sites we knew nothing about, and eat all the time, so it was basically the ideal trip. After our salad/cake/coffee, we wandered around the downtown area and saw some old buildings, the national monument, that famous flower market, a book market, and some other old stuff. We then stopped again for a raspberry tart and more coffee (I had an orange juice, but it had a fly in it. I drank it anyway), more chatting, and then more walking. We accidentally found the red light district, and found ourselves very put off by the women in the windows, and made our way back to the hostel for a nap before we braved the Amsterdam nightlife. We went out to dinner at an Argentinian steak house and had the best meat I have had since leaving the states, along with empanadas, french fries, and Malbec. Outstanding. We explored a little more and made friends with a hilarious bartender whose wife was Scottish (it was very obvious from his accent - also he swore like I have never heard a non-native English speaker swear). Jane tried to learn some Dutch from him, and then he was sort of mock-offended because he thought she was saying Dutch was easy? I don't know. We explained that we meant to do it out of respect, in an effort to learn more about the place we were visiting, and he said (something along the lines of) "You know what's a better way to do that? Learn something about the history of the country before you get there. Better than just saying dankevel [or however you spell it] to your bartenders." It was all in good fun though and he was great, slash the Slovenian at the bar liked us too and bought us drinks (awkward? A little, because he was 40). We found lots of great food on our way home - pizza, more pastries, and Toblerone - and then slept long and hard the next day. OH ps Jane took all the pictures of this weekend, so you'll just have to wait for her to send them to me.
Then on Saturday we got Dutch pancakes for breakfast, went to the Anne Frank house only to decide the line wasn't really worth it, and went to the sex museum instead. It was intense. Then we wandered around downtown again until we found a flea market. From there we slowly made our way towards the Van Gogh museum, stopping anywhere and everywhere that looked pretty (and taking about nine hundred pictures posing in front of canals), and probably eating again - yes, I think we bought some truffles at a chocolate shop. On our way to the van Gogh museum we found another big market, wandered through it as well as through a nice restaurant area, and then finally to the museum itself. Unfortunately all this wandering was incredibly taxing (it's a rough life we lead), so we went a little further to find some lunch, and stumbled upon the fashion district, where we had a very swanky lunch next to someone who I think was famous. He was being interviewed at the table next to us, and then went outside and posed for some pictures in the street, and several people stopped him to say something. Anyway, that was very exciting. We split a delicious sandwich and then had warm croissants with butter and jam... oh it was so good, but the entire weekend we were always full and always conscious of the fact that we were at minimum quadrupling the recommended daily caloric intake. Then on to van Gogh, which was great (slash sooo relevant to my art history class), and back to the hostel for our nap. We are really into the Spanish schedule. For dinner, we got a recommendation for a Thai restaurant from a random hotel we saw that day, and had THE GREATEST MEAL EVER mostly because I have been craving Thai for quite some time. From there we tried to go out to dessert but failed because the cake shop we had seen earlier was closed, so we just talked for another two hours (and literally made the people next to us move over when we were laughing - very loudly - over Tina Fey's Palin impression) and made it back to the hostel. In the morning we got bagels (another scarcity in Spain) and went to the airport, and now I'm back at home where it is warm (unlike FREEZING Amsterdam). Ana had a little afternoon party with all of her siblings (of which she has six) today, and made chocolate con churros for the occasion. OH MY GOD. All thoughts of Amsterdam melted away as I sat at the table, enjoying the warm breeze from the window, dipping churros in delicious chocolate and listening to her brother-in-law argue with her brother about the social security system in Spain. One of her sisters asked me if I would come teach English to her kids for an hour a week, and I said I would love to, so that should start soon (and she'll be paying me! Won't that be fun). So even though Amsterdam was so great that I would seriously consider living there, I'm already so happy to be back in Spain and in general just so contented with life (and gastronomically satisfied) that it wasn't even a downer to leave such a wonderful city. TWO DAYS UNTIL MOM AND DAD ARRIVE! Get excited.