Ending the night in Amsterdam

An airplane, a ferry and lot of trains… More than 1500 Kilometers travelled... From 7AM to 9PM, I travelled from Helsinki to Amsterdam by air, water and rail. 

Day 23

I took the 7AM flight from Helsinki to Copenhagen by Norwegian Air. It was the cheapest flight available (64€).  I considered spending the day at Copenhagen and then taking the night train to Amsterdam. I would have made the most out of my time and it was the most sensible thing to do. But I was so sleepy that when I arrived in Copenhagen, I just wanted to jump on a train and sleep (Lesson learned: sleep well!). I must’ve been quite lethargic that I got lost at the Copenhagen airport, trying to find the train to the central station. I went through immigration by accident. 

Eurailing from Copenhagen to Amsterdam

From Copenhagen, I took a long train ride to Amsterdam... snoozing most of the day. By the time I was in Amsterdam, I was sluggish but wide awake. I got off at Amsterdam Bijlmer ArenA station around 10PM, where my hostel, Hostelle, was located nearby. The hostel was quite far from the city center (15 minutes by metro) and I found it a little bit scary at first, but the hostel itself was nice. And cheap (19€). It was clean and all-female. I met two South Americans—Emma and Melissa—who were students in Germany. We were all tired but we also wanted to experience the red light district and go to a coffee shop.

A night in Amsterdam

We left the hostel around 12 midnight and waited for almost an hour for the right bus that would take us to the red light district. Night buses don’t come as often as day buses. With the night bus having a lot of stops along the way (20+ stops), it took about half an hour before we arrived at the Red Light District. Despite the long wait, Melissa and Emma were a nice company.  Chatting with them had been enjoyable. When we finally arrived at the Red Lights, a lot—if not all—the bars were closed, except for one. All the coffee shops were closed, too (I think they all close before midnight). But we were able to observe a lot of er... women at the red light district and got to drink a beer at a bar. 

The night bus to our Hostelle had almost 40 stops that  the sun had started to rise when we finally nestled back to our own beds in Hostelle. Spending the day in Copenhagen would have been a more practical (I could have done more than just sleep on the train during the day) but I was glad to have experienced this night in Amsterdam. Less than 24 hours ago, I was saying moi moi in Suomi. And now, I was saying goedenacht in Amsterdam.