Valentine's Day Trip to Europe - Amsterdam

I LOVE to travel.

No really, I love it more than practically anything... more than any other hobby I have. I am never quite as happy as I am when I'm in some far away place seeing something I've never seen before. And it helps quite a bit that my boyfriend currently lives in the Netherlands as he goes to graduate school, so I have an excuse to go to Europe OFTEN!!

For Valentine's Day, we decided that I would fly into Amsterdam ... which is what I usually do. I love their airport. It's the nicest airport I've EVER seen, and I've seen quite a few of those! And I can usually find fairly reasonable tickets from Chicago or Detroit to the NL. The Dutch know how to do it right. Plus, we had just been to Amsterdam in August, so I was already dying to see it again because I love it so much.

Bye Chicago :)

And after 7 1/2 hours with two side seats to myself..... AMSTERDAM!! I get a picture of this sign every time.

I do not believe in going to sleep when you get off the plane... you have to stay up, otherwise it'll take forever for you to get used to the 7 hour time difference! Plus, I'm always WAY TOO excited to be in Europe. I am pretty positive I am destined to live over there for awhile one of these days.

We only spent one day in Amsterdam, given we had plans to go to Luxembourg and Belgium, and I was only around in Europe for a little over a week. :( Not long enough. But, one day in Amsterdam is PERFECT since it's not that big! We walked EVERYWHERE and...

Explored the canals in Jordaan and the floating flower market in 

Central Amsterdam.

Ate Dutch mussels... LOTS of them. So yummy!!!

One of our favorite activities is trying out the local beer (or wine, if applicable) in every city we're in... and we make a bar crawl out of it, until we've tried as many as we wanted to! And because of that, we kept popping in and out of gouda cheese stores and eating a few too many cheese samples... I'm sure they knew we were Americans. :D

Best day in the Netherlands, ever. If you haven't been, it's time to pack your bags and GO. It's a fantastic place!!