Hotel, Motel, Anne Marie

Amsterdam

I have never had many apprehensions about traveling. I enjoy trying new food, meeting new people, and even find getting lost to be exciting (to a certain extent). But, I encountered a new unease when the search for hostels was a necessary step in planning our weekend travels. I knew Amsterdam was going to be an entirely new adventure for many reasons: my friends and I planned every last detail including train times, food, living arrangements, and site seeing; the easy-going, everything and anything is legal lifestyle; language barriers; and even geographical landscaping- all of which I was ready and excited to witness and experience, all except the hostel.

Kelsey, Jenna, Kristina, a few new friends, and I all sat around our laptops for several days discussing and researching potential weekend living arrangements. “This one is only fifteen euros a night”, “This is thirty minutes from the Van Gogh museum”, “Free linen! Free breakfast!”, all were great candidates, but because we were a bunch of girls traveling together, we wanted to ensure safety first. Finally, we chose to book the Anne Marie Hotel (which was really a hostel) because it had one of the higher safety ratings (68% is now considered high) and it was a decent location. So now this task was over, and I had three full days to stew on my thoughts and create what I hoped to be preposterous situations in my head.

After two days of anticipation, and seven hours of traveling, we arrived at the Anne Marie Hotel (but again, don’t let ‘hotel’ fool you). Upon entering the small building across from the Chinese restaurant and next door to the super market, I immediately felt out of my element. The Dutch man sitting behind the counter was less than pleased with our large group of giggling nervous girls, and the three 45-year old men sitting at the old wooden table to our left would not stop staring. To our surprise we were given a mixed ten-person room for the eight of us girls. Visions of creepy, drugged out men came flying through my head. After climbing two flights of extremely narrow teal painted stairs, we entered the room to find five sets of bunk beds with blue and green comforters, huge red curtains, and brown carpet. It was quite the combination. Also, two of the beds were claimed, and the possessions clearly belonged to men. Thankfully we were all so hungry that we didn’t stay in our room too long or else I think my curiosity would have lead me to investigate these mens’ things.

Several hours passed of eating a fast food Chinese dinner and exploring Amsterdam and we were ready to head back to Anne Marie. My friends are surprisingly have a knack for finding their way through foreign cities, so we didn’t encounter any problems with the 250 bridges Amsterdam has to offer, or the fact that we were illiterate due to the Dutch street names. We rang the doorbell to be let into the hostel (one of the more attractive features of our living situation) and the same unfriendly Dutch man answered the door. Once we got to our room I was both relieved and even more concerned that the two men (or boys?) weren’t back yet. To me this meant that they were out taking full advantage of Amsterdam’s culture. I was on the bottom bunk closest to the door and was laying on top of the comforter in hopes to avoid any potential bugs or diseases, this left me completely vulnerable to the two crazed men that were going to be home any moment. “Kristina, can I please sleep with you?” thank goodness for friends. I relocated to a different bottom bunk, slightly closer to the unknown men, but further from the door.

Needless to say I didn’t sleep a wink until our roommates got home. Not only because I was paranoid of the possible situations that may occur, but also because of how cramped and hot I was sharing a twin bed with my snoring friend. At 3:12 (yes, I looked at the clock) the long awaited roommates opened the door to our room, room seven. They turned on all of the lights and were stumbling around the room; I was literally holding my breath. The first words out of the guy’s mouth were “God, I love Miami”. I could see each boy plain as day, clearly American, and the taller boy’s t-shirt said “Miami Redhawks”. That was all I needed to see, I had never seen these boys before, and had no idea what their names were; but they are Miami students, so they must be safe, right? My weekend in Amsterdam and three nights in a hostel confirmed that it is not really the hostels that concern me, but the apprehension of what I perceive to be unknown. If it weren’t for the boy’s outspoken love of Miami or the other boy’s Tshirt, I wouldn’t have been capable of sleeping. But because these two were in my imagined community, I felt safe. This weekend taught me more than I expected about not only a foreign culture, but also the comfort of what I perceive to be my own.