Amsterdam!

Got a call from Lucia today asking me if I wanted to go to Amsterdam this weekend. Heck yes! Turns out she's on vacation right before I start school again. She wanted to leave Friday and come back on Monday. Works for me! She took care of the transportation while my job was to find a place to stay.

I was excited--I love spur of the moment things like this. I like planning as well, but London was pretty planned out, and this was spur of the moment. I chose a hotel with a private room with our own bathroom called The Quentin. It had a great location. I typed in all our requirements--three nights, three people. The total came to 60 euros for each of us for the whole stay. Not bad for a private room. And on such short notice. Called Lucia and we discussed it--she gave me the go. So I click on "Book". But the page didn't go through. I figured the page timed out, so I had to re-do the process of finding a reservation. I did it, and then..THE ROOM WAS GONE! I called Lucia.

LUCIA: What?! Try it again!
ME: I did! I did it twice! The room's gone!
LUCIA: OH NO!
ME: Don't worry! I'm gonna make this right! (hang up)

The normal me would have freaked out and just stewed while doing nothing to better the situation. Maybe curse myself, but that didn't happen. I just went back to looking. It was actually kind of fun, thrilling to look at websites searching for hostels and hotels, B&Bs and boathouses--anything that will shelter us three girls on a cold night. There were a buttload of mixed dorms, but not for the nights we needed, and loads of expensive private rooms. I felt like a hacker on the clock, find the password, get into that account, transfer the money. I was clicking Control + T to open windows, Control + C to copy links of hotel websites, and Control + V to copy. Working on Final Cut Pro even translates to real life situations--I love keyboard shortcuts. I was on AIM discussing the options with Lucia.

When she squared away the train tickets (travel by train is so cool!), I asked her to help. She found a website that shows the actual rooms available, and The Quentin was there! Among other hostels and hotels. Out of all of them, it was the cheapest and closer to things. So I booked it. Yay! Some relief. After the whole thing, I felt like I'd lost pounds. I love that feeling.

Later, I read some horrid reviews about it (giving it 2 stars), but whatever I'm kind of excited. And nothing can be worse than a Motel 6 in Porterville, CA. It was really bad. My brother slept with his hoodie on, covering his head, and his shoes on over the covers. He refused to get under the covers. Anyway, it's only three nights, and we'll be out during the day. Exciting!

Also, made this short little thing for fun. Wish I could do a real time-lapse for hours, but this was a minute only into 5 seconds or so. Enjoy!