Not Often Do You Guetta Chance Like This

This weekend, many of my friends and I headed to Amsterdam, because we had tickets to the Amsterdam Music Festival. We took trains for like 7 hours to finally get to Amsterdam. Immediately after getting off the train, I loved the style of the city. Its old architecture was perfectly contrasted and complemented by the modern-looking lights and signs. We walked around some on Friday night, and it blew my mind how crowded the city was. It made Barcelona seem deserted, which could've been due in part to the Music Festival or the fact that the Amsterdam Marathon was on Sunday. But there were just so many places to go, and the city was lively. We went back to the hostel to rest up for the night because we knew Saturday would be really long. Our hostel's steps were so steep and small that I thought I'd definitely meet my end that weekend. But we made it.

We woke up at 10 on Saturday to make our way to the Anne Frank house. Upon arrival, we realized the line was 2 hours long, so we decided to just take pictures in front of it and spend our time doing more things. We took a cool canal tour, which showed us even more about the city. Bikes lined the rails to the canal throughout the entire city, and the bike traffic was far heavier than that of motorized vehicles. Warning: neither the bikes nor the cars follow traffic instructions, so be cautious.

After the canal tour, we headed to the "I amsterdam" sign by the Rijksmuseum there. We took a bunch of pictures and climbed the giant letters, which was really cool, but also very crowded. Since we were nearby, we headed to the Heineken Brewery to take a tour of the place. Some of the technology there was awesome, from holograms to an interactive and educational "ride" that shook you, heated you up,  bottled you, and shipped you similar to beer. This was a great way of keeping my attention at least. But it was time to head back to the hostel to go to the concert. I was about to jump up and down for 9 hours.

The Festival was originally supposed to open it's doors at 9:00 and start at 11:00, but the times were changed to open at 8:00 and start at 9:00. It seemed like very very few were notified of the change: of our group of like 10, only 1 was notified of the change, so thankfully we had Kaushik haha. We showed up at 8:00 and were able to snag second-row standing spots and move our way to the first row (You can see the Miami flag in the bottom left). 

Keep in mind, this arena ended up being filled with 40,000 of standing room mostly. So we were really really really lucky. The group performing was amazing. Amsterdam is known for producing DJs and loving electronic music, so the best DJs in the world were there. In fact, the top 10 DJs of the year were announced at the event. The top 4 DJs in the world were there, in addition to four more in the top 20.

As Armin Van Buuren (Voted as top-3 DJ for 12 years straight) was giving a speech and the croud settled down, I had moved my way to the front row. I pointed enthusiastically at him with both hands for about 15 seconds, and he made solid eye contact with me. He then pointed back at me with both hands and gave me a thumbs up: it was awesome. I got to see Hardwell, Armin, Dmitri Vegas & Like Mike, Martin Garrix, David Guetta, and Deorro, and Dash Berlin. Each artist had about an hour-long setlist. By 4:30 am I was ready to get some rest, so I went to the stands and took it all in from farther away. It was truly scary. So much fire, chanting, and so many crazy people. I felt like I was at some type of angry mob event or rally. Definitely the craziest thing I have ever been to and probably the craziest thing I will ever go to, and thats fine with me.

It ended at 6:00 am, and we headed to the hostel to pick up our luggage and make an 8:25 train to Lux city. I was tired enough to sleep the whole 6 hours back, and it was much-needed. I'm still feeling knee pain from all the jumping. Glad I got to go though, and I loved how cool of a city Amsterdam was. 59/117.