What Does Rest Even Look Like?! My First Monday in Amsterdam

As much as I talked about rest, and being excited about it...day 4 here in Amsterdam and I realized that I have no idea how to actually rest. Like... what do you mean I have an extra 8 hours to myself in the middle of the day now?! What do you mean that my weekends are just like my weekdays?! Wait, can I just watch an extra 8 hrs of netflix??? just kidding... (but in my defense, Netflix in Europe has shows and movies out that aren't airing yet in the US.) So this weekend I literally stressed about how I was going to rest. 

That's right. I spent 3+ hours looking at my google calendar, figuring out how I was going to fill my hours the rest of the week. Maybe it's the New Yorker (or American) in me, but I feel like every day and hour needs to be planned with some kind of activity. Which is actually kind of hard given that it's pretty rainy and cold here (day 4 of rain), making you want to just retreat into the comfort of a warm couch.. But no! Can't waste unemployment! So here's what today's "rest" looked like.

8:00 am  - First alarm went off. Hit snooze. Because, come on? Really. You're unemployed. You can sleep in past 8.
8:30 am - Hit snooze again. I think i'm allowed to sleep until 9??? Is this okay on a Monday?!
9:00 am - I mean.. unemployed.. I can probably sleep until 9:30. Who am I kidding.
9:30 am - Ugh, fine. I guess I need to get up. But mostly because I needed to pee. Then I headed straight back into my warm bed, and READ A BOOK. I don't think i've done that since high school.

10 am - Got my hotmess self together and headed to the gym for my 10:30 am YOGA class. That's right, yours truly has joined a gym because how else am i supposed to drink all of my beers and eat all of the bitterballens? Not to mention the gym is 25 euros a month, and if you pay an extra 6 euros, you can join ALL the classes you want. Wat. I feel so rich. This is how the rich in NYC must feel when they sign up for their $50 classes and go in the middle of the morning, because who needs to be at their desk when you have all this money??

12:00 pm - Yoga class finally ended. First off, it was a 1.5 hr class. Secondly, no one told me it was "restorative" yoga... like i literally laid there and was cold the whole time. Although at one point the teacher took his shirt off and all the ladies (including me) were like... yassss ... but also why did you just take your shirt off? it's cold here. Then after class, since I had no where else to be, i stayed at the gym an extra 35 minutes to actually get some sweat going and feelings back in my fingers and toes. Yes. Six pack heeyoung here i come. Jk. Most likely I'll just be carrying a 6 pack... of beer.

1:00 pm - Made lunch and showered. It felt so weird making lunch in the middle of a workday.... but also weirdly awesome that I was able to cook and shower mid-day. I could kinda get used to this. 

2:00 pm - Headed to a cafe to get some people connection time. Except I sat facing a window.... sipping coffee... on my laptop. But hey, at least I left the apt to experience... culture? I mean, one thing I learned is how trusting the dutch are. I ordered my coffee, pulled out my wallet, and the lady was like "you pay after you drink your coffee." waaaaat.

5:00pm - Drink time. I walked myself 5 feet over to Cafe de Wetering, which is a "brown bar" (“bruine kroeg” in dutch) known for its dark wood and smoke-stained walls. Basically, a local bar. Plopped myself in front of the bartender, who also happened to be the owner of the bar and a 73 year old dutch man, and we got talking. He told me everything from his health problems to training university students to run the bar. I mean, we're besties at this point. So much so that he even went downstairs to find his cat to show me. Also it was kind of the best because instead of taking people's credit cards to open up a "tab", he hand wrote everyone's name in a notebook with their orders. How adorable is that?? OR i guess just the dutch way.

Anyways, after enjoying two drinks, headed back to make dinner (and drink more) and now I just finished watching "Eat Pray Love" because i thought it would give me inspiration to my current life... but really it ended up being THE worst movie ever. If you liked the book / movie I might have to rethink our friendship.

Can't wait to see what Day 5 of Amsterdam unemployment looks like tomorrow. 😂