We arrive the next morning in Amsterdam, the Central Station has thick colonial architecture built by terracotta bricks up to the top, this is my first time to be in the city and I’d be lying if I say I don’t feel any excitement at all. I check my hand phone to see if HyeMi text me or anything—nothing, she didn’t try to contact me, It must be noon in Seoul, maybe I should give her a call after I check in.

“Let’s get ourselves some rooms before we explore this place.” I take HyeRin luggage and lead her to the main building.

“I’m hungry.” She holds her stomachs as she follows my step.

“Nothing’s open yet, HyeRin-a. We arrived too early. Tell you what, if we found a coffee shop along the way, we’ll stop and have our breakfast.”

“Fine.”

“Where’s our hotel? You made a reservation right?” I ask her about our accommodation for the next three days.

“I didn’t. We can search along the way. I used to be in a student exchange program here in Amsterdam, it’s not that hard to find accommodation on the spot.”

“You’re kidding me right now.”

She shakes her head, “Actually, I was thinking, can we stay at a backpacker hostel?”

I laugh at her idea, “Do you want your uncle to kill me? Andwe! We’ll find a decent hotel.”

“Why not? It looks like fun to be in a room with many strangers, we can have many new friends for the festival tomorrow.” She fastens her steps to balance mine.

“No! You’ll never know if you’re staying with good people or bad people. We don’t know if they’d steal from us, it’s totally unsafe, andwe!” I let my protective side show.

“So where do you think we should stay?”

“That looks like a good hotel.” I point out a hotel across the street.

“Don’t you think it’s too crowded to stay in front of the main station?”

“Let’s give it a try.”

We cross the road and enter the hotel that has four-stars palates in front of its door. The receptionist greets us politely and asks if we already have a reservation—we didn’t—and he told us that the hotel is fully booked. He suggests us to find another hotel on the west side of the city, although he doubts there still an empty room for us. Tomorrow is the big festival, many people from across Europe also come to celebrate the Queen’s day—no wonder all the accommodation is fully booked.

We don’t let our hope down, we stroll along the main street looking for available accommodation only to be told they’re fully booked. In our desperate measure, we even try our luck with the backpacker hostel, but still everything is full.

“Look, a sandwich stall is open, let’s grab a bite to eat first. I’m too famished to continue hotel hunting” HyeRin takes my arm and pull me to follow her.

“Whose fault is it? You’re the one that didn’t make a reservation.” I roll my eyes to annoy her but follow her to the sandwich stall anyway. “I cannot believe you didn’t make any reservation before you jumped in the train.” I shake my head in disbelieve.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think it’ll be this hard to find a place to stay.”

We order two herring sandwiches and mineral waters as our breakfast. The sandwich stall doesn’t provide a seating, so we have to seat on public bench to enjoy our morning meal.

“We should try Hilton,