I AMsterdam, in 20 hours or less

When I booked my flight home for the summer, I knew I had to connect through Amsterdam. The original connection would have been getting in at 9:30pm and leaving again at 10am. Just long enough to sleep. So I decided, instead of a 12 hour overnight layover, I would go for the evening flight and make it a full 20 hours.

So for my one day in Amsterdam, I decided to take a New Europe tour. For those of you who have never heard of New Europe tours, they are these awesome tours offered in just about every major city in Europe. They have lots of different kinds - the normal options (bike tours and pub crawls) and some tailored specifically to what the city offers (Coffee shop tours and Red Light District tours in Amsterdam). But the staple tours they always offer (Which happens to be my personal favorite... for obvious reasons) are free walking tours. Usually when the word "free" is in the title you don't expect the best quality, but these tours are 3 hours of interesting historical and current facts about the city. Basically, it's a walk around seeing all the big sites from the outside, hearing about them, but never actually going in. Perfect for short trips because you can fit everything 

in 3 hours. Perfect for long trips because it's a great starting point to get to know all the big sites and where they are. And did I mention it's free? 

After the tour ended, however, I literally ran to the train station to get to the airport. And the rest, as they say, is history!