Arrival in Amsterdam and "our accommodation" (journey)

Our first steps led to a tourist information office in the train station. We were promised to have a place to stay and we tried to find how to get to the address. To explain, three months ago with another friend of mine I ran into a nice old lady on our way to a rock summer festival in Hradec Kralove. We talked for a long time and when I brought up that I was planning to go to Amsterdam, she immediately offered me that I can stay overnight at her place, saying that she lives very close to the downtown. So, out of the blue, I got a great offer, yet I did not know that “out of the blue” I was just about to stay homeless that night. This lady promised to give me a call before our departure and she had not called at all. Nonetheless, we had her address and decided to visit her personally. We bought 24h tourist tickets for buses in a hope that we save money on that. Unfortunately, when we finally found that place and got in, it looked like she was not there, although I heard some silent squeaks in that apartment. In the last hope we wrote a message for her that it would be awfully nice if she could get back to us, but she did not answer even to that. I was very disappointed by that. She could have let us know at least few days in advance that we could not stay at her place, I would understand that. So in the end, without any accommodation, tired of walking with our heavy backpacks, hungry and down, we could not think about anything else but going to a hostel. We found a public library with a free internet access and I managed to book a cheap hostel. There was only one hint: I could not go there, because there was only one place left. I, as a gentleman (actually gladly, because I saved up) had to stay on street. Whatever, I already got some skills on that, so why not. I did not know that it was to be more difficult than I imagined.