Amsterdam

10/1/2009

Today we left Brussels heading towards Amsterdam. It looked like the skies would finally open up and pour as we were pulling out so we hoped for better weather in Amsterdam. That was not the case. After doing laundry in Brussels, I thought I would try to conserve socks by wearing flip flops on traveling days because we do not do that much walking. This turned out to be a very bad idea. When we pulled into Amsterdam it was very cold. I found this to be very interesting because all of the leaves on the trees were still very green.

When we got to the Amsterdam train station we had to book our reservation for the sleeper car train to Prague. This turned out to be a very good idea that we did it so soon as opposed to waiting till the day we wanted to leave because the train was filling up rapidly. We couldn’t get the cheap seats, so we had to book a slightly more expensive sleeper bed. Hopefully this will work out better. It might be nice to lie completely down for the 14-hour ride as opposed to just reclining. While we were waiting in line to make our reservation we started talking to these funny guys from Manchester England. Im not lying when I say they had come to Amsterdam for a 7 hour time slot just to get high and then leave. It seemed like a lot of trouble to go through just to get high to me, but whatever floats their boat. They gave us some advice on places that they had just come from and that we were going to. The funniest thing I thought about them was they could not believe that we ripped the useful pages out of our backpacking guidebook and then tossed the book.

We had some issues getting to the hostel using public transportation system. It turns out that Amsterdam has the craziest public transportation system. In addition to having a metro, they have buses and trams. We wanted to get maps of the streets and metro, so we went to the tourist information center but they were only selling those maps. We crossed our fingers and hoped that our hostel would have free maps. Without anyway to get our bearing, we were forced to just go by the directions to the hostel that we got from our confirmation email that we got when we booked the hostel. They said to get on tram five, but we didn’t know if them met the metro or the above ground train and then we could not figure out how to buy just one single ticket. After talking to multiple people for help, we eventually got on the tram with the intention of paying for our ride with the tram driver, and then shooting in the dark with following the directions from the confirmation email and hoping we got off in the right place. The tram driver didn’t want to deal with selling us tickets, so she just told us to get on and then when our stop came up she told us to go out the back doors. So we didn’t pay for our ride and she seemed ok with that so we were ok with that.

We made it to the hostel after asking directions from a nice cab driver, who was waiting to pick up people. It turned out we were just right around the corner from it, which made for a quick walk. Our hostel was the stereotypical hostel. Very nice people behind the desk that were willing to help us and answer all of our questions and people milling about the common area. We were in a nine bedroom mixed dorm with 7 other guys! Katherine and I shared a bunk bed by the window, which was nice for the fresh air because the room could get super stuffy with all of those stinky boys. The shower is in the same general area of the toilet in the bathroom, making the toilet very wet right after someone takes a shower. All of the toilet paper was soaking when we got into the room at first. This is a good time to talk about the go and stop buttons on toilets over here. You normally have to press a button when you want the toilet to stop flushing. I wonder if the plumbing is done the same way as it is back home. So I guess we had finally arrived at the real deal as far as hostels go. The first of the guys we met were from Australia and had been traveling for months all over the place and just spending tons of money. They told us their daily agenda in Amsterdam had been partying all night and then sleeping till 2 in the afternoon, repeat. We told them that that sounded like a fun time, we were here to see some sites too, and that we would try to be quiet. They were very nice and always invited us to go out with them on their wild nights. They also gave us some advice on places we were going to that they had already been to. Everyone we seem to talk to only says fantastic thinks about Prague and Budapest so hopefully that is a good signs for future places in our travels. The third guy we met was from New Zealand. He also had been traveling for quite and while by himself and seemed a little bizarre. He spends his winters in Vail, so I had something to talk about with him. He told us that his plan for the next day was to eat some mushrooms and go tour the Van Gogh Museum and Anne Frank House. I thought the latter idea was pretty weird, because it would be a very somber experience to have on drugs, but whatever floats his boat. I guess after traveling alone for a while one might get a bit on the weird and lonely side. The last four guys in our room were Spanish, didn’t smell very good (they kept farting extremely loudly), and snored terribly. There was a small TV in the room that was always left on the music video channel, which was funny to get a taste of Dutch music taste (a lot of pop culture)

Disregarding the wildly cool fact that pretty much anything goes in Amsterdam, the city is still extremely cool. There are wild amounts of traffic (not so much congestion, just movement) with cars, and public transportation, and people walking, and BICYLCES! It is bicycle mania here. I have never seen anything like it. It seems to be the most convenient, efficient, and green form of transportation and everyone seems to dig it. But pedestrians need to be on their toes because the bikers do not stop for anything. The bikes the all ride are the crazy one-speed bikes too. The first impression that Amsterdam left on me was a really good one. I love all of the architecture of the city, the canals that run through it, all of the chic shops, the trees that line all of the streets and canals, people are everywhere, there are tons of places to stop in and eat, lots of people speak English (which was just nice to hear) and it just seems like there is a lot going on.

After we dropped our stuff off at the hostel we decided to walk around the city, get a feel for it and our bearings, then check out the Van Gogh Museum, which was conveniently located right by our hostel. Also our hostel was literally next to a beautiful concert hall, which served as a great landmark to use in times when we would get turned around. Katherine needed to get some cash from a bank ATM, so we went off in search of that. After that mission was accomplished we at lunch at a Heineken restaurant because after all Heineken is the beer of Amsterdam. Unfortunately I had an extremely dissatisfying meal. The Van Gogh Museum was highly enjoyable. I really like his work and even though his personal story is a bit on the depressing side, I still find it interesting. I tried to take a picture when we first got in the museum and apparently that is a terrible no-no and a docent firmly reprimanded me. Therefore I have no pictures of his work. The museum did not have his all of his famous pieces. Starry night, which we missed in Paris at Orsay, was obviously not there.

We went back to the hostel for a bit before venturing out for the night. At this point I checked my email and found out some very exciting news. My mom threw out the idea of after Katherine and I finish up our travels, she would like to meet me in Italy and then we could to tour around Tuscany and go to a cooking school! This completely elated me and I promptly responded that I would absolutely love it if she did that. So now we are in the process of planning that out. I am soooo very excited about this.

For our night adventure, we walked around the red light district to see what all the fuss was about. For those of you who don’t know the red light of district is the famous part of Amsterdam when people really run with the fact that anything goes in this city. There are “coffee shops” that sell weed, which you can smoke in them. There are windows with girls in them that you can go with and buy sex. Seeing these girls made me sad. I just hope that they have semi decent lives and aren’t sitting in those windows against their will. It was a pretty seedy neighborhood, but there were people everywhere and it was easy to walk out of. We did end up having a delicious sweet treat of a crème filled donut right outside of the red light district when we had seen enough of the sin. On our walk back to the hostel, we passed a shop that made and sold the Dutch wooden clogs. We looked at them and tried some on. They were neat.

There is so much to see in Amsterdam. There are a ton of museums, shops, people, and things going on everywhere. We have decided we thoroughly like walking in a city as opposed to using public transportation because then you get a real feel for the city. The one exception to this is when we have our giant packs on and then we just want to get to where we are going in the quickest, least amount of energy expended way. A lot of times I feel like my day isn’t complete without walking a lot. This works out well because a lot of days I have very complete days because we get turned around and lost quite often and normally end up walking a lot more than we really would have to.