Lots of walking in a biking city

10/02/2009

Last night we took Nyquil to get a good night sleep and slept in pretty late this morning. We started off the day in search of a pancake house that I had read about in a book that has famous extremely good pancakes, which are a Dutch traditional dish. When we got to the place it was close, which was a huge bummer for me. We walked around in search for some food to fill our hungry bellies and ended up eating at this organic place that sold soups and sandwiches that ended up being extremely delicious. The dreary weather had followed us from Brussels and it was pretty gusty and drizzly throughout the day. In our walks about town, I realized that what is in for this fall fashion season in Amsterdam is purple, comfy, chunky, warm clothes, boots, hats, scarves, leggings with skirts. I would just like to take this time to reiterate that I really just love Amsterdam as a city.

After eating we heading out to see the Anne Frank House. This was a very cool experience, even thought I did not know any of the particulars about her story. I never read her diary, so the tour filled me in on everything. After being here and at Dauchau (the concentration camp) I cant help but wonder how people who feel believe they have a connection with the dead (like ghost whisperers) feel when they are in places like this. I suppose it would be a true test of their skills. Now I know that is an absurd thought, but it keeps popping into my head.

After the Anne Frank House we wanted to go to the top of The Old Church, which is located in the center of the red light district, because we were told that you can get some great pictures from the top. In addition, its just a cool thought that something as pure as a church is surrounded by so much sin. When we got to the church we were informed that we could not go to the top because now that it was October, access to it was closed…another bummer. During out walks, we kept passing the most beautiful flower stands that sold gorgeous fresh flowers. Im not sure where they were coming from in the nasty fall whether, but they were breath taking and smelled so good. Holland happens to be famous for their tulips.

Right then it started raining so we quickly ducked into a random “coffee shop” to get out of the rain and warm up a bit. By the way, this was our first encounter with nasty weather. Please keep your fingers crossed for better weather during the rest of our travels. I don’t understand why don’t just come out and say weed shop, but oh well. Katherine and I are both trying to find jobs when we get back to the states so we did not partake in any of the wild activities in hopes that our good behavior will be rewarded with a passing drug test soon. So needless to say we just ordered coffee, which ended up being ridiculously expensive (4 euro per cup). The coffee shop was a cute little place right across from the church. I found it extremely interesting that you could only smoke marijuana there, not tobacco, and you couldn’t drink alcohol either.

Right outside the coffee shop was a sing that literally said urinal on it and was directing towards a urinal station. I found this to be extremely entertaining and disgusting at the same time, since it was in the red light district and god knows what happens there at night. I also found it amusing that the only place I saw swans in the canals were in the red light district. Seeing this neighborhood during the day was a little less intense than at night. To be honest, I was a little surprised to see the girls still in the windows during the day, but I guess anytime you want it, its available in Amsterdam. Also its kinda weird that there are Asian restaurants everywhere. I’m not sure what the connection is. We also popped into the Hemp College and learned some interesting facts concerning the marijuana plant for free, but forwent the Weed Museum because it was pretty expensive to get into and I just can justify spending money on that just for looksies.

At this point we realized that the modern art museum was also closed due to renovations, another bummer. So we headed back to the hostel to check in, get some business done ( I don’t know if yall have realized this, but we normally check in like this once a day for a little breather) and then get ready for our nightly activities. For our nightly activities we wanted to go to the Heineken Experience, which is a brewery tour. We ended up getting lost on the way there and by the time we arrived at the brewery, we were 10 minutes late. By no means are we getting as turned around as we were in Brussels, but there is still a bit of confusion.

So even though it was still pretty early we decided to figure out dinner plans. I had read that a traditional Dutch dish was called a rice table and wanted to look into seeing exactly what that entailed. Turns out a rice table is pretty much Indonesian tapas, I guess the Dutch brought it back with them after then occupies Indonesia, but Im not really sure about that. since it was early, we were hungry, and it looked interesting enough to try out. We got an early bird special on a rice table dinner. It ended up being delicious and I am extremely glad we did it. After not trying the waterzooi in Brussels, it made me feel a lot better about keeping on my trying native foods agenda.

I forgot to mention earlier, but Katherine has come down with a terrible sinus cold, that peaked in the middle of dinner. I felt terrible for her. We walked back to the hostel, which helped clear her sinuses a bit and made her feel better for the time being and then called it an early night, which was good because it allowed me to do some research on cooking schools. I know we didn’t get too crazy right in Amsterdam and that is not normally the usual way people my age visit the city, but it really didn’t make sense to. We both felt sickness coming on, might be having to take drug tests in the near future, and with out schedule we have no time or business having such a wild night that it puts us out of commission the next day so that we cant do everything we want to. In addition to all of that, I have a feeling I will be coming back to this incredible city, so maybe I can live it up in the party sense then.

We passed a grocery store on the way back to the hostel and popped in to see if we could get Katherine any medicine. Turns out only pharmacies sell any kind of medicine in Amsterdam, but Im glad I got to see the inside of a foreign grocery store. It was quite bizarre. Everything was in a foreign language and some products it was hard to determine what they even were. At one point I was looking at artificial sugar thinking that maybe it could be cold medicine.

Both the stairs at the Anne Frank House and the hostel are extremely steep. It made the museum extremely inaccessible for physically handicapped people and Im sure one too many incredibly messed up people have fallen down (or up them for that matter) at the hostel.