5/20/13
So, 3 days in Amsterdam, what a whirlwind! Most of my time, I walked around the entire city. 15 miles for the countryside bike tour, and 15 or so miles walking. Lots of photos to come!
PS- don't judge me on the grammar for this one
Day 1: I got to Amsterdam by train at 10am, after waking up at 3am in Bonn, and immediately I set out to have some fun as soon as I dropped my backpack off at the hotel. The hotel was in the perfect spot behind the palace and dam square (near the Jordan district). First stop, a little shopping by the hotel. Only I could accidentally find a bead shop along the way! That and a designer sale where I got a cute shirt.... enough about the shopping expedition... onto the real first stop- the canal ride. I went with the tour company
Rederij
Kooij (
http://www.rederijkooij.nl/en/) - which is at the main jetty at Rokin (near Spui), and this company has been running since
1922. I was next to a Canadian couple and some Israelis guys for this trip. This hour long tour gave me an overview of the city from the water, pointing out the cool architecture, designs, locations, etc of the city. It also gave a lot of history, such as why Amsterdam is called Amsterdam. Amsterdam is called that because the Dutch are very literal. The Amstel river is what the city was built on/around, they dammed the river- ergo Amsterdam. This is also where the beer company gets it's name. Some of the cool architecture features of the houses include the designs of the canal house each have a different top design at the facade front. Other includes a lower, under the front stairs doors for the help. Yes, the canal houses do lean quite a bit, it isn't your imagination, and this is because they are on stilts in the ground. They only move small distances at a time. Vondel park however, sinks ~3cm each year from all the visitors! The homes also all have hooks at the top of their roofs, this is because the stairs really are so steep and narrow, that the only way to get furniture in or out is to go through the windows. We also went into the harbor and saw the EYE Museum which is the film museum, and the science museum which looks like the bow of a huge ship. This was a perfect first stop. After my tour, I went east, and landed in the red light district by accident. I stumbled into one of the design shops/funky in the heart of the area, yes I do mean design shop called Megalodon, pun probably intended, the shop has a huge cast of a shark jaw, think Megaladon on the main wall, where I picked up two coat hooks with a white knob with bicycles on them. The owner, a Brit, recommended a Thai canteen called 'The Bird' in nearby Chinatown for lunch. This is a small little place compared to the full sized restaurant with the same name across the street. The only spot available was a 4 person table, so I took it. A short time later two girls came in and looked disappointed when there were no available spots, but I waived them over saying that I wouldn't mind sharing if they didn't. One's name was Sophie, the other I can't remember. Sophie lived in Amsterdam for the past 10 years, however is from the States originally, her friend was from Jakarta and they went to university together. They both commented how everyone in Amsterdam only wore black, white, and grey essentially matching the color of the sky there all the time. After lunch, I meandered some more, bought a Giclee print from a local artist (aka another American turned Dutch for 30 years). I kept wandering, eventually getting to Rembrandt Square for the first time of the weekend. I had food at an Indonesian restaurant on the square, but I was not a fan of it at all. That was it for the day for me!
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| Slave ship design to the bridge pilar in memory of the East and West India Trading companies |
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| 6 (or was it 7?) canal bridges in series |
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| Old brewery warehouses, big (left) and small (right) |
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| Mint Tower |
Day 2: So this morning I started off early ~8:30am. As I was leaving the hotel, a woman in her early 30s from Morocco and also traveling alone was leaving. She wanted to see the canal tour so, I took her over there, however the tours didn't start til 10. So we meandered around, the red light district is completely different during the day, particularly in the morning when no one else is awake yet. We headed towards Chinatown and came across a random market, and I got some beautiful post cards and took some funny photos.
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| It doesn't look like it, but the sun just made a brief appearance |
Next up was to head back to Spui after leaving my companion to her canal tour. I came across a lost father and son from the US there for a day, and took them along as I got art in Spui Square, and then left them at Rembrandt Square where they could more easily get to the Heineken factory tour. I continued onto my original daytime destination of a countryside bike tour from Mike's Bike Tours (
http://www.mikesbiketoursamsterdam.com/countryside-bike-tour/). I managed to get lost a few times along the way to finding the shop, but the locals were good sports in getting me in the right direction, and I got there just in time. Also just in time, the sun started to come out, and it was expected to be the warmest day of the year thus far- 19C (that's 66F for the rest of you)! Every bike had a different name, somehow I got 'lucky' and drew 'Hannah Montana'. Someone has a sick sense of humor. My tour guide was Karl with a 'K'. I get the crazy sense from all the bike tour guides for the bike tours that I been on, that they are just there for a season or two before moving on. Always wandering, and a little bit odd, but enough to pull it off as a tour guide. We biked on the dam along the river Amstel for quite a long time. Eventually we stopped at one of the few remaining windmills in Holland. After that we continued on to a local farm that made wooden shoes and Gouda cheese (repeat after me- Gow da- that's how it's pronounced in Germany and the Netherlands). We were shown how the cheese is made, and how wooden shoes are made and the different occasions/types there were. I bought a small wheel of non-pasteurized Gouda with pepper spices in it.... yummy, and also some smoke Gouda. Next up we went to the lowlands outside Amsterdam which is 15 feet(?) below sea level, eventually going back up into the city, through Vondel Park (traffic jam of all the people). One of the funnest parts was the group of us took over a round-a-bout because cars and trams yield to bikes, and so both had to wait as all 11 of us passed. I had a late lunch at the sandwich shop on the corner from the bike shop.
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| One of the few remaining windmills |
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| Homemade Gouda |
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| Wooden shoes |
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| Countryside lowlands |
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| Hannah |
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| Self portrait right before Vondel Park |
Next stop was the Anne Frank House. I should've gotten tickets a week prior, but I didn't think that I would get a chance to go. So I had to wait in line for an hour and talked with a British family while waiting. There was some kid playing the clarinet in front of us, and people were paying him to stop he was that bad, but he refused.
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| Anne Frank House |
Otto Frank made an interesting decision when the museum was established. They created a model of how the attic looked and was arranged, but he didn't want any regular furniture etc put back in as a representation of how the place looked. He wanted everyone to remember those who were lost. In the house, there's a guided path going through, showing the warehouse, the offices, and eventually leads to the bookcase that hid the entrance to the attic staircase. Climbing the stairs to the attic makes me appreciate my death trap staircases in my flat even more, these ones were very, very steep. I have to say, for the space that I was imagining, they had more room than I thought, but that many people being trapped especially during the day, not being able to move, is saddening. I would probably go mad. It is unlike anything else. The tour continues on, showing the documents bringing the Franks to concentration camps, and then in the next room, to Anne's diaries and pages of stories. Back down on the bottom floor is an area showing more photos of Anne's life. There is also a room that has various social scenarios, and asks people to make a yes/no decision on topics that they address. Overall a very sobering experience, as it was meant to be.
Upon exiting the building and taking a picture of the outside (no pictures allowed on the inside), I met a Texan family who were debating whether or not to go into the Anne Frank House. I told them about the hour wait, and they were bummed out, but were ready to explore the city. I said I would show them where Dam Square and the Palace were, but I ended up taking them further to the red light district as well, where they were going to visit after the square (nightfall was beginning, and I didn't want to go to the RLD after dark alone, but this was a good opportunity to go at night). We were all a bit hungry, so I suggested that they go to the Thai place I went to the day before, and they invited me along. It was fun being around them, and I was in an interesting position of being a tour guide of sorts from all that I had researched about Amsterdam. Two were just in for the day (father and sister-in-law) and the other two (mother-daughter) were in town for a few days and then were going off to Barcelona. They were all happy to hit the places that they wanted and get fed well too. I could say that I met some interesting people, had some good conversation, and could finally say that I was out past 10pm in Amsterdam.
Day 3: So today was another early start. I managed to go to Dam Square while almost no one was there yet. The goals of the day were the flower market and the newly re-opened Rijksmuseum. Little did I know that I had passed the flower market multiple times, and was just a stand where you could buy tulip bulbs, I was bummed out that it wasn't a true flower market like I thought.
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| Palace on Dam Square |
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| Dam Statue on the Square |
On the way to the Rijksmuseum, I stopped again at Rembrandt Square to try to get a picture of the statues there (there are always people around them), and scored a cool photo. The rest of the area was deserted, so I was able to take some amazing canal photos along my trek.
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| Rembrandt Square |
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| Rijksmuseum |
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| Rijksmuseum |
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| Rijksmuseum |
The Rijksmuseum is massive (although not as big as the Louvre). It took 10 years to restore, and 400 million Euros. Later someone told me the predecessor museum curator had everything painted white, so it took years to return all the murals etc to it's previous form. The museum had many pieces, things you find in an art history text book, which was cool to see in person. The pieces covered the span of the Middle Ages to modern times. Special exhibits included one with ship models, women's clothing from the 1800s, miniature silver figurines, old instruments, old glassware, and jewelry. The museum itself is dizzying in it's layout though. I found myself backtracking all along the way. After spending several hours in the museum, I re-emerged, and saw massive lines waiting to get in. I left to discover it was raining, I ducked into a sandwich shop for lunch and sat with a few locals, born and raised, who were in their late 60s- early 70s. They told me some more about the museum, and they said if I could, that I had to go to the newly re-opened Van Gogh Museum.
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| Van Gogh |
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| Rembrandt |
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| Old ship models at the Rijksmuseum |
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| Airplane at the Rijksmuseum |
So standing in line in the rain (small miracles, I had my umbrella), I managed to score the last ticket for the 3pm entry. Talk about luck, 5pm I wouldn't be able to do because I would have to head towards the train station. To kill the hour between 2 and 3, I went to a restaurant to get a pankoken and some hot chocolate. I was seated next to a retired American couple who just arrived from London, they were going to stay a few days in Amsterdam before heading to France to go to the tennis open. We chatted for a while waiting endlessly for our orders. The restaurant was called 'Small Talk' next to the museums, and the service and food isn't worth mentioning. I wouldn't recommend going there myself, there are better places to spend your money. Going into the Van Gogh, I was amazed by the compilations of works. It clearly shows his development as an artist, and several of my favorite pieces were produced towards the end of his life. There was also a 15 minute video describing his life and the creation of the museum. I was glad that I was able to go, even as this was not originally on my 'must-see' list of Amsterdam. From there, I trekked back to my hotel, retrieved my backpack and bag, and headed to the Central Station. I had first class tickets for the train (it was only 2 Euro more this time- so why not?), and there was a lounge for international first class passengers- score! I landed back in my flat in Bonn around 10:30pm.... time to recoup for the next trip.
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| Van Gogh |
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| Van Gogh |
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| Van Gogh |
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| Van Gogh |
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| Van Gogh |
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| Van Gogh |
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| Van Gogh |
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| Van Gogh |
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| Van Gogh |
