Amsterdam Days 1-3

Two quick housekeeping notes before I write my love letter to Amsterdam. First of all, apologies to my avid reader(s) (hi mom!) for the lack of entries of late, as much as I enjoy writing these and reflecting on my travels, sometimes it feels too much like a homework assignment after I’ve been out walking entirely around a city all day. I will try to keep much more up to date over the last two weeks. Secondly, for my more attentive reader(s) (hi mom!) you may notice that I have less posts up than days I’ve actually been adventuring - I’ve skipped a few travel days where not much of interest happened other than sitting on a train and sweating out 7 minute transfer windows ect. Additionally, I’ve decided that for Amsterdam I am going to combine all 3 of my days there into one long post. We did (Yes, I had company in Amsterdam!) a lot during our weekend here, but the more I thought about how to tell the story, the more it made sense to do it in one breath instead of 3.

Anyways, on to the exciting stuff. I left Prague via my longest train trip yet - in retrospect, I really should have flown, but I paid for that EURail pass, ya know? (For future travelers, unless you qualify for the student EURail pass, I may recommend just buying your tickets as you go - its just as flexible, and if you find flying is easier/faster/cheaper, you won’t feel obligated to train. Although, I do love traveling by train, its 100% more comfortable than flying). I was on 11 hours of trains, and had transfer windows of 7 minutes in Berlin, and 12 minutes in Hannover that I was sweating bullets about making, but I made it! Everywhere I had been in Europe so far was pretty lax about public transportation in regards to hopping on and off, and I had only been checked for a ticket once during my nearly 2 weeks of running around on trams and busses (I always had a ticket though). When I got off my train in Amsterdam, it was not only about 11:30PM, so there were hardly any people working at the station, but they require you to both scan yourself in and out of the station - which my EURail pass was not valid for. I spent the next 20 minutes walking around in circles trying to figure out how to get out of the train station. I finally found an automated info booth that had a call feature, and someone let me out of my cage. All that to say, it was well after midnight when I was able to meet up with my niece at the hotel.

Day 1

The next day we set out to do the two things we knew we couldn’t go to Amsterdam and not at least say we tried - The Anne Frank House and the Van Gogh museum. Unfortunately the Anne Frank house was completely booked, but as interesting as that would have been, a little bit of a downer for what we were in the mood for. The Van Gogh museum was anything but a downer. I like museums a lot, but sometimes they can feel more like an obligation than a genuine pleasure if not done well - the Van Gogh Museum was anything but an obligation. The main exhibit of the museum is on several floors and as you ascend higher you go later into Van Gogh’s life, and while the museum is very much centered on Van Gogh and his works, they also have several places where they display artists that influenced Van Gogh, as well as his own versions of their styles. This part was fascinating to me - I had no idea that Van Gogh had done several Japanese style works, ect. One of our favorites was a modern artist that did sculptures out of old car parts, that in a vacuum I never would have recognized as inspired by Van Gogh and impressionism, but in that setting, its all I could see. Downstairs they had an “Into the Mind” exhibit which was a visual experience turning Van Gogh’s works into larger than life installations with light, projections, sound, ect. Tati liked this part so much we went through twice.

After Van Gogh, and still in an art museum state of mind, we stopped by at a museum next door that was showcasing modern (street) art, and had a Banksy exhibit being heavily advertised. I’m still not sure how to feel about this place, for starters, I’m not sure street art is really my aesthetic, and beyond that, paying money to see art that the artists never intended to have in a gallery/museum like this was a little off putting. All that being said, there were some pretty cool pieces.

As fun as our day of being sophisticated art critics was, the real fun came at night. Next to our hotel, Tati had done an excellent job scouting out an “All You Can Eat” Sushi joint, so we decided to give it a shot. The deal was this: for a fixed (and reasonable) price, each person got to order 4 dishes every 10 minutes via a tablet for two hours. If at the end of two hours you still had food left over, the restaurant reserved the right to charge you a surcharge for whatever was left on your table at the end of 2 hours (to discourage over ordering). We turned this into a strategic game, and while the sushi wasn’t the best in the world, we had a blast trying to get through as many dishes as possible before we both bowed out around the hour thirty mark.

Day 2

Honestly, having gone nearly two weeks by myself, it was weird having a companion at all, and to be meeting up with another friend, and his group of friends was a well deserved break from my solitary sabbatical. The plan for the day was to head out to Haarlem, essentially a suburb of Amsterdam, for a Christmas Market and a beer festival at a local brewer. I didn’t capture a ton of pictures this day as we were fairly busy and packed into a crowded tent drinking beer, but needless to say it was a ton of fun. The Christmas Market in Haarlem was huge, the biggest I had seen so far on my trek (and I’ve made a habit of going to one in every city I’ve visited), and had a live band all dressed up and about 1000 different tents set up for Gluhwein (Mulled Wine), sugary treats and christmassy knickknacks. The beer festival was a blast, and it was fun to enjoy a bunch of different beers from across Amsterdam and Europe and take in a bit of a more local scene than I had been able to absorb previously. Liam and his friends were wonderful hosts, could not be more grateful that they allowed us to tag along.

Day 3

Unfortunately, I had to bid goodbye to Tati today, so we walked to grab lunch and then meandered down to Amsterdam Centraal to get her on a train to the airport. Afterwards, I just started walking. That has honestly been the favorite parts of my adventure so far, when I just pick a direction and go - I see all sorts of interesting things, most of which are too mundane to describe here, but fascinating in the moment, and just relishing in being able to take it all in. As the sun started to set, I knew that I needed to at least take a pass through the Red Light District, just to say I had done it. Boy, that is a hell of an experience. I’ve been to Vegas a number of times, and I grew up in the age of desensitization, so I wasn’t expecting to be totally blown away, but the Red Light District is very different from anything I’ve experienced before. I am very glad I went, but I can’t imagine its a place I’d spend a lot of time on future trips. I think that’s a good segue to mention how much I admire how the Dutch view public health - obviously the first things you think of when someone mentions Amsterdam are the Red Light District and the coffeeshops - and while those are definitely very visible parts of Amsterdam, they no more invade daily life in Amsterdam as dispensaries do in Denver, or really any other vice in any other city in the world. The Dutch view both drugs and prostitution, not as criminal issues, but as health issues, and as such believe that by regulating rather than prohibiting, they can better care for their citizens that do choose to participate in those activities. It’s an extremely refreshing take coming from a country whose jails are stuffed with decades of pot convictions while alcohol use is romanticized. Let me also say that Amsterdam is one of the cleanest cities I’ve ever visited, despite the legal vices around every corner. It is a truly special place, and one that I will definitely be returning to.