Amsterdam mam

Amsterdam

I’m going to try and keep it simple and just try to talk about Amsterdam in this blog, as that will probably take me long enough.

Friday, after our culture class test, a group of just over ten of us, grabbed some food and headed onto the 6ish hour train ride. If all went to plan we would get in at around ten or eleven o’clock. Everything was fine until we found ourselves stranded in Koln (Cologne) because our train was late and we missed our connection. This obviously wasn’t good news, but to make matters worse, we were possibly going to have to sleep in the Koln train station once again (the other time was after Karnival, and that wasn’t exactly the most comfortable experience). After talking at the train info station, a girl from our group organized it so that instead of taking one high speed train straight to Amsterdam, we would take 4 regional trains to eventually get us there at one or two in the morning (I can’t remember, and quite possibly don’t want to!). We chose that as it meant we would be able to sleep in a bed that night.


After we finally got in, took the 45min bus ride, we arrived at our “camping hostel”. Our accommodations were not much more then a mid sized open room “cabin” with 8 beds in it. It wasn’t exactly a bad hostel, as it was simple and clean, but was what I would consider the “ryanair” version of hostels. Meaning nothing was included other then the bed you were sleeping on. Linens, showers and even heating for the “cabin” were all extra. I was fine with all of this, the only thing that sucked about it was the 45 min bus ride in/out to Central Amsterdam. We didn’t have that much of a choice though, as this 12 euro hostel was far cheaper then the 30+euro hostels in town (perhaps because of our late booking).


4 people out of our group ended up going to the “State of Trance 500” festival, which sounded like a pretty crazy night including extremely loud trance music and a crazy light show setup. The rest of us decided to spend our time around Amsterdam.
We went to the Heineken Factory/museum the first day, which was a ton of fun. I was a little skeptical at first, but it had some history of the company, a bunch of cool pieces on how the beer is made, what it tastes like at certain steps, a tasting/lesson on how to drink beer and finally a bar at the end where you can enjoy some beers. Everything was super interactive, from the historical exhibits to the bar at the end. Definitely a must-do in Amsterdam (according to me, but I may enjoy beer slightly more then the average person… or much more).


Then we spent a good amount of time walking the city, parks, and by the canals. The canals will continue to amaze you. Whether it is the boats you see driving through, how big/small some are, or the types of “permanent boats” parked on it (Such as a DHL office, or a little museum). The uniqueness of the city definitely does not stop there though. Many other things are very catchy to the eye : public open-air urinals, sex-shops, coffee shops or the copious amount of bicycles/bicycling in the city. I read that 40% traffic there is by bicycle. Something that does not surprise me, there are bike paths/ racks/ stores/ bikers absolutely everywhere. This is one of the things that made me think of how awesome it would be to study here for a semester.
As the night progressed, we did such educational activities as: hang out in the red light district, visit a sex museum and frequent some drinking establishments. Quite a successful night.

Next morning, we got off to a semi-late start (I must clarify that this was not due to the use of the Mexican time system, but a consequence of tardiness). We bussed into town and jumped off at the Anne Frank House museum. I’m guessing whoever is reading this (if anyone) knows the whole story behind her, but I will assume otherwise. She kept a journal recording her time during WWII where her and family stayed in hiding above her father’s “former-factory” and a considerably small “attic” for several years. We got to tour the actual factory/hiding area, which was shockingly small and almost surreal. Another thing I would definitely recommend.

Then two friends (Alex and Brianna) and I went and rented some bikes and the others did their thing. The bikes were “dutch-style”, meaning they have a back-pedal break. None of us really had any problems, but I could see those used to a handbrake getting into an accident of two. Biking was awesome, as the city is possibly easier to navigate by bike then by car. You get used to using your bells often and following the bike paths that are splitting and merging in every direction. We went by the museum-square, which has the Van Gogh museum (plus many others), a huge park and the famous “ I AMsterdam” sign. After that, we biked almost mindlessly to whichever way we pleased or if we saw something of interest in the distant. After a while, we may have gotten lost (which I am not fully ready to admit to yet) and ended up at some gigantic windmill. After asking around, we were back on track and towards the central station. We stopped by the “nemo museum of science” which looks like a giant ship that is slowly sinking into the water at one end, with the other sticking up.

After meeting up with our other friends, we hung out Dam-square, walked through some shopping streets, and then grabbed some beverages for our Canal boat tour. We initially were planning on taking a cocktail cruise that included 2 hours of free drinks… looking back, maybe it for the best that that one didn’t work out. The boat tour was pretty interesting, with the guide being a recorded description of whatever we were passing in like 5-6 different languages. This gave me several attempts to hear about whatever we were passing, although I still found other distractions to keep me from hearing all of it. It was pretty cool to see it all lit up at night, and was a nice location to enjoy a few more Heinekens from. Afterwards, we walked around the city/red light district and enjoyed some more beverages on our night out.

Although Amsterdam is known for a pretty big party-scene, which it does have, I should probably include the fact that there is far more to do then just that when in the city. Although not exactly the same as Venice, both are cities filled with canals. As cool as Venice is for the first half-day, I would have to say Amsterdam is equally as interesting, but has much else to do to keep you busy for however long you’d like.
The rest of the group left the next morning at 5am, while I stayed till 4 pm because I had no lecture that day. They woke me briefly before leaving, but I couldn’t find it in myself to put anything as a higher priority then sleeping. Therefore, next morning I woke to an empty cabin. I checked out early and was in town before 11. I’m not exactly sure why, I’m guessing the fact that I was alone helped, but all the bus drivers on the way in pretty much just told me to jump in when I tried to pay. This was a pleasant start to the day. After eating in town, I picked up my bike from the day before and just started biking around town. Once again, really without a destination, I spent a solid three hours just biking in any direction that looked appealing. After finding a nice park in Harlem (outskirt district of Amsterdam), I laid down, got my burn on and enjoyed the sun. The day passed really quickly biking around. I’m sure I missed quite a few details and events, but we’ll just have to settle for this. Another cool thing (I’ll try to attach a picture) was the bike-parkade at the train station. Literally three levels, all packed with bikes, and more surrounding the area wherever a spot could be found.

I think that is all for now… If I remember anything else, I’ll make a half-hearted effort to post it on here. Now I will be in Marburg for another 24 hrs then off to Cologne, to slept in the god-forsaken train station, then fly to Vienna for the weekend. After that, I plan on staying in Marburg for a few days for class, then back on the road, where I will bus to/from Prague to meet with my younger brother David (Dirty D). After that I am looking forward to a weekend “off” and will possibly see my Dad, who will be in Frankfurt for a conference, the next weekend. I’m still looking to go to Munich, Istanbul and a bunch of other places, but we’ll see how much of that becomes a reality.

As a thank-you to Christina for letting me steal her pictures, I agreed to say that she is the greatest person in the world. Whether I truly agree with that is another story… and I’m getting tired of writing.

Ciao!