Brace yourselves, this is going to be a long one – I just got back from my two day excursion to Amsterdam (after only a one layover in Madrid from Greece). It’s a crazy city, and even though we were only there for two days, I’m pretty sure I experienced everything Amsterdam had to offer and then some. Two days was more than enough and I don’t think my body could take any more. It’s the most tired I’ve been after a weekend trip.
For a city that’s not that cosmetically appealing, I think I can say that it has been one of my favorite cities so far. It’s a canal city, which overall is pretty sweet, although I had a love/ hate view of them. They’re ridiculously dirty, and they’re filled with run down boats that looked like they haven’t been touched in twenty years, but at the same time, there’s a ton of decked out house boats lining the banks and seeing canals in the middle of the city in general is pretty cool.
I’ve never seen so many bikes in my entire life, I kid you not. There are bike racks literally on every street corner, and at busy points they have multi layered bike rack/ parking garages for bikes only. The bike lanes on the road are bigger than those for cars. Just like some of the boats in the canals, I’m pretty sure some of the bikes on the racks haven’t been touched in a few years either – some are rusted beyond repair.
Now onto what everyone wants to hear about - the coffee houses. Pretty crazy stuff. Even if you don’t plan on taking advantage of any of the amenities yourself, it’s still cool just to watch people nonchalantly buy drugs over the counter that are illegal in the US.
In actuality, there are probably plenty of things to do in Amsterdam, but all we really cared about was the Heineken factory, the Red-light district, the Van Gogh Museum, and the Anne Frank House. So first on the list was the Heineken factory, which actually turned out to be more of a museum. It was run by guys about my age, who didn’t exactly seem like experts, but the museum itself is sick and you get two free pints of beer at the end.
Before the Heineken factory, we got some Doner kebabs for lunch. They seem to have those in every European city, which is good for us because we’re addicted at this point. Gotta love street meat.
We did a lot of walking around that afternoon, and that night, we hopped over to the Red-light district. Talk about crazy, I have never seen anything like it. It’s just straight up neon lights, fast food joints, euro rave bars, and any form of erotic entertainment you could possibly think of. I’ll leave it at that for now, if anyone wants to know more, send me a message.
There are these fast food bar type restaurants where they sell fries in a paper cone. Best thing ever.
We hit up the Van Gogh Museum and Anne Frank House Sunday morning. As for Van Gogh - I could appreciate it for what it was – he does actually have some pretty cool paintings. If you are into Van Gogh or know anything about art, you’d be in heaven.
Then we went to the Anne Frank House, the line was probably a mile long, but luckily I bought my ticket online so got to go right to the front. It was amazing to see where Anne Frank's family lived during the holocaust and you could tell it was hard for some people to walk through the house, some people were VERY emotional. It was very powerful. The house had original bookcases, wall paper, flooring, staircases, blackout curtains and bathroom fixtures and you really see how they lived. You could feel the stuffy presence left behind from the 8 who lived there. This is something everyone should see. To say that the rooms are haunting would be an understatement. If you are one of those people who tend to believe in ghosts, like me, there were plenty of 'cold spots' in the whole house, but especially in the upstairs living quarters. I don't understand how some can call it boring, considering the well-documented history contained within the walls.
I have read Anne Frank's diary many times for school, so I really appreciated seeing the annex. It was just how I pictured it and I enjoyed seeing some original pages from the diary. One of the last rooms you enter has Anne's actual diary in a glass case with a single light above shining down on an open page. To see her handwriting on those pages brought it all home for me.
Anyways, we flew home Sunday morning, and that was the weekend. Can’t say I’m in any rush to go back right this second, but if the opportunity did come up at some point in the future, I’d go in a heartbeat.
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