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Published: January 11th 2009
Saturday, 20th December. Two weeks of grueling work accompanied by a bit of fun in Cologne finally came to an end and began a week of a much needed vacation.
It was a mad rush early in the morning. After having a quick breakfast with Jonathan before he left to catch his flight back to South Africa, I had approximately 2 hours before my train to Amsterdam, Netherlands. Still had to do a final check of my luggage and most importantly I had to return the car to the rental agency which was at the station. Thankfully the Köln Hauptbahnhof was 5 minutes from the Marriott.
An hour and a half later I parked the car at the allotted spot, returned the keys to the rental car and made a dash to the platform with the suitcases. I suddenly realized that the first class compartment was at the other end of the ICE train. Again I had to make a crazy sprint with the 2 suitcases and carry-on baggage along the platform weaving through the throngs of people. Whew, made it just in time and the train started chugging away to reach a speed of about 300 km/hr towards Amsterdam.
The 3 hr journey to Amsterdam whizzed by again. The scenery along the way was breathtaking. The landscapes were green with patches of snow here and there and a lot of sheep grazing in the fields. I just can’t imagine how beautiful it might be in the summers. Upon reaching Amsterdam Central, the main station of Amsterdam I had to take another train to Hilversum where I were staying, Hilversum is a small town about 30 minutes by train from Amsterdam.
I was greeted by Chandnididi at the Hilversum station. Chandnididi is my buddy, Santy’s sister. She had two amazing kids, Niral and Neha. I spent Saturday evening relaxing at home chatting with everyone and playing Uno with Neha and Niral.
The next morning being Sunday, I kinda lazed and had a brunch before venturing out to see Amsterdam.
First let me give you some brief info about Amsterdam.
Amsterdam is more like a small packaged city with a class of it own. It has a plethora of museums including Van Gogh and Rembrandt, famous attractions like the Royal Palace and Anne Frank’s house, beautiful canals running throughout the city, houseboats, loads of bikes (cycles) with an equal
proportion of bikes to the population, famous gouda cheese, birthplace of Heineken beer, and scrumptious mouthwatering Dutch food like the Poffertjes, Waffles, Frits, Oliebollens and my favorite Appelbeignets.
Even though Amsterdam has all these things, probably the top two characteristics associated with Amsterdam across the world is
legal prostitution at the infamous Red Light district and the
cannabis coffee shops selling legalized weed like Marijuana and Hashish. You can't venture far without smelling the aroma of burning marijuana from one of the many smoking coffee shops.
I will tell you more about Amsterdam as we proceed.
After having a heavy brunch, I set off to explore Amsterdam. First thing I did after getting the train from Hilversum to Amsterdam Central station is head to the Information Center. After reviewing the material I received at the Information Center, I kinda decided to just walk around for the rest of the day and get a feel of the city and leave the touristy thing for the next day onwards.
Hence I was off …………………..
One thing I wasn’t worried was the language barrier as the Dutch speak excellent English so I started the city exploration confidently by walking down
the Damrak, the main street and SLAM, THUD. At the first pedestrian light, a Dutchman on a bicycle came out of nowhere and crashed into me and I went plummeting into another pedestrian. No sooner had I recovered from that spill, another bicycle went whizzing by muttering some curses in Dutch (I think the curse part is spoken in Dutch). That was the first thing I realized, that a pedestrian's right of way comes after trams, cars, and more importantly bikes. Sheesh, what a start…
At least I learnt my lesson and I stopped at every street crossing to make sure that NOTHING was coming either way esp. bikes.
As I walked through this wonderful city without any more bike incidents, whew…, I came across a lot of beautiful and historic places like the Royal Palace at the Dam Square, a history museum and some old churches. I passed one amazing shop which made me stop and stare in awe. The shop ceiling was converted into a grazing field look with life size models of cows grazing and relaxing… lol.. It was totally kewl and innovative. I had just finished gawking that i came across a Vodka museum. Gawk
Gawk (again). The display in the museum shop had liquor filled in every kinda of glassy things like horse and a carriage etc etc…. Too bad I don’t drink else would have definitely bought something like that.
Along the exploration spurs, I passed a lot of "coffee shops". Although I am not a coffeee drinker, i did wanna stop and have some coffee but all the "coffee shops" looked shady and sleazy so I just carried on. I peeped into one of the coffee shops. It was a typical Hokka bar setting with Hokkas lined up and big plushy pillows. I thought what kind of a coffee places are these. It was only until later I came to know what the "coffee shops" are about. It is where one can purchase weed and smoke your own for the cost of a cup of tea. That is why as I walked through these streets the aroma of burning marijuana tantalized the senses.
The winter chill had started to settle in as I walked towards Rembrandtplein (Rembrandt Square). After taking a few photos of the statue of Rembrandt, I spied a small shop selling Oliebollens and Appelbeignets. I tried one of the Appelbeignets (Dutch Apple Fritters) and immediately fell in love with this scrumptious Dutch Christmas specialty. I must have gone back to have the Appelbeignets about 5 times during my 3 day stay in Amsterdam.
Once refueled, I kinda thought of exploring a bit more but since it had started getting really cold and the dusk had set in, I decided it was time to make way back to Amsterdam Central station. So as I walked back I came to Chinatown. Its only 2 blocks of stores and foodie places. Off course nothing compared to the huge expanse of the Chinatown in New York but it was a nice place. As I crossed Chinatown and turned around the next corner, I accidentally found myself in the infamous Red Light District. The Red Light District is HUGE about 4 blocks mostly alongside the banks of the canal with little red lamps at the street corners. The canal banks were lined with porno shops, strip joints and prostitute windows. The ladies sit in a big bay window, with seductive neon lighting in the windows which make the effect even more tantalizing. There were girls just hanging out, girls 
House in Marken
Notice the replica of the house in the bottom left corner
My stomach had started rumbling again. So I stopped in a coffee shop oopps… I mean a café to have coffee and then headed back to Hilversum.
The next morning, I got up bright and early as I had to catch a tour bus to visit the cheese factory and see the Windmills.
The tour bus was pretty full. It had a mix of Spanish, French and Chinese speaking people, so the guide first spoke in English and then repeated herself in French and Spanish. I felt sorry for the Chinese folks who didn’t have a translator.
But the Chinese were busy snapping away taking zillions of photos and a non stop video of the whole trip including recording every thing the guide said. Hmmmmmmmmm I wonder why ???
The first stop (for 15 minutes) was in a small town of Marken which is a small island connected with the mainland by a rather long dike. The houses in Marken are quite quaint and traditional.
After Marken, the bus took the group to another fishing village called Volendam. After passing through a maze of little streets, our group reached the pier. This was a very touristy area. We were shown a short movie about Holland and how they reclaim land with dikes and ditches. Later we had about 1/2 hour to ourselves to shopping and eat. I also saw a couple of residents wearing traditional garb with women wearing high pointed bonnets and voluminous black dresses. It is like a view of the past. One of the delicacies of Volendam is eel but I refrained from tasting it. After buying some Delft ceramic I headed towards Zaanse Schans. Delft pottery is blue and white painted ceramic that comes from the city of Delft. The delftware ceramics are extremely popular and can be seen everywhere in Netherlands.
At Zaanse Schans, I saw lots of windmills, tasted unbelievably good Dutch cheese and saw how the wooden clogs were made. According to the guide book each windmill had a specific purpose like making oil, sawing wood, grinding corn or mustard. Unfortunately due to lack of time I couldn’t go inside any of the windmills to see them in action.
The demonstration of making the wooden shoes or klompen in Dutch was pretty nice. The clog maker showed how wooden shoes were made out of poplar wood and told the tour group the uses of wooden shoes which were primarily to protect the feet of agricultural workers from mud and water and from injury by the sharp tools used in the field.
But the highlight of the trip was when I went to the cheese factory where there was a demonstration of how Edam Cheese is made. There were also samples of various types of Edam and Gouda cheese which I ate to my hearts content. Yum yum.
After 5 hours of a trip to the lovely Dutch lands, the tour bus returned to Amsterdam.
Since I had only a few hours before heading back home, I hastened back to the information center and bought an ‘I amsterdam’ card with a 24 hr validity for 33 Euros. Personally I think it’s the best thing one should buy if you want to see Amsterdam.
The ‘I amsterdam Card’ package basically consists of a chip-card, a public transport ticket which can be used on the trams or buses, a places of interest guide and gives info for lot of free and discounted offers on major tourist attractions, including most of the museums, and restaurants.
Thankfully the tram station was close by so I hopped onto the tram going towards the Van Gogh museum. It was a unique experience as it was the first time I had been to a museum. The museum contains the largest collection of paintings by Vincent van Gogh. It also had numerous paintings of other impressionist artists and Van Gogh’s contemporaries. I must say I was spellbound at the beauty of many of the paintings including Van Gogh’s world famous self portrait. Spending about more than 3 hours at the museum, I thought it would be good idea to return home.
On Tuesday, the first place I visited was the Rijksmuseum. The Rijksmuseum features a famous collection of works by Rembrandt, Vermeer and Frans Hals as well as a lot of delftware and an extensive collection of cultural historical artifacts. The most impressive painting was the famous "The Nightwatch" by Rembrandt. Wow. It was an exceptional piece of art. Totally AWESOME. I got out of there shortly and headed across to the park where there was gift shop and bought some souvenirs. Outside the gift shop there was a huge "I amsterdam" letters. I clicked a couple of pictures on and around this and made my way towards the Rembrandt House (Rembrandthuis). This was where Rembrandt lived most of his life and painted most of his notable paintings.
According to the guide book “Rembrandt bought the house on the Jodenbreestraat in 1639, when he was at the height of his fame. In 1656 he went bankrupt because he could not pay his debts and everything of value in his house was sold at auction, including a large collection of art and rare objects. It was only until later they were repossessed and the collection as it now stands provides an almost complete overview of Rembrandt’s graphic work: 260 of the 290 etchings he made are represented. The historic interior of Rembrandt’s house was restored to its former glory and furnished with items and works of art from the master’s time”
You can actually feel Rembrandt’s presence while walking around the house especially in the workroom where he printed his etchings, the bedroom where he dwelled, the works of art he collected and, of course, the Rembrandt’s main studio. Another fascinating experience but I had seen enough of museums to last me for a rather long time. I was outta there.
By now I was totally famished and need some grub. Thankfully I had packed a few sandwiches from home which I devoured in no time. Still feeling a bit hungry I decided to get some French fries , I mean Dutch frites. It was unbelievable how long the line was to get these Dutch frites. After waiting in line for 15 mins, I finally bought Dutch fries which were given in cones and a tiny wooden fork to eat them with. I had the fries topped with curry and ketchup. They were hmmmm…. Different. But end of the day they were still fries which are potentially high on cholesterol and lot of trans fat so I wasn’t too keen to have too many of them.
After eating the fries I was off to the canal tour. I thoroughly enjoyed the canal tour. It was so surreal. I got to see a lot of cool arched bridges, colorful houseboats and strange buildings. Apparently most of the buildings in Amsterdam are narrow because there was a time when people were taxed by the width of their house. Weird huh??
The canal tour ended back at Amsterdam Central. It was quite a tiring day so I decided to return to Hilversum and spend some time at home and start packing as I was leaving for Belgium the next day but………….. I couldn’t go without eating my favorite Appelbeignets so off I was back to Rembrandtplein where I had some more Appelbeignets.
Back in Hilversum, I just relaxed, played another round of Uno with Niral and Neha and chatted late into the night.
Wednesday, 24th December, it was time for another journey. A four hour train ride to Brussels, Belgium, the land of waffles and chocolate… Can’t wait to get there…
Brussels here I come...............
Whew, that was one long blog, but there was just so much I had to fit in! Jeez..
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