Amsterdam

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I am doing something extremely organised about this blog for once and am making use of some downtime whilst waiting to head to the airport for our flight to Edinburgh this afternoon. Jay has joined some new made friends and gone out cruising the canals in a “tinny” for a couple of hours. Me, I am suffering from an unsettled stomach from an indulgent night of 2 for 1 drinks and am not quite up to the boat thing, or it may have been to suicide chicken wings that were very hot and spicy and very addictive, either way I am not in the mood to be stuck on a tiny tin boat. So I am sitting in a little cafe not far from our hostel. Outside the window is a family with “Grandma” dressed in what I can only presume is a traditional/antique outfit complete with bonnet on head and the hair in a tight curl around it- tried to see if she was wearing clogs but cannot see her feet from here, very cute, so onto work and my thoughts and my Amsterdam experience.

Well as with most of our journeys it started from the train station and not being able to get hold of a map, so with trusty lonely planet in hand we weave through cobbled streets, past “coffee houses” that don’t serve coffee, a left here and another there and walking over canals we finally found our road. Yep, our road our hostel is aptly named The Heart of Amsterdam. Well the heart of the red light sleaze zone anyway. The walk towards the hotel was an eye opener to say the least. Scantily clad ladies sitting in the window, some quiet attractive and some quite not. The first walk was the worst, after several days you become very immune to the goings on of the street.

We headed out for a stroll and past the window displays of S&M paraphernalia, vibrators, sex toys and anything else you can think of and then more. From there the next street is the coffee house street, as most people are aware marijuana is legal in Amsterdam and you go to the coffee houses to select from a menu what sort of mix you want and how you want to feel. The streets are lined with them with names like Stoner’s Cafe to The Greenhouse.

At one end of this street is the entry into the main square. To keep with the whole theme of what we have seen so far the main monument is a very phallic statue that was built after WWII in memory of those who lost their lives. Across the way is the Town Hall that at the time of building was the biggest in Europe and on one of the corners is Madam Toussards. We continued to dodge bike raged locals, trams and cars and ended up at a very cool Irish Pub with the Ashes being showed and remained there for the rest of the day.

We headed out early Saturday to try and beat the crowds at the Van Gough Museum. Vincent Van Gough didn’t really rate is ability as an artist and was a late starter in the art world. He took to art in his early 20’s and played with techniques but didn’t want to stick to the standard art forms. He did take’ live’ drawing classes and basically “played” with his skill and honing it. What he ended up with is over 900 pieces in a short 10 year time span before succumbing to depression or epilepsy and shot himself. We were fortunate enough to see one of his 5 paintings of the Sunflowers and his Iris’ painting. The crowds were horrendous and it is was a good idea to get there early as even when we left the crowds were about 8 people thick and there was still more coming thru the door.

The afternoon we headed to Rotterdam to take in a Street Party. Was pretty cool watching some o the best house/techno DJ’s from around Europe on the back of massive trucks and being driven slowly thru the streets. After finally finding one with some really good tunes we walked alongside the truck to keep up with the DJ. In all there were about 40 DJ on the back of trucks and a rather cool way to spend an afternoon.

Sunday we finally got around to doing a bike tour. Riding bikes in Amsterdam is a little like extreme sport whilst in the centre of town and there are bike paths that are used by bikes (deadly treadlies), vespas/mopeds and tiny cars, and I mean tiny. These cars would be lucky to fit 2 people into them without busting out the sides, anyone who thought the old mini was small the mini looks like a people mover when compared to this matchbox cars.

When we finally got ourselves kitted out with bikes and some quick safety warnings we were let loose on the Amsterdam public and the first 10 minutes were a bit stressful but once on the main bike path we covered the city and the outskirts very comfortably and again a very cool way to see the city.

That afternoon we did a walking tour of the red light district - which wasn’t new to us as this is where our hostel is - and got the low-down on the how the industry works and walked thru the upmarket girls tiny little lane and they were definitely much better looking than the ones on the main drag, either way, a very interesting walk ended at the Christopher Hostel for drinks till the early hours of the morning.

We did the Anne Frank house the next day. Queuing up for about 45 minutes and thinking that it was going to be so crowded in there but the house is really well set up and there are quotes from Anne’s diary over the walls and interviews from some of the friends that helped the two families hide in the attic. The rooms are large for what they are however when you think that 8 people lived in there day and night 3 of which were children this place is hardly huge. It is a must see for people heading to Amsterdam and well worth the visit.

The rest of the afternoon was fairly laid back and spent walking around some of the back streets of the city and shops we hadn’t seen earlier. For the evening we headed out for a drink and ended back at the Christopher Hostel again for the cheap 2 for 1 drinks and caught up with some people we met the night prior and again continued drinking into the early hours of the morning.

That leaves me to where I am today. Jay catching up with our drinking friends from last night and out on the canals and I am trying to catch up on typing. Our next stop is Edinburgh.

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