European Escapade 9: Look Out for that Bike!

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Amsterdam, the Netherlands: August 17th - August 20th

On board the train we met a nice couple from Canada who were quite good to pass the time with. We noticed many more wind turbines out in the countryside & soon the German houses gave way to less traditional looking homes as it got dark & we crossed the border. When we arrived in Amsterdam we found the train station very difficult to navigate our way around. Nothing was sign-posted well & there was a lot of refurbishment going on, which meant that a lot of amenities weren’t available. Eventually we made it outside to the trams, & found the one we needed to our B&B, which was at the edge of the city, towards the suburbs. When we got off the tram we couldn’t find the place, so flagged down a taxi that had GPS, & we arrived safely - the taxi ride was good as it had started raining, even though the driver didn’t have to take us very far. The proprietor at the B&B definitely had a thing or two to learn about customer service, but we eventually got in the door & settled into our room.


Day 23 - We woke up today & had a bit of a chat with the host of the B&B for a while, who gave us a map & some directions around Amsterdam. We jumped on a tram to Leidesplein, a large square towards the centre of town where there were heaps of cafes, tourist stores & theatres. It was nice just looking around there for a little while, & I bought some cheesy tourist junk & postcards. From there we walked down Leidsestrauss towards the centre of the city. Amsterdam is kind of set out in a fan shape, with canals spreading out in larger & larger semi-circles. There are heaps of small bridges, trams & (especially) bicycles - cars are allowed as well, but I’ve never seen so many bikes in my life - it was difficult not to get run over every 5 seconds. We made it to one of the main canals that had a permanent market along the side of it, which was awesome - as it wasn’t tulip season, it wasn’t quite as colourful & exciting as it could have been, but there were all kinds of other flowers (both cut ones, & many live ones in pots), with thousands of varieties of flower bulbs all being brightly advertised. It was a really pleasant area to walk around after being stuck in big dirty cities for so long! We even ran into the Canadian people we had met on the train the night before - random!

After we had a look around there we went up towards the main pedestrian areas of the city, near the main train station, & stopped in at a houseboat on the canal called the Pozen Boot (Cat Boat) - it was kind of like the SPCA but on a boat! Very odd, but amusing, & the cats were cute too (apart from the one that attacked Vaughan’s hand). It was fun for something different to do! It wasn’t far to the very centre of town, & we soon saw all kinds of cafes (for coffee, & for smoking), as well as fast food places, internet cafes & pretty much everything you can imagine - the street eventually gave way to ‘high street’ stores at the bottom, down in the main area, called Dam Square. We had a look around there for a while as the square has a palace on one side & a cathedral on the other. There was an exhibition in the cathedral, & we noticed that there were all kinds of art galleries & museums everywhere in Amsterdam - it would be very easy to go to Amsterdam to admire all the art work instead of party, if you were into that kind of thing. There was even whole galleries of works by Van Gogh, & also Rembrandt - quite impressive really, as it was nice to finally see a city with a bit more culture, especially after being in Berlin!

From Dam Square we started to head towards the Red Light District, where there were heaps of bars - Amsterdam is funny (but sensible) in the way that it keeps the different kinds of people almost separate from each other, with different parts of town for different types of entertainment. I imagine it would cut down on a lot of fights that way. I was surprised by the number of middle-aged couples who were wandering around - they had just as much of a look at everything as the younger people. We visited a nice bakery & turned back before getting to the Red Light District - Vaughan then went to get a kebab & I went to an internet café for a while so I could catch up on a few emails. We found a supermarket & just generally milled around for a while, as it was starting to get late. We visited a huge place called Vondel Park, which was near where we were staying, & watched an amazing sunset (although it was reflecting strangely off the clouds so it could have been the pollution, or that acid rain following us from Prague!). We had been going to eat at a restaurant owned by the proprietor of our B&B, but he was a jerk so we gave it a miss. The place we were staying was quite nice, & it was great to have a selection of English TV stations, so we kind of hung around at the B&B & made friends with the other people who were staying there at the time, which was good for something different.


Day 24 - Today was the last full day of our trip & we were almost glad to be heading back in the direction of London. We had enjoyed ourselves but were getting quite tired, & a bit run down with all the early mornings & huge long walks in the hot weather. Unfortunately Amsterdam was the worst place we had been weather-wise as well. It had drizzled most of the day before, & was drizzling/raining off & on again today. We decided to chance it & ventured to an area called the Jordaan, with one of the other girls from the B&B - luckily for us it was a Saturday, which was conveniently market day, so we just wandered around for ages. The markets were great with more fresh local foods (meats, cheeses, breads, cakes, lollies, vegetables & more!), as well as people’s second-hand stuff & heaps of clothes, bags & bathroom products. It was quite good & we spent about 2 or 3 hours just walking slowly through the whole Jordaan area & looking in all the cafes as well. From there we went back into town (which was nearby) & had a look down the main pedestrian areas that we had been to the day before, but this time pretty much everything was closed as it was after trading hours on a Saturday afternoon. We went back to the B&B for a quick rest & to drop of some of our shopping, & then went straight back out again to visit the Anne Frank House.

For anyone who doesn’t know the story of Anne Frank, she was basically from a Jewish family at a time when the German’s were sending most Jews to concentration camps. She lived in secret in the upstairs of a warehouse with her family & some other people, which you could only get to via a stairway that was hidden behind a bookcase. They all lived in the small space upstairs for quite a while (I think a couple of years), but were eventually caught & sent to the camps anyway. Anne wrote a diary about her life, published after her death at age 16, known in most countries as The Diary of Anne Frank (she died of typhus in one of the camps) - it was quite profound for a young person to have the ideas that she did at her age. The visit to the house where they had lived was awesome, but it was filled with so many tourists that it was hard to move, & it was way to hot to stay in any one room for very long. It was also a bit sad looking around, knowing that people had had to live up there for ages, not even able to go outside or even really look out the window or have lights on a night. I had always been interested in Anne Frank’s story, & it was a special moment to be able to visit the house.

After we finished at the Anne Frank House it was getting dark, so we walked into town again (not too far away) & had a look at the Red Light District for a while. I took some cool photos of the lights on the digital camera, & unfortunately we hardly used the big camera in Amsterdam, so there’s not too much to see on this site. The Red Light District was interesting, but it was really pumping like I thought it would be, for after 10pm on a Saturday night. I was surprised at all the people that were walking around - people of all ages, & heaps of females too. It didn’t seem to really be very sleazy at all. No one was embarrassed & it just seemed to be something that people went to see. It felt quite safe, but it wasn’t really that exciting - no music came out of anywhere, & the girls that were meant to be dancing in the windows were just standing there, all looking so incredibly bored that you wondered why they bothered. It made us bored too (even Vaughan - haha!) & we went off back to the B&B as it was still trying to rain on us. When we got back we caught up with a couple of the other people staying there & just had another easy night in - we were really shattered at that point.


Day 25 - It was our last day away, & we had intended on going for a canal cruise for a couple of hours in the morning, before leaving for the airport just after lunch. Unfortunately the weather had other ideas, & there was an intense electrical storm & torrential rain for about 4 hours solid in the morning. We sat in the breakfast room with the other people from the B&B, & tried to see each other in the gloom (even with the light on it wasn’t much better). We just all had to stay in really, as the B&B wasn’t really in a location that you could find something close by to do when it was raining. So in the end we didn’t really get up to that much, but it was OK. We got to keep our room until we left, so we also watched some TV & generally just tried to keep warm. Eventually it was time to leave & we ran in the rain to the tram, changed over to a train at the main station, & headed out to the airport. It was good to see a bit more of the Netherlands, as it had been dark when we came in - I was surprised at how much water there was. So much of the place was low-lying & the water really surrounded some areas. I guess the rain didn’t help. We eventually made it onto our plane & then headed back to London……


So that was our trip, in all its glory - boring bits & fun bits. Sorry about the lack of photos for Munich, Berlin & Amsterdam specifically - we used the digital camera like made there instead, so don't have too much to show you at this point. Feel free to click on the links instead, & let me know if any of them aren't working. I hope you’re all still conscious & that I haven’t put you off reading for the rest of your lives! Sorry about the lack of photos (I’m gutted, as we had some awesome shots on there of us having lots of fun & seeing cool stuff, rather than the traditional shots of the other camera) - I hope you enjoyed it anyway, & if you’re still with me, thanks for reading. We miss you guys heaps, especially since we aren’t coming home for Christmas (sorry everyone!). Please take care of yourselves….xxxxxx

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