Advertisement
Published: October 29th 2006
Edit Blog Post
Let me preface this post with a disclaimer:
This Amsterdam entry is not going to be filled with tales of wild adventures. I'm not particularly keen on putting any such adventures, which may or may not have happened, in a public place such as this where they'll sit in Google's cache for eternity. So, what you have below might be boring, and for that I'm sorry, but you'll just have to use your imagination...
I took the early afternoon ICE train from Cologne to Amsterdam. This was my first border crossing by rail and I was interested to see if there would be some sort of border check. As it turns out, there was absolutely nothing, and we rolled into Amsterdam around 5. I was actually a little disappointed with how easy it was. I just kind of noticed that the signs were in Dutch instead of German, and the landscape was really flat.
I had been to Amsterdam once before, for a single night on my way back from Africa, so I was at least familiar with the layout of the city. For some reason though, that didn't seem to help in finding the hostel. I walked around
the area that the lonely planet map claimed it was supposed to be in for half an hour without finding anything. I was just about to give up and try somewhere else when by chance I saw the small sign just up the street.
As it turned out, the entrance to the hostel was in the basement of the building, so you had to descend some stairs to get inside. Stepping through the door was like stepping into another world. The smokey, dim room was a far cry from the bright sunshine on the street above. I pushed forward through the haze past the tables covered in overflowing ashtrays to the reception desk at the far end of the room. At the desk, I arranged two nights at the hostel, as I typically do when I get somewhere new, and paid the 20€ per night plus 10€ key deposit. Right there I had already blown through 50€ and I hadn't even bought food or beer yet. Damn. Amsterdam really is an expensive city, much more so than what I had been used to in Germany.
I got the key and made my way up the exceptionally steep staircase to the 2nd (3rd in the US) floor. The staircase spiraled around, but it wasn't like a traditional spiral staircase, and the steps were rather difficult to negotiate. Interesting thing to have in a hostel where people tend to be somewhat inebriated when trying to climb it. I wonder how many accidents they have on those stairs.
I got to the room, and it was a large dorm (16 beds) but there was a bathroom situated in the middle of the room, dividing it into two halves, so it wasn't all that bad. I got a top bunk next to the door (not a great place) and settled in. After a bit I started chatting with this Brazilian dude, and we decided to go and get some food. We had to go all the way down past the reception to get out. As we climbed the stairs out of the basement, I looked up, and standing at the top of the stairs was Kate, the Kiwi I had met in Dresden, and again in Cologne. It was one of those weird coincidences that are really cool. We decided that the reason we keep running into eachother is that we always stay at the first hostel that's listed in the book and we both have the same book. Anyway, she ran inside to dump her bag and then joined us to get food.
We walked around a bit and then came back to the hostel to have a beer. At the hostel, we met this Canadian guy who was in Amsterdam on vacation. We sat around for a bit and then we all went out for a tour of the infamous red light district. Definitely some interesting scenery in the middle of Amsterdam. Afterwards, we got some food and called it a night.
The weather the next morning was dreary and I spent a good chunk time hanging out in the internet cafe before eventually going to get some lunch at a place called Wok to Walk, which is an asian stir fry place. The food there was really good, although it was a bit expensive for take out. It was definitely a nice change of pace from the kebabs that I had been eating so much, though. That evening we hung around a bit and went to some bars, before calling it a night.
The next morning I got up and instead of paying for a couple more nights I decided to leave Amsterdam. I guess I was just sick of paying so much to stay there, and I just wasn't in the mood to hang around. So, after some thought I decided to skip the rest of the Netherlands and go to Belgium, which is somewhere that I wasn't planning on going originally.
Stay tuned for Bruges.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.124s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 12; qc: 56; dbt: 0.0802s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb