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Published: July 11th 2012
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Quick Summary - Evil girls, Anne Frank, Rain, early rising, gravy sticks, trains and trams, Van Gogh, smells like pee, non curry curry.
Hostelling I thought it would be cool to have Sydney discover the experience of hostelling in Europe. I have used hostels many times and I have found them to be, for the most part, filled with wonderful people, and a place to meet like minded travelers, and hear great stories. We were to only spend a few nights in hostels as they are not the most comfortable of accomodations. Last night was one of those nights. To make a long story short, I felt old and Sydney felt young. My Dutch is not great, at all, but I believe there were a group of Dutch teenage girls making fun of me for being in a hostel. I have made a career of having teenage girls make fun of me so I pretty much felt like I was at work. Sydney on the other hand was not very at ease with the communal living. Hopefully it will grow on her and she will learn to appreciate them as she gets older. When I spent more than a
month backpacking in Spain the "Alberges" communal accomodations were very hospitable and full of wonderful people of all ages, this just wasn't the case in Amsterdam. Although Amsterdam seems to be a mecca for just turned adults trying to liberate themselves.
As I forgot my watch at home I had no idea what time it was in the morning. After I heard a few people leave the room I assumed it was a reasonable time to get up. After showering and such we checked out to find that it was only 5:50AM. Great, an early start to the day. The problem is nothing, and I mean nothing is open in Amsterdam until 9:00AM. Not cafes, not Starbucks, not even Mcdonalds. We did however have the entire city to oursleves for a few hours of touring the city streets. I do enjoy the architecture and flowing canals of Amsterdam, despite the seediness and dirtiness of it all. (Amsterdam kinda smells like pee, not as bad as Paris smells like pee, but a close second.)
Anne Frank Our first touristy event of the day was a visit to Anne Frank's house. If you dont remember who Anne Frank
is you probably remember reading her diaries in school. She was a jewish teen who hid away in her fathers workplace attic to escape Nazi persecution. As you probably also know, she was not saved. It was a tour through the small quarters in which her family of 8 hid for 3 years until being captured just before the end of the war. It is a nice museum and very informative. Any visitor to Amsterdam should include this tour. (Sorry no pics, none were allowed)
Biking Our original intention today was to do a quick few stops in Amsterdam and then bike to Leiden. This however did not happen today due to the rain. It rained and rained so hard that we were soaked all day. Instead we took the train into Leiden and hope to continue the originally planned bike trip tomorrow. I do have to say that Amsterdam has the best transit system I have seen anywhere in the world. You never wait more than 3 or 4 minutes for a tram anywhere in the city. Even commuter trains to other towns run every 10 minutes, it is crazy efficient. If you come to Amsterdam plan
on using the transit, and stay away from cabs.
Food As we were very busy today and on the run a lot, we tried some of the fast food fares available. The one place of note is a place called Smullers. They have regular counter service but thier stores also have hot food vending machines. You drop your money in the machine containing the food you want and open the door and grab your food. Of course all of the names are Dutch so I had no idea what I was ordering. Most of these items are battered food items with mystery substance in the middle. The one I chose was a battered stick about 6 inches long and you would never guess what was inside of this stick..... gravy, just gravy, nothing but 6 inches of gravy. Battered and deep fried gravy, and people were eating this.... willingly.... and loving it. Sydney got this curry noodle dish, jammed into a deep fried square of batter. Later in the day I was back at the same restaurant and I decided to order from the counter. I ordered french fries and the asked me if I wanted a sauce
on them. I said sauce? Hmmmmm OK. They had a list of sauces and the only ones I recognized was ketchup and curry. As I love curry I decided to go with that. When I got my fries, I say this brown gooo on my fries. The brown goo was a cold, gel like and very sweet blob. It also did not taste like curry. It was non curry cold gelatinous sauce on my fries...blech. Later on we ate dinner at Mcdonals which is the only food choice by our hotel. I ordered Wermen Sate and a pineapple shake. The pineapple shake was awesome... the Wermen sate, was a chicken sandwich covered in ..... the brown gravy gooo. I am going to leave this country hungry I think.
Vincent Van Gogh Our last stop in Amsterdam was a visit to the Vincent Van Gogh Museum, a 4 storey art gallery filled with Van Gogh original art. I love Van Gogh. Sydeny also loves Van Gogh. It was awesome and I highly recommend it as well. My favorite artwork was "The Bedroom" and "Cornfields with Ravens" Sydney's fav was "Almond Branches in Bloom". You also cant take pictures in
there so I have included pictures from the internet.
Final Score for Amsterdam
Kyle 6/10 "Smells like pee, the people try to run you over, thy will cover you gravy if you let them, but they have Van Gogh and Canals"
Sydeny 7.5/10 "Anne Frank and Van Gogh Museum are great, but the town is run by drug addicts"
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