As you faithful readers of these adventures and musings may recall, a few posts ago I mentioned a trip to Amsterdam in the near future. Well, that near future is now the past, and the trip was a success. Jon, Ryan, Brett, and I have gone to Amsterdam and returned to tell of our adventures. Here are some highlights:
Ingang (Entrance)
What better way to travel to a city full of canals than by overnight ferry? From London's Liverpool Street Station, we took an evening train to Harwich, where we boarded our StenaLine vessel. After exploring the boat (from deck, to bar, to on-board shop) we decided to go to sleep early, since we'd be getting into Hoek van Holland at 7:45 the next morning. Several hours later we were given a boat-wide wake-up call in Dutch by our captain, to inform us that "Coffee-tea-snacks" would be available for purchase, and that we should get ready to get off das boot. Soon we were down the gangway, passing all sorts of strange Dutch signs and ads (Giorgio says 'Magnifico'!). And an hour or so of train travel later, explaining that yes, our tickets were indeed valid, we were in Amsterdam.
Once we'd figured out how to exit the train station (a more complicated procedure than you may think), we were off and exploring. Sort of. More wandering, really, since we had no idea where we were going. Or where we were. Everything was extremely foggy for our entire stay. You couldn't really forecast your route more than a block, because from there, you couldn't see a thing. But we let our wallets and our stomachs be our maps, finding first an ATM, then a nice bakery called the "Special Dutch Bakery." We also dropped a few collective Euro on a large and confusing map of the city, failing to notice the many -ijds, -ijks, and double-vowels that would have clued us in to the fact that was exclusively in Dutch. But thankfully we had Eunice the Garmin GPS on hand to guide us to our first destination.
Het Rembrandt-Huis
Here, for 6 Euro, we were able to see the home of famous painter and etcher, Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (whose full name was not mentioned at any point on our tour). The home was filled with items that would have been there when he lived there from 1639 to 1656. Not one to braggingly display his own work, Rembrandt's house was frustratingly devoid of any Rembrandts. But he did have a fantastic room of curiosities, including various sculptures and stuffed animals (I was particularly fond of the two armadillos, though one stood next to an armadillo-shell basket, making for a disconcerting juxtaposition). They also had a nice display of his etchings, and some goofy demonstrations of paint making and etching printing.
But it was shortly after this that we realized something (other than us) was...
Lost in Amsterdam
Let's face it. It wouldn't be a complete blog entry about Amsterdam if we didn't reference Guster at least once! So, what was lost, you ask?
You may have noticed that there is no photo link for pictures of Amsterdam. Nor are there any photos in this post. That's because sometime between the train into Amsterdam and the Rembrandt House, my camera vanished. Thankfully, I hadn't taken any pictures, so no memories were lost. But it was (and is) extremely frustrating. But we had to persevere... So we set ourselves a new destination and charted a course for...
The Van Gogh Museum
But there was a huge line there, and it seemed somewhat expensive. So we didn't go in. Instead, we walked back over to...
The RijksMuseum
Initially, we'd passed this up because of the line, too, but under the impression that it was free (we had not yet learned that few things are free in the Netherlands, more on that later...), we waited. Here, we would encounter our first bouts with Dutch people who clearly wanted us to Uitgang (Exit) their country. After one member of our Fellowship was called an idiot by museum security for no reason at all, confusion with a revolving door resulted in further scoffing. Then, when Jon couldn't produce exact change for our 12.50 entry, and instead tried to pay with 15, the cashier exclaimed "You do not have exact change? Is this not possible?!" Clearly we were inadvertently upsetting these people.
The museum itself was interesting, though. The ground floor consisted of mostly historic Dutch artifacts from their time as "A World Power" (Remember New Amsterdam? Imagine how different the rhythm of this song would be if that had stuck...). On the first floor (upstairs), there were all sorts of paintings, including the Rembrandts we had secretly been expecting to find at his house. And some very nice Vermeers, and an exhibit on "The Little Ice Age" art of Hendrick Avercamp. After picking up the bags we'd had to check (a fact which we learned when one of us walked in with his in hand), we were back to the cold, foggy streets of Amsterdam, ready to make the long trek to...
Hotel Flipper
Our stately accommodations for the evening, maintaining the nautical theme of our journey with a dolphin on the sign. The theme isn't consistent throughout, as the decorations on the inside were mainly framed jigsaw puzzles of babies dressed up as flowers. Here we would encounter our first and only language barrier, as the housekeeper mistook our request for a bar of soap in the hall bathroom as one for every bar of soap and bottle of shampoo she could find. After setting down the bags and resting our feet for a few minutes, we were off and back into the city.
Wandering the Streets I
Bracing ourselves against the cold and fog, we walked around Amsterdam taking in the evening sights. One interesting detail in the Hotel Flipper neighborhood, is that for a city built so much on canals and waterways, boat maintenance is not a priority for most people. Coatings of algae are common decor on many of the boats, and dozens of boats have simply given up on floating, choosing instead to rot and sink, half submerged in murky water. Lovely.
So how do people get around, then? Cars? No. Walking? Only the foolish tourists. The natives prefer the bicycle. On the boatride over, Ryan mentioned that there are more bicycles than people in Amsterdam. We all had a good laugh about this. That couldn't possibly be the case, because people only need one bike. It's not like sheep in Ireland, where a farmer could have several hundred. And bikes don't occur in the wild, so that's not a factor. But lo-and-behold, it appears to be true, at least from observation. From the train you can see massive bicycle-only parking lots. And bike paths are more heavily trafficked than roadways. But even with all this traffic, no one wears a helmet. So for anyone in helmets looking to corner the market... A few well-placed ads featuring brutal head-injuries and statistics, plus one centralized helmet store... Just a thought.
Anyway, shortly after we set out, we realized we hadn't eaten since our stop at the Special Dutch Bakery, so we decided to stop in at the next reasonably placed restaurant we found. As a result, we did not enjoy any authentic Dutch cuisine, and instead had Italian. The most interesting feature of their menu? The choice of small, medium, or large beer. We all got medium, and then asked what kind it was. The response we got sounded like "Any kind," but before we could specify our kind of choice, the waiter quickly walked away, perhaps afraid we would infect him with our Americanness. We would soon learn that what we heard as "Any kind" was actually his Dutched-up pronunciation of Heineken, which we probably should have realized earlier, having walked by the Heineken factory four times that day.
Fueled by our pizzas, our medium beers, and the lukewarm hospitality we received at the restaurant, we were on the streets again for more exploring. After being accosted by a multi-lingual crutch-wielding homeless lady, who we would later run into again when we ducked into a souvenir shop to warm-up, we realized exactly how strange this place was. Between the bikes, the sunken boats, and the pretty lax legal system, it was like nowhere we'd ever been. We continued to wander, until the exhaustion of a night of poor-pillowed boat sleep and a day of city-walking hit us. But rather than call it a night all-together, we decided to stop off for a late-night snack, where we would learn a very important lesson.
The adventurous travelers that we are, we decided to grab some McDonalds. Here, there were certain difficulties with our orders. Specifically, miscommunication with one cashier led to a price that was way too high. That was corrected, but then when we expressed surprise at the additional cost of a pack of ketchup, an employee set us straight, reminding us that "This is not Free-mart!" True, sir, true. But we just want some dipping sauce. We found ourselves repeating the words that had been so rudely presented to us earlier in the day: "Is this not possible?" It turns out it was. It just cost us money.
That was our last stop of the night. We returned to Hotel Flipper somewhat early that night, planning on getting up early the next day to see the Sunday sights.
Sunday Morning
After a pretty expansive breakfast at Hotel Flipper, we checked-uit faster than lightning, leaving that world full of wonder to find ourselves once again wandering the Amsterdam streets with our backpacks. But this time, we had a destination in mind, so as we bid farewell to the sunken boat neighbors of Hotel Flipper, we asked Eunice to guide the way to...
The Anne Frank Huis
We arrived to find there was no line, but it still took us a little while to get in, since they, too, had a backpack-related request. Unlike the Rijksmuseum, which made us check our bags, though, the Anne Frank Huis, simply requested that we where them as frontpacks. So, tickets in hand and backpacks simulating pregnancy, we entered the "Museum with a Story." As the only member of our Fellowship who had not read her Diary, I was a little bit behind on what the story was, but the museum does a lovely job presenting it for those who somehow missed that part of the required reading list in their younger years. Quotes from the diary, along with historical artifacts and more general description fill the house from the office area to the secret annex. The story is presented not only architecturally, taking you through the house, but also chronologically. Overall, quite well-done; definitely a powerful and moving experience, though it was somewhat frustrating when the route through the house ends at the Anne Frank Cafe and Gift Shop.
Wandering the Streets II
Once again, we found ourselves out on the streets with no real destination in mind. We stopped to right our backpacks, and those of us with cameras (everyone but me), took pictures of the outside of the house, and the large line that had now queued up outside. Heading back toward the city, we passed a bridge with a Pan (of Pan's Labyrinth) like carving on it. I stopped to get my picture taken as the Pale-Man. Hopefully the rest of the Fellowship will upload their photos soon, so that I may compile and post a few of theirs (giving proper credits, of course) so you faithful readers can see them. Pan was just the first of many bizarre decorations and statues we walked by that day. We also saw Anne Frank and Multatuli, both done in a similar style, making them appear to be melting after already having been hastily created. We also stumbled upon some very impressive graffiti and building art, including the Lichtenstein-esque explosion featured 7-seconds into the Amstel Light video you should have watched at the beginning of this post. Very cool. It made me sad to be missing my camera.
With no destination in mind, we couldn't have Eunice guide us, but managed to stumble upon one of the sights we had intended to visit all along. Walking along the water at one point, I looked at the windows of the buildings we were passing, and noticed that some of them were framed in red light. We had stumbled upon the outskirts of the famed Red Light District. Walking a block away from the water, we found ourselves in the heart of the District on a Sunday morning. Now, as you can imagine, a Sunday morning is a pretty quiet time in the Red Light District. Perhaps people are in church, praying away their latest stop on the road we were now on. (Though it's more likely they were at some brunch buffet, enjoying the Skip's Scramble or some other ungodly culinary creation.) Basically, we were the only people on the streets, which made an already bizarre, somewhat awkward place, even more bizarre and awkward.
We continued our window shopping at a few other shops selling interesting oddities. First, a collection of Socialist Art and Memorabilia, including an interesting collection of busts of Stalin, Lenin and the gang, along with a collection of paintings of Lenin doing non-government things like having a picnic. They also had a banknote for ten-trillion Zimbabwe dollars. And a little walk away from there we found a liquor store with a window full of absinthe. We considered buying some, but weren't sure what transport laws would be like, and didn't want to spend any more time dealing with customs officials the next morning than we needed to.
We decided to return to the main square in Amsterdam, to see a few of the major monuments and sights in that area, or what we could see of them through the fog. But on our way there, I shouted at two passing bikers, because... They were Georgetown's own Dan Finnegan and Andrew Dubbins! They had come up for a weekend away from Georgetown's posh Villa le Balze. Unfortunately, they were on their way to return their rental bikes (more bikes that contribute to the inflated bike-to-person ratio), so we couldn't spend more time than a quick hello, and some shared remarks on crazy random happenstances and small worlds.
After a bit more wandering and some lunch, it was time to head back to the train station and back to Hoek van Holland.
Uitgang (Exit)
After yet another round of confusion on the train, as the ticket-taker wondered what this ticket that promised us transport from "Any Dutch Station" meant, we reached the Stena Line port with time to spare before we would be allowed on the boat at 7:00. So we finished the last of the snacks we'd purchased while watching CNN and learning of the massive snow storm we were missing in D.C. Soon it was time to board the boat, and after yet another bout of ticket confusion (really now, isn't this the type of ticket the boat people should be used to seeing?) we bid farewell to Giorgio and his advertising friends, and boarded to head back to Harwich. Since we were on the boat earlier this time, we decided to grab a few drinks on the on-board bar and have dinner at "Food City" one of two restaurants on the boat. Unfortunately, Food City wasn't Free-Mart either, and we were charged for condiments here, too, with the exception of soy sauce, which apparently translates as "Catjip" in Dutch, so you can see how that might be misleading.
Following another night of boat-sleep, we were awoken by our captain at 5:30, got off the boat around 6:30, breezed through Customs with surprising ease, and were sleepily riding the train back to London shortly thereafter. And I was back in Ramsay Hall in time for breakfast!
Overall, a worthwhile trip, and an exciting first adventure out of London. But after two days, we were ready to uitgang... perhaps because it was so cold. And I think the Dutch folks we met were ready for us to uitgang, too, back to our land of Free-Marts, any kinds, and things that are possible.
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