5.12.08 (Monday) _ Amsterdam

Monday, May 12^th

After another breakfast of coffee and croissants we checked out of the hotel and were left to a day of leisurely strolling through the streets of Amsterdam. We photographed the coffee shop that we stayed at. The size of the building is so skinny it’s amazing that our room was the size it was!

Our flight tonight isn’t until 9pm so the earliest we need to leave central Amsterdam is 6:30. This gives us a solid 8 hours to walk through the city. The first place we walked to was Spui Square. From here we gained access into the Begijnhof. The entrance is not easily noticed. Rather, it is just a regular house looking building that you open the wooden door and immediately walk through an open-air hallway that leads into an open garden between a city block of buildings. The Begijnhof (Beguinage) is an example of a medieval almshouse community. It was built in the 14^th century to accommodate Beguines, pious single women of the Catholic faith, who lived a religious and charitable life without the stricture of holy vows. The Beguines were later ostracized because their faith, and today the discreet façade of the Beguinage’s once clandestine Catholic Church masks a haunting little Italianate chapel. Opposite is the original church that was transferred to the city’s Protestant community in the late 16^th century. In the south corner of the Begijnhof we saw the 15^th century Houten Huys – one of Amsterdam’s oldest houses complete with a wooden front and steeply gabled. Today the Begijhof still accommodates single women of modest means. It was amazing that as soon as we walked through the doors it was almost like we were in a secret garden complete with two churches. Both churches were spectacular from the inside. Breathtaking.

After this, we walked south some more, following the Singel canal. Here we were able to walk through the Flower Market area. This area consists of a lot of house boats used for the purpose of displaying and selling their flowers and floral merchandise. There were not a lot of tulips on display. We were told the reason for this was due to the crops being cut down because all/most of the tulips had already bloomed. Next week, all the flowers will be done blooming thus the season will be over until next year. We did see wooden tulips that are painted so realistically we had to touch them to make sure they were wooden! Also, we saw colorful cactus plants, souvenirs on display on the boats and numerous other non-tulip plants squished into every corner of the boat-shops.

Then, we walked through Rembrandtplein (Rembrandt Square) where we saw a statue in the middle of a garden with a lot of soliders. After that, we walked toward City Hall & Opera. I had read online that between the two buildings was a water gauge that showed the current sea level as well as where the water was during the great flood during the 1950’s. However, after searching for quite awhile, we were unable to find the gauges. From here, we walked to the Zuider-kerk and then to Dam Square.

In Dam Square we went into the largest souvenir shop in all of Amsterdam in our opinion. We have been collecting souvenirs from every place we have traveled to – Jon gets a shot glass and Katie has started collecting “book case” displayable items. From Amsterdam, Katie found a Delft Blue porcelain heart-shaped vase that has two Dutch kids kissing with red tulips in their hands. Jon found a tall shot glass that looking from the front inward a canal going over water and then shown in the background are Amsterdam houses. The shot glass is very representative of what it was like walking through Amsterdam.

From Dam Square we walked north to Beurs v. Berlage (Event/Concert Hall). Then, we strolled to the east a bit toward the Oude Kerk. Surrounding the church are houses. Surprisingly, some of the houses facing the church are used for “red light” purposes! Often times, next to the red light houses there are cafes, restaurants or bars.

We walked east more back to the Gassan Diamond Factory to check out their gift shop one last time (okay, and to get more to drink). Upon leaving, we walked passed the Montelbaanstoren the Waag and the Nieuw Market. When we were wandering around today we somehow ended up taking the longest way possible (not on purpose) and often times ended up where we started from. We did not mind though, because we had a lot of time to spare before our flight this evening. We sat by a canal to eat lunch of beef sticks, digestives (sugary crackers), popcorn, and chips.

Our next stop was back toward the western part of the Singel canal (house #7) to see the narrowest house – only 1 meter wide in the back of the house facing the canal! According to a tour guide who stopped by the house while we were there, this isn’t the narrowest house in Amsterdam – there is an even more narrow house. Also, the house we were at (#7) is narrow in the back facing the canal but in the front of the house it opens up to be much wider.

Tired from walking, we found a bench nearby the house and sat a bit to rest our weary feet. A man from New York sat at a table near us and said “You aren’t really from Wisconsin are you?” It took us a minute to realize that Jon was wearing a Wisconsin shirt and that’s how he knew we were from the there. We told him that indeed we were from Wisconsin just visiting Amsterdam for the weekend. He talked to us for quite awhile. He expressed his similar impression of Amsterdam: It’s amazing how the legalization works here; how everything is relaxed and peaceful; how he went to the beach and saw people naked, half clothed, and fully clothed – “people didn’t care what others were wearing or doing, everyone was just enjoying themselves”. That summed up our feelings and observations as well – on the surface it seemed like people were less judgmental and concerned about others actions and behavior than we are accustom to at home. He also said that he hadn’t seen anyone get too ‘out of control’ since he had been in Amsterdam. Which we had only seen one drunk person thus far!

From here, we walked west on Haarlemmedijk to the only area of the city we had not yet walked through. We passed many cafes and shops along the way. The further we walked the more it seemed like we were out of the ‘tourist’ area. Eventually we came to Westerpark. Similar to Vondelpark, it was full of people enjoying the sun and the fresh air. Since we were not familiar with the area and it was only listed on one really zoomed out map – we decided to head back toward Central Station to grab something to eat (it’s now close to 4pm).

Around central station we settled on a fruit smoothie, a french bread pizza, and a hot piece of garlic bread. When we were finished we strolled along the water to take a bridge over to the NEMO building. The top deck of the NEMO building was closed, so we went up as far as we could be for the locked gate stopped us. From up here, we had a wonderful view of part of the city. When we climbed back down to the bottom, we decided to set at the northern part of the building facing the water. We relaxed here until a little past 6 when we decided to start walking back toward Central Station to take the train to the airport.

When we got to the airport we had no problems getting through security. We walked to our gate – one of the gates furthest away from security! But, after about a 12 minute walk we were at the gate. Here we were able to watch CNN news in English for the first time since we arrived in Europe. After watching the news for awhile, we noticed that on the flight information screen in the gate area it listed our gate as changing to another gate (from gate 84 to gate 31!). Therefore, we gathered up our bags and walked to a main hallway intersection so we could see what the departure schedule showed as our gate. Go figure – it said gate 84. Since we had walked so long to get there, we decided to spend some time there just in case it took awhile for that screen to update. We sat in this area for awhile, playing chess until about 10 min. before boarding was suppose to start taking place. We walked back to the first gate (#84) and luckily that was the right gate!

We had a safe flight back to Stockholm. Jon decided to make our flight back more interesting by accidentally spilling his glass of wine in his lap and on the lady next to him. At first all three of us were in shock and didn’t know what to do – but quickly we got everything wiped up and used sparkling mineral water to take the stains out of our clothing as best as possible. By the end of it all, we were all three laughing so hard we were crying!!!

Upon leaving the airport we did not have to show our passports. We have been told that we won’t have to during most of our travels because of the European Union. Another interesting thing to note is that we saw people manning the customs area for the first time! Though, they have two lines still one for goods to declare and one for nothing to declare. Everyone we saw went through the nothing to declare. Especially from a country where certain drugs are legalized, we thought there would be mandatory customs on either side.

We took the bus back to Uppsala and again during our walk home we did not see very many people. This time was record setting – we saw a total of 3 people (2 of which were in the train station).

Our next trip is May 23 – 26 when we will be in Barcelona, Spain!