Neon Lights and Comfy Clothes

Leaving Paris Liz and I ran into a little trouble with our train connection. We had booked the tickets but for some reason every automatic ticketing machine we used in the terminal would reject my credit card or tell me that my reservation was not in the computer. Well seeing as neither me nor Liz spoke any French we were getting a little nervous. We ran around helter-skelter for a while and finally found a customer service line for International trains. While I waited in line to speak to the terse French man behind a wall of glass Liz ran off to find food and delightfully returned with fresh French pastries and several bagfuls of candy.

I finally secured the tickets and we caught our train with about five minutes to spare. Plenty of time. We found our seats and settled in for a few hours and before I knew it the green countryside was flying past the window. Within no time we were rolling into Amsterdam and Danish was being spoken over the loudspeakers…once again we were lost with this language, but it was definitely a fun one.  We shouldered our packs and walked out into the bustling streets of Amsterdam.

We were met by a street filled of people, cable cars, and a river. To say the least, this town was moving. We joined the flow of traffic and found ourselves walking down the main street into town. Seeing as we didn’t really know where we were or where we were going, I bought a map out of a vending machine and we grabbed lunch to look it over. As we munched French fries and perused the map, I couldn't’t help thinking how awesome it was to have an adventure like this. To just wander the world with very few plans and a pack on my back was thrilling. I found the hotel on the map and we headed down the street to check in.

Hotel Cordial, where we would be located for the next few days was a few blocks off of the main square. It was drizzling when we checked in and we were told that this was pretty typical Amsterdam weather. Since we were a little wet and travel-weary, Liz and I took about an hour to chill out, shower, and get ourselves organized. We then headed out to the main shopping street and bought a guidebook to Amsterdam.

For the rest of the afternoon we walked the city taking in the general layout and the awesome culture. People in this city aren’t dressed to the nines and they don’t seem to care what other people think of them. They wore huge comfy sweaters, rode bikes everywhere, and just chatted and read in little cafes. To say the least, Liz and I finally fit in! Our blond hair didn’t draw stares and our chill clothing styles were not a faux pas!

We went to the Cannabis Museum to gain some educational insight on the Amsterdam culture and definitely learned a few things. It was a really interesting museum but at the same time slightly biased. I had fun reading up on all the diseases that marijuana can apparently cure though… I mean who knew that asthma could be cured by lighting up?  Sounds a little ironic to me.

After that educational experience we wandered around to find dinner and came across yet another fabulous spot. It was apparently an Argentinean restaurant but it had steak! Yes, a large piece of meat and French fries, it was heavenly. And can you believe that there was not a single tomato on the plate? Not one I tell you.

After dinner we wandered through the pouring rain to find some interesting night life in Amsterdam. First however, we found a huge square of neon lights. It turns out that this glowing square was actually a mini-fairground with loud music, crazy lights and tons of psychedelic games. It was definitely mesmerizing and also a little frightening! After exploring the town a little more we headed back to the hotel and called it a night.

In the morning we were pretty much worn out so we took a late breakfast downstairs at the hotel and then went back to sleep for a while. After our midmorning nap we were on a mission to be educated. We hit all the high culture in Amsterdam in one day! Using our ten punch Danish trolley cards we rode over to the Rijksmuseum. We kept getting fussed at in Danish every time we got on a tram because we had no idea what to do with our ticket…apparently it has to be punched with a time, but sometimes you skip slots and other times you don’t. Why do things get so complicated? Either way we didn’t get arrested for taking any free rides so we must have been doing something right.

The Rijksmuseum was awesome. We didn’t have to wait in line at all and we saw a lot of famous works of art. The most interesting to me were the Rembrandts because of his intense use of shadows. It is always fascinating for me to see an artists work progress into his or her famous style and you could definitely see that in these galleries.   We also got a lot of great information here because we took the audio guide tour…for those of you who want to go into dork mode, this is the way to do it!

After the museum we wandered through a park in front of the museum and I bought camera batteries from some Netherlander (I know that’s not PC but it sounds so cool!) who told me his life story. We then proceeded on to lunch which took us into a residential Danish neighborhood. It was so cute and the houses looked a lot like those in the Fan district of Richmond just with a fairy tale twist. After refueling we hit the Van Gogh museum and saw more famous works of art.

About the time we couldn’t distinguish a painting from a drawing we cleared out and took in more crisp Danish air. We walked along the canals and went in some shops on our way to the Anne Frank House. This museum was definitely a pleasant surprise. I have heard from a lot of people that it isn’t very interesting but Liz and I really enjoyed it. I think it is always fascinating to see something that you have imagined in your head since you were a child. The Diary ofAnne Frank is the first Holocaust book that I ever read and putting childhood emotions and memories into a more developed and educated schema was really neat.

To end our touring day we grabbed a cup of French fries with mayo, a Danish specialty in case you hadn’t noticed, and took a boat tour of the canals. We took the tour around sunset so it was really cool to see things from the water and to check out all of the different neighborhoods.

That night we ate carryout Chinese in our room while getting ready to go out and then went to take in the Red Light district in full swing. That was intense. It definitely made Liz and I feel awkward and we didn’t really know where to look, but it is an experience worth having. While legal prostitution was sparking intellectual conversation between Liz and I it was definitely sparking other emotions in the hundreds of men walking up and down the street. We made one loop and got out of there! The rest of the evening was low key because we were planning to take a bike tour the next morning.

Unfortunately our bike tour got rained out by a monsoon the next morning but we did get a brief history of Amsterdam from a guy who is your typical American expat. His spiel to us about his life went a little like this… “Ok so I went to like five different colleges and as much as I like learning and talking about life, it wasn’t my thing to stay put. So I came over here to Germany for a bit and then visited Amsterdam where I made some sweet friends. A few years later I got tired of working on my PhD so I came back and that’s when I realized that I can totally give bike tours and use my liberal arts education. I mean, dude, what’s better than that. Plus, like Amsterdam is the most liberal city ever, which is sweet. So now, this is what I do.” He was a great character and really informative.

In the afternoon we had to say goodbye to Amsterdam. Our train left at about 3:30 for Hamburg and we ran to catch it once again. At least we were working off some of those French fries! By 3:31 we were on our way to Germany, and the Netherlands were steadily falling behind us.