"There are three layers to the Amstel; mud, water, and bicycles"

There really are bikes everywhere! The first day I spent in Holland I spent with Martijn. It was really great to see someone that I know! He showed me around Rotterdam, made me eat Hollandse Nieuwe Herring (raw fish!) and other Dutch food, like Siroopwafelen and croquettes. After Rotterdam, I went to Gouda. It was such a nice town, and cheese wheels decorate the city- they are strung up like tinsel! Martijn told me some Dutch/Gouda history, and then we went to Den Haag (via Utrecht) for some dinner. Again, in Den Haag, Maritjn told me about the city. It was a fun day.

 Yeah, I only took one bite of that!

Gouda 

Den Haag

 

The next day I took the train to Amsterdam. I didn't actually have anywhere to stay when I arrived there. This trip is doing wonderful things for my stress levels, because two months ago I would not have even thought of arriving to a city and not having anywhere to sleep! Once I got to Amsterdam, though, my first priority was actually to book my train to Paris. I knew that they filled up quickly. So I lined up, accepting that I would have to pay a hefty reservation fee, and reserved a seat on a train 5 hours after my preferred one! It was all booked out in the morning. After forking out the €50, I had my train ticket. Next was to find somewhere to sleep. It was fairly easy to find somewhere, though I still needed Friday night  sorted. I figured that could be dealt with on Thursday. So I quickly booked the hostel, got directions to it, and then took the tram out to the Artis. It was an average hostel, but, you know, at this point I couldn't be too choosey.

That evening I didn't want to start my sightseeing, so I did some window shopping instead. I decided that I'd start the real touristy stuff the next day... The next day I also had to desperately do my washing! I had done quite a bit of walking around on Tuesday, and had found a lot of stuff, including a place I could wash my clothes. So Wednesday morning I went to re-find the laundromat. It was actually easier to find than I though. It hadn't opened yet, so I sat along the kanaal. Finally had clean clothes by lunch time! That afternoon I went to Anne Frank haus. It was raining, and I had to line up in the rain. It went fairly fast (for tourist queue standards) and I finally got in. It was really significant for me to be there; I remember in primary school watching a movie adaption of her diary, and also from studying the holocaust throughout school and university. It was moving, and confronting. Despite being very familiar with what happened during the holocaust, and to Anne and her family, it still hit me quite hard. It was a strange feeling thinking that Anne had walked the same stairs as I was walking at the moment, and that people had been hiding in that same annexe during the war. The annexe was also had such a cold feeling to it, and I didn't notice it until I walked back down stairs to the museum that the warmth flowed back through me. I nearly shed some tears.

Anne Frank haus

It was still raining after visiting Anne Frank haus so I went and got a hot chocolate. I was really weary of walking in the wrong 'koffiehuis' but there is seriously no way that you would walk in and not realize... There is no way that you could walk past a coffeeshop and not notice it. Everywhere smells of weed! It's disgusting. Even my hostel room smelt faintly of weed (possibly because of the American douche in my room who reeked of weed, and was smoking joints before breakfast!).

Two of the more famous koffiehuis, 'The Doors' and 'Bulldog'

yeah, can't remember what this is of...

...when the boat goes through, the bridge goes up, and all other traffic has to wait.

I really wanted to go to a few museums, but I didn't know how long they would take to get in to/see. I also wanted to do a walking tour, and see the city with a guide, and then I would actually know something about the things that I were looking at. I did a 'tip trip' on Thursday, and was considering not doing it because it was raining terribly that morning. But after some shopping, the rain stopped, and the weather was fine (enough) to walk around the city for a few hours.

It was pretty great! Kat was our guide, and we had a pretty cool, small group, which made it a little bit more intimate. There were lots of stories about Holland and Amsterdam, also stories from Kat and Brett, and someone getting arrested for 'solicitation'... They did also tell us that weed is not in fact legal, it is just tolerated because the government/police would rather focus on the problem of 'hard drugs', the drugs that are causing problems in society. So as long as it's for personal use, a blind eye is turned. We started with the history of Holland and Amsterdam, Napoleon's brother, the Amstel River and the Dam ( Amstel + dam = Amsterdam), Mercantile spirit and confessions, booze and boobs... So much! It is hard to take in so much information! We began the tour in the red light district, and to the Oude Kerk (the Nieuwe Kerk is only 100 years younger). It's quite a juxtaposition to have a church in the middle o the red light district, but as Kat explained, the sailors were able to land in port, have a pint 'or twelve', getta bit of 'this', take a bit of 'that', and then could go to the Bishop and confess, before they went back out to sea. It was nice also to meet some fellow travelers, from Adelaide, Sydney (keep an eye out for Matt in the future), Canada... We also went to the hidden Kerk, Anne Frankhaus, near the Waterloopin and the Jewish area of the city (prior to WW2 when Amsterdam was a segregated community). Kat took us by the only remaining wooden kanaalhaus (there are two, one is the pub with the monkey), and she explained to us the front door tax, and why the houses lean out- unsure which reason out of two is more true than the other! Because Amsterdam is built on a marsh, similar to Venezia, some of the houses lean either forward or to the side, or the architects weren't great, or because they had to pull things upstairs via the hoist on the outside, they built houses leaning forward so it was easier to swing pianos onto the 4th or 5th floor! Unsure of the merit... We were shown the best places to buy weed, the bet place to buy seeds to grow your own weed, we were told that the fas food business thrives in this city... Really, the KFC next to the koffiehuis must rake in the dough! It was suppose to be around a 2-3hour tour, I think ours lasted for about 4 1/2! It was really great though, especially because I am not very familiar with the city.

 BOOBS!

 the 'tip-trip' group

The pub with the monkey/ one of th two original wooden kanaal houses

After the walking tour I figured that in such a sexually non-chalante society, I would take a visit to the sex museum. It was interesting... Some was quite amusing, but some definitely crossed the 'disturbing' line. All in all though, it was light hearted, harmless entertainment. I don't think that it glorifies sex or the sexual figure, but makes a point that it has been 100% present throughout history, and there are pieces of art to illustrate this. It's just a shame that more societies aren't as un-ashamed of the sexual figure as the Netherlands. NB. The Sex museum is on Rokin, further up, off Dam square is a condomerie, guarantees giggles, but it makes a point that you need to be safe!)

That night I thought of taking a walk back through the red light district, to see it at night. Being alone and a bit far out of the city, though, I didn't want to have to worry about Getting home in the dark, so I went and sat in the park and read Huck Finn, until some police came and told me it was closing. I found another park and finished my book.

On Friday I moved from the Artis, not literally, to the fringe of the red light district (not as a prostitute). I also planned to go to the Van Gogh museum, andnon the advisable Kat (so wise) I bought my ticket across the street from the museum and skipped the queue! Suckers waiting in the rain! It was horribly crowded, despite it only being open for about 30 minutes. I found it really difficult to study Van Gogh's work, and I think that may be part of the reason why I didn't come out loving it. At this point, I prefer Picasso. But I did like some of his works, especially his pieces that were inspired by Japanese blossoms; Van Gogh wrote, in a letter to his brother, how he understood that flowers in bloom make people feel warm an fuzzy inside*. It was fascinating to see how the museum had restored some of his art, and how they restore other art. They displayed the before and after of 'The Bedroom' to show the difference, and it was a painstakingly long process! They also had a section about how artis reused their canvases, and from some science and forensics, you could glimpse/figure out what was underneath. Studying the canvases also helps the museum understand the artist more, as what is below the paint can hint to when it was painted.

The Van Gogh muesum

Rijksmuseum (It has the exact same design as the train station)

I was a little bit more adventurous since the walking tour, seeing as I was more familiar with the area, so after the Van Gogh museum, I strolled around the little streets of the RLD and saw hoes on every side! Really, they are everywhere. I didn't think that they were very good looking (I wouldn't pay for that), but some ladies I met on my kanaal cruise said that at night they were beautiful... I put that to the test when the sun when down and the red lights came on. The kanaal cruise was quite relaxing, especially since I have mainly been walking everywhere. I was able to sit in a boat, that cruised the canals of Amsterdam, for one hour, and still see all the city, plus more, and have an audioguide that played about 5 languages (one after the other) over the speaker system. So I have now heard this tour in English, Dutch, German, French, possibly something else (I tens to turn off when it's not something I recognize). They ladies who I sat with were nice to me, I think that they just felt sorry that I was traveling alone, and in hostel, and on a budget (their works paid this trip for them as a conference package). A lot of the information they played, I had already heard on the walking tour, but it is a different view of the city from the water, and was only about €11!

on the kanaal

That night, the girl who helped me lift my backpack into the super high storage locker, and I shared a bottle of wine and had some hostel bar food for dinner. Catharine's other friend, whom she met in Paris, came and hung out with us, as did some Adelaide girls, and 2 canadians. So one bottle of wine turned into 2, and also 2 tequila shots. As a group, we went on our 'Peanut Tour'. Liam guided us through the RLD, and at times we didn't know where he was leading us (we weren't keen on going to a sex show). The RLD was overwhelming drunk, red lights, girls very scantly clad, lots of people, the dark, little alleyways... We lasted though. We went back to the hostel and found a raging party in the bar. After a bit of dancing, I called it a night; I didn't want to be hangover when I arrived in Paris!

X

*not a direct Van Gogh quote.