Europe Adventure Day 3-4: Amsterdam

The flight to Amsterdam was right about an hour and uneventful except for the group of women sitting around us who were laughing very loudly and playing some game- mostly we read our books.

Walking through the airport and realizing how different the Dutch language is from English was a surprise. I felt like we were explorers in a foreign land- adventurers! We hadn't booked a hotel, but soon realized it wasn't fun to play it by ear in a country with that big of a language gap who don't particularly love American tourists. Especially when they find out we're only there for one day.

We got a hotel for 150 euros and paid 60 euros for the taxi ride over there. I'm thinking that was way too expensive, but looking back I'm glad we did since getting around was so tough the next day. We dropped off our stuff in the tiny hotel room- it had a full bed and a twin against the wall. At this point it was about 10pm and we hadn't eaten dinner and we didn't know our way around.

So we walked.

About 20 minutes later, we stumbled upon the famed red light district. It was easy, we just followed packs of young people.

There is no photo or video evidence of the next several hours because I was too scared. Imagine Bourbon street at Mardi Gras x100. Shuffling along in a mob of people- you don't know what state of mind they are in. Mobs of young boys practically drooling over the girls in the windows.

I made Bean put his wallet in his front pocket, and I kept my purse under my jacket and my hands in my pockets holding the cameras. I was so uncomfortable, I regretted trying to be an adventurer. It was dark when we arrived, so there was no chance to get our bearings. As we were shuffling along, I glanced over to my right, and there it was! Three clear windows with a red led light above and a girl wearing stripper gear inside. It was a series of streets, like a section of town, not just one street with red lanterns like I pictured. We never saw anything too crazy- no pictures of the girls' ladies, nothing sexual other than girls in lingerie, and a lot of the windows were empty- probably because it was Saturday night.

I wanted to stop and eat and get ahold of myself, so we stumbled into an Italian place. This was the only good thing we ate:

That one glass of wine really helped me calm down, or maybe it was the food in my belly. The waiter was kinda rude until Scott pulled out the wrong credit card and he laughed. I was starting to feel better about Amsterdam!

We decided to walk away from the crowds, and found a street with plenty of the famed coffee shops. We went inside one and it was crazy to see what Americans consider an illegal substance in big jars. They measure how much the customer orders on little scales and there are tons of options. They serve soda in the coffee shops because they have a law against selling booze and pot. Since the coffee shops close at 1am, most of the streets cleared out by then so we hiked back to the hotel.

The TV was horrible- it was all in Dutch, but then they'd have a commercial in English with Dutch subtitles. Or the show would be in Dutch with English subtitles. I couldn't figure out a pattern, but we watched Funniest Home Videos for a little bit before falling asleep around 2am. I'd set my alarm for 7:30 to make sure we were at the Anne Frank House the next morning by 9am when it opened to avoid a line.

We walked about 30 minutes to get to the Anne Frank House the next morning and took a few pictures along the way.

I was startled by how modern the place was. I figured out later that they must have purchased the house next door and that's what they turned into the modern museum part. We walked through the exhibit and up some very steep stairs, and then we were in what's called the office, which had more exhibits. All of a sudden, we were in the room with the bookcase in front of the stairs. My breath caught in my throat.

We climbed the steep stairs and we were in the secret annexe. It was obvious that the finishes had been updated-  new wallpaper/trim paint for example, but my other favorite part was Anne's room where they had the pieces of original wallpaper that she pasted pictures of movie stars on hung on the wall behind glass.

Somehow the tour took us back into the original building.

Here's a view of the outside- see the modern building next to the actual house? And the line out front...

It was great to see the place. I re-read the book on the trip and her story still means so much to me. I see myself in her writing- her hopes and dreams- her way of analyzing herself.

After that adventure, we were hungry but we had to keep walking to figure out where we were. Here's the grand central station:

Here's my favorite part of our trip to Amsterdam. We walked into this little coffee shop and the guy was friendly. (!!) He started speaking Dutch and I didn't realize it. I think he could see our confusion, so he said, 'Or in English?' We sat and had bagels, delicious juice and tea. Relaxing, friendly, and beautiful.

Again, we started walking since we had to check out of our hotel by noon. These pictures show the beautiful architecture of the city. I was enjoying this part of the day- I think there's no better way to learn a city than on foot because you can see everything and you never know what you're going to find.

And here's the street our hotel was on. We would never stay there again. There was an overabundance of graffiti. Everywhere. Not even good looking graffiti, just ugly stuff all over. Business owners wouldn't even clean it off.

Somehow we made it back to grand central. They have an underground subway transportation, trolleys above ground, and a train station. How does one figure out which mode of transportation to use?! We walked. But it's impossible to walk everywhere, so we bought a ticket for the trolley.

We took the trolley and got off somewhere near the Van Gogh Museum, our other goal for our day in Amsterdam. It was very busy, again being a Saturday, but it was great to be surrounded by the work of our favorite artist. Bean isn't really a museum kind of guy, and I'm not really a museum person either, but I really enjoyed that one. Obviously, no pictures inside, but here's a view from the back of the building overlooking a park:

Out front they had a guy who looks like Van Gogh and you could put your face in the painting and take a picture. I was thrilled! Just the kind of cheesy tourist stuff I love! The expression on Van Gogh's face, the fact that he was actually touching that paint brush to Bean's face, my eyese are closed- hilarious!

After that loveliness, we were ready to get back to the airport. This is when it got really bad. We made so many mistakes this trip:
-staying less than 24 hours, this was the biggest one
-not even thinking about trying to understand their language or bring something to translate
-going on a Saturday
-not researching anything other than the 3 things we wanted to see, like how you are supposed to get around the city and what are the best ways to do that
-we didn't listen to the travel books and do a canal tour
-not booking a hotel in advance
-Bean would say bringing an overnight bag that you have to hold in your hand or carry over your shoulder- no long strap or wheels

The biggest mistake I made was insisting we only buy the 1-hour trolley ticket thinking it would be 1 hour of actual travel time, not 1 hour actual time (duh!). Bean even tried to tell me we should get a full day pass. So we came out of the Van Gogh museum with time to spare but couldn't get on the trolley because the card expired. There was nowhere to refill it. So we walked.

And walked. And walked. And started to get hot and were lost in the weird streets with names containing 15 vowels each. We finally stopped to ask a travel booth where we could buy a new trolley card. Luckily she could sell us one, and she did. So we got back on the trolley and took it back to central station. By this point, we'd wasted at least 2 hours.

We asked a tourist helper how to get to the airport. He said to take the train. We went inside to buy a train ticket. They couldn't take credit cards and we were out of cash. We went to the ATM and got out cash. Bought the train ticket. Went to the landing posted where we bought the ticket. Waited, and it didn't look like the right one. We asked a guy who looked like he worked there (not friendly, just like most everyone else we encountered), he said they changed the landing. How were we supposed to know that?! Surely there was a sign somewhere that made no sense. We went to that landing and got on the train. That's when we took this picture. The caption is, 'Look like you love Amsterdam'.

Eventually, we made it through Customs, onto the plane, and the plane left The Netherlands. I filmed the take off I was so excited to be out of that place. I told Bean I wanted a glass of wine on the plane (it's included on those flights) to celebrate. So here's our celebration:

Can you see the difference in our faces from the last picture to this one? We are truly excited here. We decided when we made it back to the motherland (Scotland) we were going to eat at a cool pub we'd seen on the way to the airport. I don't think I've mentioned how easy it was in Edinburgh to get from our hotel to the airport. We walked up the street a couple of blocks and got on a bus. We were able to buy a return ticket at the same time, so when we got back, we just got on a bus and went back into town. So easy.

Here's the pub:

We had fish and chips- delicious. I'll even forgive Bean for mentioning a certain fast food chain with the initials LJS- it was not like that at all. A couple of Scottish guys sat with us at the table and talked about one of their friends being upset about girl problems. It was great. The walls were dark green and covered in pictures, the dark wood paneling went halfway up the walls, and the bartender was very friendly.

A beautiful end to a not so beautiful day.

PS- We were not able to get back on the bus like we thought we could, so we walked half an hour back to the hotel after dinner. But we didn't mind at all.