Amsterdam: Where "Coffeeshops" are not your average Starbucks

Last weekend I took a wonderful weekend trip to Amsterdam in The Netherlands. Amsterdam is SUCH a cute city, and definitely worth a visit. The people are nice, it's picturesque, and there are lots of sights to see!

I stayed at the fantastic Dobbs' apartment, with Katy, her husband and their cute tiny nugget named Asher (he's 9mo!) They're friends of my dad's and they graciously offered to let me stay with them. Let me tell you, after traveling around in youth hostels and sleeping in tiny twin beds, actually getting to sleep in a queen bed with lots of fluffy pillows and warm blankets was like staying in the Four Seasons!

The first day there I was given a personal tour of the city by Asher's nanny Daniella. So we bundled up little Asher and took him out with us for an afternoon stroll...and he was so cute and well behaved while we toured his city! Honestly, I can tell you that Daniella was more worried about my safety that day than she was for Asher's. She had total control over Asher in the stroller, but I got a few of the "mom saves" when we were crossing the roads... you know where the mom throws her arm out in front of a kid to keep them from stepping out in front of traffic? Yeah...I almost got run over multiple times by cars, over-ground trams, scooters and bikes. You have to watch out for the bikers...they will take you down!

I have never seen so many thousands of bikes in my entire life! Literally thousands upon thousands of them. People have bikes with colors, baskets, flowers...they're all bedazzled so that people can try to find their bikes easier. Originally when I got there, I thought I would rent a bike to ride around, see the town...nope! Way too intimidated! Riding bikes in Amsterdam is like an art form, or an extreme sport.

It looks like a bunch of flowers, but it's actually a BIKE!

So Daniella, Asher and I walked around the Jordaan area, which is where you see the famous tall, narrow houses on the canals. Apparently the houses here were taxed on their width, so that's why you see such skinny, tall houses! Literally the stairs in there are vertical. Actually, a better word for them are ladders. The stairs go straight up, and you may as well climb them like ladders unless you want to fall and break your neck. I almost died a few times climbing them, but not to worry, I made it though. We saw the famous canals Prinsengracht and Keizersgracht, and all the houseboats on the canals. Basically the houseboats are floating trailers on the canals, and (the legal ones) have electricity, plumbing, running water, and even little gardens.
Then we walked to the Bloemenmarkt, or the flower market, but it's really only in full swing in the spring and early summer. There were still flowers to be seen though! We also walked over to Dam Square to see the Koninklijk Paleis, or the palace of the Dutch royal family. Apparently they have a really active royal family, but they actually live and operate from The Hague. In Dam Square you find a lot of shopping, and all of the Christmas lights were on!

Actually Daniella was telling me that the previous weekend they had a big parade because at the end of November that's when Sinterklass come to The Netherlands from Spain (This is basically Santa Claus, but he comes on the 6th of December because that's the St. Nicholas saint day...and good ol' Saint Nick happens to be the patron saint of Amsterdam!) So everything is ready to celebrate in the city, the lights, little Christmas markets...and Black Pete can be found in the shop windows. Black Pete, or Zwarte Piet, is actually Sinterklaas's slave from back in the old days, and he appears in shop windows dressed in a 17th century page outfit. Now a-days they say that Black Pete is black because he got soot on him from going down the chimney bringing presents to children...not because he's Santa's slave... although some people think Santa's elves from the North Pole are slaves so.... I don't know :P

So after walking around for a while, Daniella and I thought we should stop somewhere to warm up and get something to drink. I suggested going to get coffee, and said we could go to a coffee house. Well, I learned that coffee cafes in Amsterdam are not actually your Starbucks. That's where you go to smoke or eat special brownies...when we passed a coffee house you could smell the smoke. So... I learned not to order my late and brownie snack from a coffee house in Amsterdam. And for some reason, apparently Starbucks doesn't do so well in Amsterdam -I can't imagine why...

I went on a cruise through the canals and learned from the tour guide that Amsterdam has been around since 1245, and that when you see XXX around the city, that's the symbol for Amsterdam. I also met another study abroad student on the cruise and we went out that night, had an Amstel beer (it's brewed there along with Heineken), and went to see the Red Light District. The Red Light District is in fact the section of town where prostitution is legal. And most of the girls just appear in windows scantily clad, and they look like the belong in the musical number Cell Block Tango from Chicago. It mostly looks like a tourist attraction. You think, "Oh yeah, these are THOSE girls, haha

The next day I went to the Anne Frankhuis (aka the Anne Frank House). This place is definitely worth a visit. The museum did a nice job giving you information during the tour, and they own the actual Anne Frank plaid diary, but there's not a whole lot to see there. The place was raided when the family was arrested, and the only one of the eight living there to survive the war was Anne Frank's father, Otto Frank. He was the one who wanted the house to be turned into a museum, but under the condition that they did not replace the furniture. So you can see the rooms, but it's pretty bare. Honestly, and the Dobbs and I talked about this afterwards because they thought the same thing I did, the place Anne Frank stayed was much bigger than I thought it was going to be. Now I know that sounds terrible, talking about people having to hide to avoid persecution. But I always thought they literally lived in an attic for two years during the war. Really it was basically a duplex PLUS an attic...more space than you find in most NYC apartments. Granted they couldn't even LEAVE this place, they had to stay there, but compared to where I thought they were living...they probably had it better off than some other people in hiding. Really not trying to be heartless here I promise, I'm just merely stating my surprise at what I saw.

I think the most interesting thing I took away from the tour was the video clip they had of Otto Frank, Anne's father. He could have discussed whatever he wanted to about what had happened to their family, but he didn't talk about the horrors they faced, the loss, the atrocity of the war or the camps. What he had to say was something along the lines of... we never really know our children do we? Or other people for that matter. Apparently the Anne from the diary, the Anne the rest of the world knows, was not the one Otto knew. Interestingly enough, he seemed pretty heart broken by that. My impression from the video was that he genuinely seemed upset that the legacy of Anne Frank would be the one left behind in the diary, and not the one he knew from daily life. Nevertheless, he did have her diary published according to her wishes, but commented on the fact that as a father, he never really knew his daughter, at least not the one presented in the diary.

Later that day I had lunch with the wonderful Mark, who works with Katy. We were laughing at lunch because he was explaining that the word for "no" in Dutch was "ne", but you can never just say it once. If you're going to say no you have to say "ne, ne, ne, ne, ne". Never once, always multiple times. Once you know this, you hear people on the street saying it all the time, and it's quite hilarious. Then we went to see the famous Rijksmuseum. It has all Dutch painters, and houses the famous Rembrandt painting The Night's Watch.

My final adventure before heading back to London by train was to go see the Van Gogh museum. Well, it turns out I picked a bad day to try and ride the tram because there was a strike. Womp womp. So unfortunately poor Mike, Katy's husband, had to drive me there, but I made it! YAY. It was definitely my favorite museum. They had a great audio tour with over 200 paintings in this museum. Van Gogh was such an interesting guy, but plagued by mental illness. They had one of his famous self portraits, one of the Sunflower paintings, and his famous bedroom painting.

Anyway if you ever make it to Amsterdam, go to the Van Gogh museum, the Anne Frank House, and eat lots and lots of Stroopwaffles (they're these delicious thin waffles filled with caramel that you put over your tea to melt the caramel inside...mmmm), and watch out for crazy bikers!!!!
That's all for now friends :)

10 Day Backpacking Trip: Prague, Vienna and Budapest

That's right readers...I just got back from a 10 day backpacking trip to Prague (Czech Republic), Vienna (Austria), and Budapest (Hungary)! I traveled with 5 of my other flatmates, and had an absolute blast!

Prague was the first city we visited, and we stayed there for about 3 days. We traveled on student budgets, so it was all backpacks and hostels for us! However, we basically had a private apartment to ourselves in Prague which was great.

Basically, Prague is a fairytale city...it looks like you fell down the Enchanted hole and landed in a cartoon. There are real castles, buildings that look like Disneyworld castles, towers etc. It's a little touristy, but definitely worth visiting, and I would definitely go back there. Every church is worth going into, all the houses are picturesque and there's a lot of history there too. You can't help but feel like you're visiting a magical city...as evidenced by the pictures below!

Cinderella Found Her Prince

The Old Square in Old town, is really amazing. It has the church called Our Lady of Tyn, which is the one that looks like the Disney castle, the famous Astronomical Clock, the St. Nicholas Cathedral, and lots of cute houses and 

The Prince Is Giving A Ball (Cinderella)

shops. The great thing about this city is that it is probably one of the most well preserved cities from the World War II era. Many sight are original or renovated. We also went up to castle hill and saw Prague Castle with the very large St. Vitus Cathedral in the middle of it. There are a lot of great parks up there on the hill, and multiple smaller palaces strewn around up there too.

Cinderella's Castle

Beauty and the Beast Castle

Prague also has a really great night life, whether it's clubs, bars, classical music, theatre etc. We had one really crazy night where we went to the Prague National Theatre to see a production of  the opera Carmen. All of us girls were at Wenceslas Square having dinner, and literally had to run to get to the theatre on time! It was beautiful inside the theatre, and we saw the Czech Republic's best tenor in the show. Then that night we went out to a really fun club and didn't leave til the sun came up!

I loved Prague, and would love to go back since we were always moving really quickly to see everything in three days! Then we all caught the bus across the border to Vienna, Austria....so the adventures continue.

Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs House (Golden Lane)

It basically took a full day of traveling to get to Vienna by the time we reached the station, got on the bus etc. It took about 5 or 6 hours...most of which I slept through :) That's a good trait you pick up on when traveling like this. You become so exhausted, you learn to sleep anywhere! So we check into our new hostel, and grab some delicious, traditional Wiener Schnitzel (pounded fried pork) at a local place. By now the 6 of us girls have established ourselves as always being in the "clean plate club" for dinner - meaning, that between the 6 of us...all food will be eaten. We couldn't tell if the waiters were horrified or impressed by this :)

Anyway the next morning the girls wanted to sleep in some, but I wanted to see the city immediately! So I set off for the Schonbrunn Palace...a beautiful palace that is still furnished like it was in the days of Maria Teresa and Empress Sisi and Franz Joseph. It was a beautiful, beautiful palace. The history there is incredibly interesting and I enjoyed my audio tour! I also toured the Hofburg palace, the palace of the Hapsburgs, and the Empress Sisi museum (she was quite a character and was known for her good looks, her long hair, and beautiful clothes). However, I'll tell you a little story about what I did not enjoy.

Schonbrunn Palace

On my very first adventure out to the Palace, in a foreign country where I do not speak the language, trying to learn the metro system, I had a not so pleasant encounter. I had my feet up on the seat across from me on the empty subway car with my map spread out, in obvious tourist mode trying to figure out (on my own) which stop to get off at, where to go, and so on. Well, out of no where some old 65ish year old man gets on the tube and kicks the begeezes out of me, and starts screaming at me in German! And no it wasn't because he wanted to sit, or did it on accident, or because I was doing something particularly awful. He was angry that I had my feet up on the seat so he KICKED ME?! (I have a lovely purple bruise from this experience). I was AMAZED. I understand that he didn't think I should have my feet on the seat, but what happened to the good old days of charades? I understand charades!!! Anyway I couldn't believe someone would do that.

 I would say the best part of the trip was that I scored a 15euro student ticket for the front row to see the opera L'elisir D'amore at the famous Staatsoper opera house. It's one of the best, most famous opera houses in the world! It was definitely the highlight of that portion of the trip, and the only way I would go back to Vienna is if I got to sing there! :)

I also saw the Belvedere Palace which has been turned in to an art museum and houses Klimt's famous painting "The Kiss", the Burgtheatre, the Leopold Museum in the Museum Quarter, Mozart's House, and the beautiful Stephansdom Cathedral.

The day we were supposed to leave we realized our bus had actually been scheduled for the day before! So we had already missed it and had to buy a new ticket. Well, we got to the station in plenty of time; however the bus company changed the pick up location, so we missed our bus for a second time. And as I mentioned, we were SO ready to leave. But we had to wait another 4 hours with about 3 other people who missed the bus to catch the next one to Budapest.

Finally we made it there, and we all split up to go our separate ways. 3 girls "couch surfed", staying with a local Hungarian, 2 girls were in one hostel, and due to a mix up bookings, I ended up in a different hostel by myself. It was fine though because Budapest is a really safe city, and my hostel was in a good location!

The first night we went out to this great bar called Szimpla. Budapest has a fantastic night life as well, and it mainly revolves around these really cool bars called "ruin bars". Bars that are kind of these underground facilities that are built in old run down, "ruined" warehouses, apartment buildings etc. It was actually the bar owned by the brother of the girl my friends were couch surfing with. It was such a neat place though. Very eclectic, lively, and huge! Multiple rooms you could cozy into with your friends...it was sort of like if Mellow Mushroom turned into a bar?

The next morning all of us slept in because we were starting to feel so tired after all this traveling! Then we decided to take a day at the spa! That's right...Budapest is known for its bath houses created and abandoned during the time of Ottomon rule. They are multiple, BEAUTIFUL bath houses throughout the city. We went to the most famous one, the Szechenyi bath, and had a lovely realxing day for only about 10 euro! You pay and then can stay as long as you like...pretty sweet deal! They have two huge outdoor thermal pools that stay at around 37-38 degrees celcius, which is hot tub temperture, and it's around 0 degrees celcius (around freezing) outside. So you stay really toasty in the baths. You can also go into this huge indoor complex where they have whirlpools, saunas, hot tubs, pools. Basically you just lounge and feel luxurious all day!

The next day I met up with my friends and we went over to their couch surfer, Dorca's, house. We went to their big market and bought fresh ingredients, and spent all afternoon having her teach us how to make Hungarian goulash (the way Dorca's granny taught her!) Let's just say, it's basically the bomb dot com, and if you want me to make it for any of you sometime...let me know because I totally wrote down the recipe! It involves a LOT of paprika, which they are apparently really famous for in Hungary. So we had a fun, warm meal with good Hungarian wine. Dorca made sure we had good Hungarian wine because that's important with your meal! She also told me I was not allowed to pull up my chair to the corner of the table because that meant I would never get married, so as you can imagine, I moved very quickly away from the corner!

Matyas Church

That night my friends and I went up the the castle hill to see the Budapest Royal Palace, which was never actually occupied by a royal family. It was meant for Franz Joseph and Empress Sisi, who we learned about in Vienna, who also ruled the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The hill offered some amazing views of the Pest side of the city as you can see from the picture. We went inside the old Matyas Church, saw Gillert Hill, and admired the full moon over their famous Chain Bridge.  



View of the Pest side with the Chain Bridge and St. Stephen's Basilica

The next morning I took a walking tour of the city and learned that if you want to say it the correct way, you say Budapest - "BudapeSHt". That way you don't sound like a tourist. The Buda side of the city is the hilly side, like a Buddha belly, and the Pest side is the flat side like a plain. Also many famous people come from Budapest including the famous composer Bartok, and the person who invented the Rubik's Cube (who still lives on the Buda side)! They also introduce themselves last name first followed by their "Christian" name. Also Hungarian is the 5th hardest language in the world, and no other language sounds remotely like it. So because it is so unique, the creators of Star Wars apparently wrote out Yoda's lines in English, translated them into Hungarian, and then back to English again. They did this because that's what gives Yoda his funny speech pattern. His word inflections and rhythms reflect that of the Hungarian language...apparently.

Then I stopped at a few more places really quickly to see the Parliament, which I sadly did not get to go in to, and the St. Stephen's Basilica, which was beautiful, and then we had to head back to London-town!

Sorry for such a long update, but I thought you all might like to know all the fun details of these places! Hope I didn't bore you too much...or give you info overload! Talk to you all soon...I'm going to be in Amsterdam this weekend....more adventures on the way!