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 :)