amsterblog!

**This blog is dedicated to Brian, who was mad that my blog posts have dwindled to zero.  Brian, enjoy the voluminousness of this post!**

Okay...Amsterdam post time, quickly...I'm on my lunch break right now and it is dwindling rapidly as I stuff my face with pb&j and BBDO chips :)

Martin and I left on Friday afternoon for Stansted, which is an adventure of a train ride away.  We got there way too early, so we ended up spending three hours goofing around in the airport, having fun in duty-free stores and playing with toys (meant for children, not Martin and me).  Finally, after several delays and three gate changes, we were on our flight and Amsterdam-bound!

Once we landed, we boarded what we thought was the correct train from Schiphol, the Amsterdam airport (which sounds like "shithole" when they say it out loud!), to Amsterdam Centraal, the train station.  Turns out we got on a train to Utrecht Centraal instead by mistake...oops!  Luckily, our mistake meant we meant an amazing guy named Rico...he was a 42-year old professor of English in Slovakia who gave us so many amazing travel tips and a lot of good advice about what to do and see in Amsterdam.  He also told us snippets of his life story, which was fascinating.  I love meeting people traveling!

After we found our Christian fundamentalist hostel, which [ironically] was in the heart of the Red Light District, we headed up Zeedijkracht (pronounced "zie-dick-crack") to find some food, and happened to stumble into the oldest gay bar in Amsterdam, Café t'Mandje.  We got some amazing dark artisan beer and admired the ambiance...hundreds of photos, postcards, newspaper clippings, and random pieces of memorabilia covered the walls, and cut neckties were draped over every rafter...such a cool place!  Martin kept getting hit on by the gay guys, and I talked to two lovely middle-aged lesbians about places to go at night (all they recommended were other gay bars.  We didn't go.).  We were home and in bed by about 1:30 am, totally exhausted and ready for sleep...but I didn't get to bed until three because...

IT'S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL!  My hostel room for four people was populated by me and three junior girls at Miami-Ohio, who a: were in marching band b: knew people in the ND marching band (!!!!!!!!) and c: were VERY excited about all our mutual connections.  We stayed up talking about the awesomeness of marching band and comparing notes on who knew who through whom for almost an hour and a half.  So much fun, and it was such a pleasant surprise to find people even so far away who knew some of the people who I love dearly.  :)

In the morning we got up early in time for the hostel's free breakfast and headed immediately out to the Anne Frank House.  Though we thought we were going to make it there quickly, we took a circuitous route, weaving up and down canals and streets exploring the area, so we didn't get there until about 11.  Amsterdam is a beautiful city, even in pouring rain (which is what it did all weekend!).  Not so beautiful, though, when you're freezing your ass off waiting in an hour-long line to get in the Anne Frank House.  Still, it was so worth it...I got a bit shivery and sad when I realized that I was actually standing in the Secret Annex, behind the hidden bookcase, in a room where Anne herself had lived and hid and written and read and dreamed.  So surreal.  The furniture had all been confiscated by the Nazis after the Franks were discovered, but Anne's bedroom walls were still covered with her newspaper and magazine pictures of film stars and celebrities, her only decoration for two years in hiding.  What a mind-blowing, eye-opening experience.  

After Anne Frank House, we went to a market on the Prinsengraacht (Prince's Canal), one of the biggest canals in Amsterdam.  The best part?  Free samples of amazing food!  We tried goat-liver sausage, soft and delicious Amsterdam cheese, different kinds of spiced ham and meats, and several different kinds of spreads and dips for rye bread...pesto, tomato, artichoke, etc.  A great snack mid-day!  We also explored old book-stands and poked through some of the antiques.  What a cool little market.  

Then we started walking around the city a bit more...we crossed canals, went in the Holland opera-house, visited another market that Rico had recommended, and popped in our first coffee-house.  For those who don't know, coffee isn't on the menu in Amsterdam coffee-houses...instead, they sell marijuana and alcohol, and nothing but.  The stench of pot was so pervasive in Amsterdam that by the end of the day Saturday smelling it literally made me nauseous.  We were in there for about five minutes watching and seeing everything before I needed to leave...gross.  We then headed through the Rembrandtsplein, or Rembrandt Square, which is Clubbing Central for Amsterdam.  We got hot chocolate at a Heineken bar...random but fun.  Martin also caused a huge pedestrian-bicyclist accident...he stepped out into a bike lane, which in Amsterdam are wider than the sidewalks, and knocked a girl a few years older than us off her bike!  She was livid and gave us a lecture on how inappropriate and inconsiderate we were and we went off chastised and embarrassed, but admittedly amused.  

By now we were freezing cold, soaking wet, and really exhausted, so we popped into a mock Irish pub to watch the last few minutes of the England-Ireland rugby match!  Amsterdamians were cheering for both teams, which makes me question how much they actually knew or understood of the game...hmm.  Still, they got really excited when Ireland won, and we departed to the sounds of the entire bar singing "Danny Boy."  Our last day-visit was to the Bloemenmarkt, a floating flower market on the canals.  It was beautiful!  Amsterdam, famous for its tulips, outdid itself with a flower market the length of a few city blocks.  I loved it…and it smelled absolutely heavenly in the rain!

One of the places recommended to us by Rico was a music center on the other side of the main canal called the Muziekostergraacht or something…I don’t remember at present…which housed a jazz bar called Bimhuis.  We decided this sounded awesome, so we went.  You have to cross the canal on a giant suspension bridge, which is kind of freaky, and the Bimuis part of the whole complex sticks out of the building like a giant tumor…unsupported, really, and a bit scary to look at.  We got our tickets (discounted drastically because I said I was a music student, haha!) and sat down for two hours of some very experimental and odd but cool jazz piano and sax. 

Midway through the show I realized I didn’t just feel like crap because I was exhausted and hungry…I was running a pretty extreme fever.  Spent the rest of the evening exploring the Red Light District at night with Martin…this deserves a few words.  I was expecting the Red Light District to be really scary and sketchy and disgusting and, in a way, it was…but it was very different than I expected.  I would call it culture shock in the extreme.  You literally walk down a street and there are dozens of women standing in full-length windows in their underwear waiting for customers.  I kept having crises of guilt where if I looked I immediately freaked out a bit inside, averted my eyes, and felt like a sinner.  By the end of the weekend though it just made me sad…although it was still a huge shock to see it.  I can’t imagine anything like it anywhere else in the world.

Sunday: we got up early and went to Dutch Mass at Sanctje Nicklauskerk, or St. Nicholas’s church.  St. Nick is the patron saint of children prostitutes, sailors and Amsterdam, so it was cool to go to his church in his patron city.  We happened to run into a few more ND students there, which was cool…and just proved again that it is such a small world. 

After Mass, which we understood about 0% of, but still really enjoyed, we took a canalboat tour on our way to the Van Gogh Museum.  If you are going to Amsterdam, DO NOT DO THIS.  It is a RIPOFF and you can experience the canals by walking just as effectively for free.  Still, it was pouring rain and we enjoyed being warm and dry on the covered boats for a while. 

The Van Gogh museum, for lack of description, is utterly amazing and worth every penny you pay to get in.  I so enjoyed working my way through his paintings in chronological order, as they are displayed there…it was such a wonderful way to see his evolution as an artist.  I am freshly obsessed with Van Gogh all over again…what a character and what a gifted artist!  The paintings just made me want to touch them with their texture and color.  Aaah.  My favorites were “Sunflowers,” “Almond Trees,” and his self-portrait for the big names, and his series of orchards and hay fields painted in Arles for less well-known ones.  

After Van Gogh (where we spent 4 hours!) it was time to head back to Shithole…I mean, Schiphol…to catch our flight home.  Of course, Easyjet sucks and our flight was delayed.  Which meant another three-to-four-hour hang out in a European airport.  I feel like this is going to be the story of our lives on Spring Break…grr…Long story short, we met up with the other ND students on our flight in the airport, played around, and finally got airborne and home in one piece. 

Random notes on Amsterdam:

-I never want to smell pot smoke ever again.

-Hostels are really not THAT bad.

-Canal water is filthy and would NOT be fun to swim in.

-Any street name or place name in Amsterdam can somehow be pronounced dirtily.

-If offered advice by locals or experienced travelers, TAKE it.  It will be so much cooler than all the touristy shit. 

-Pack extra socks.  Dry feet are worth it.

-Watch out for bicyclists when walking around an unfamiliar city!

-It IS possible to survive an entire weekend on a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter.  Not advisable…but possible. 

Lunch break=over and so does this blog.  Ciao, loves.  I’ll try to write once more before spring break but if not, sorry and I’ll talk to you on the flipside!