Another day walking through the streets of Amsterdam and more near misses with cyclists riding like crazy people through the city. If you missed it yesterday, I noted that there are cyclists everywhere in this city. Today I note more accurately that they are everywhere in the city and they don’t feel they are confined to any avenue of transport. They have their own bike lane but we were almost run over by cyclists, in bike lanes, car lanes, and sidewalks today.
Despite the constant obstacle course, we had an awesome, full day of sightseeing around Amsterdam. We got the day started a little later than we wanted due to messing up the setting of the alarm and jet lag, but its probably for the better. Cris and I both felt well rested and eager to hit the ground running when we did get started.
First a couple of observations about Amsterdam in general, now that I was able to look around with a clear head. The city is absolutely beautiful. Pretty much everywhere you look you could take a picture and you’d have a postcard worthy photo. All of the buildings look interesting and its hard to know what exactly to look at because they’re all unique. Its also an incredibly easy city to walk…well except for the bikes of course
So after grabbing a quick breakfast, we headed up to the Anne Frank House. The museum has been done very nicely. They allow you to walk through the spaces that they lived in, giving little bits of description of what the room was used for and who stayed in what space. Per the request of Mr. Frank there was no furniture placed in the rooms, but they have a few artifacts, mostly books, that the Franks and others had while they were in hiding. Its shocking to see how little space they actually had to live in, and to think they were there for years is unthinkable.
After the Anne Frank museum, we walked a little until we came across the Tulip Museum. Very small for how big a deal tulips are here. Random fact I learned: tulips are native to the Himalayas. Who would have thunk it?
After the tulip museum, we continued to walk around to various points of interest in the city. Just to note, this is when we got our first strong smell of marijuana in the city; so weird. Along our walk we stopped at a theater museum they have for Dutch theater. They had a bunch of displays about costuming and backstage work that goes into putting on a show.
We also walked through the city center called Dam Square. On the square is the national monument, the Royal Palace, and the New Church. All very, very cool architecture, but we weren’t able to tour the palace or the church because they were closed. Dam Square is also a center of shopping and restaurants so this is where we really came across our first big crowd since we’ve been here.
After grabbing a quick bite we continued on our walk to the Old Church, which is, surprise surprise, one of the oldest churches in the country. They were getting ready to close as we got there so we only had a few minutes to check it out, but I’m glad we did. First, the entire floor is made up of tombstones, and there are some 2500 people buried under the floor of the church. One of most famous people buried there is Rembrandt’s wife. Totally random thing they had was a “Tombstone of the Month,” where they highlight one of the people that is buried there. Two other notable things about the church is the huge pipe organ they have and the stained glass windows. There were doing work on the organ so we couldn’t see all of that, but the stained glass windows were amazing in their detail and color.
From church we went straight to and through one of the most notorious parts of the city; the red light district. First, I want to note that the Old Church is across a canal from the edge of the red light district so you can see the red lights from the front of the church. That’s just weird.
The red light district, or at least the part we went through, isn’t necessarily what you would think. Basically, you have narrow pedestrian alleys off of main streets where the girls are trying to sell their services. They do this by standing in glass doorways in next to nothing. Let me just say that its uncomfortable to walk down a street like that, if you’re not interested in buying what they’re offering. I guess I can at least say that I did it now, for whatever that is worth. Its a life experience.
After our walk through the red light district we strolled our way back through the old city on the way to our hotel. Nothing to say about anything in particular on the walk. Only thing really to note here is that the city is a new kind of beautiful at night with the lights reflecting off the water of the canals.
A quick note on dinner is that we had Indonesian for the first time tonight and it was good, but we don’t know what we had. We ordered a sort of Indonesian tapas dish that had a bunch of small samplers, but they didn’t tell us exactly what was included. So I guess I like Indonesian food, but I can’t say that I’m able to really recognize the differences between the different kinds of Asian food. I guess my palate just isn’t refined enough.
Tomorrow is our last day in Amsterdam before heading down to The Hague and its going to be as filled tomorrow as it was today if not more.
