I would have to say that Amstersam holds it's fair share of stereotypes and after very little contemplation I'm going to say they are almost all true. It is a city built around a system of canals, with a rich history of trade. I think it would be safe to say that the energy of the city is relaxed. Incredibly relaxed. I'm no scientist but I think there might be a slight correlation to the fact that marijuana is legal. And when I say legal I mean that in 90% of the souvenir shops sell hash pops, mushroom tea, marijuana chocolate and the list goes on! It's actually impressive. Which brings me to the final point in the title... French fries! Amsterdam seems to take it's French fries very seriously- I would say a wise business venture for a city full of the munchies!
While all this true I say in all seriousness that it is a fantastic city and a must see!
We learned a few life lessons in Amsterdam....And not the ones you would expect for a couple of early twenty something's on a mission to take on the world! For one, having accommodation in the city makes a world of difference so BOOK AHEAD. Secondly, if you fall asleep for 16 hours and leave Kiri in the hotel room with you to starve, you will be an integral part of human buckaroo. For those of you who don't know what buckaroo is, it's a children's game that involves stacking objects on a spring loaded donkey, the mission is to not be the one to cause it to release and send your objects flying! For those who care about why this is relevant you unfortunately are going to have to keep on reading. Our third life lesson was don't look forward to cat cruises. They are disappointing.
Our first day in Amsterdam was laid back and relaxed. We caught a shuttle from our hotel to the train station and took the train into the city. This was an expensive but necessary form of transportation due to our procrastination when we were booking! We spent the mid morning and afternoon wandering around the canals. We had hoped to go to the Anne Frank house but it was sold out for the day so when we meandered past a kiosk for canal cruises we decided to hop on one! We took an hour long cruise through the canals and learned about some of the history of Amsterdam. Even from the canals one thing that was absolutely amazing was the number of bikes in this city. It's hard to even describe it. They are literally everywhere!!! Since we have left my catch phrase has been "Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore", while this has been true many times during our travels it was once again accurate when I ducked into a coffee shop to pet a cat sleeping in the window only to discover my quaint 'coffee' shop was just a little place to sit and smoke marijuana. It's no wonder that cat was passed out in the window. He probably had the munchies too! My favorite part of our first day is when we bought ourselves some Dutch cheese, bread and a bottle of wine and sat with our feet dangling over the canal to enjoy our picnic and watch all the people passing by on boats. The best boat we saw all day was a bachelor party singing their hearts out to Don't Stop Believing by Journey.
Day 2 in Amsterdam was a get 'er done day. We got up early and headed to the Anne Frank house where we stood in line for 2 hours to get inside! The museum was phenomenal. We had both read the Anne Frank diary in elementary school so it was very interesting to learn more about the story we had grown up knowing. I won't go into detail but if you are in Amsterdam it is a must see! Our next stop was a place called the Pancake Bakery just a minute walk up the road from the museum- recommended to us by Lindsay's aunt and uncle. Picture a dinner plate sized crepe with ice cream, whipped cream, banana, nuts and chocolate sauce.... It was beyond delicious! Another place I would recommend to everyone!!! The third stop of the day was one that came about thanks to our delay in Africa when we met the researcher who was originally from Amsterdam. She had told us about a market that is only on Saturday mornings, and conveniently enough, was only a minute or two up the road again! This market was similar to a farmers market at home. There was fresh food and jewelry and musicians playing! What happened next was supposed to be the highlight of my trip but ended up being a 4 minute pit stop: my cat cruise. I would be surprised if you handn't heard me talk about the cat cruise at least once before I left but just in case, there is a boat on the canal in Amsterdam that is a shelter for homeless cats which was founded by a crazy cat lady in the 60's when she ran out of room in her house for cats and had to start putting them on a boat. I had been looking forward to visiting this boat for MONTHS. What could be better than a boat full of cats who need love??? Apparently lots of things. I lasted about 4 minutes because all of the homeless cats in Amsterdam are stuck up and don't want to be pet!!
At this point we had exhausted our list of things to do for the day and decided to make the trek back to the hotel to freshen up and hopefully come back into Amsterdam for the evening or at least do some planning for the next leg of the trip! What did we do instead? Let me transcribe directly from my journal from Saturday May 31.
"Instead Lindsay fell asleep at 6pm and I stacked stuff on her until I got hungry, left to get food, got locked out, had to go get a new key card, and finally got into the room just in time to catch the end of some creepy exorcism movie that made me too scared to walk to yr bathroom and brush my teeth."