Part 3: Amsterdam's Beauty

I know you are all waiting on pins and needles for the last installment of our blog about our trip to Europe, so I will keep you in suspense no longer. . .

On Friday, we rode the train into Amsterdam not sure what to expect. We’d had many a poke and jest about us even going to the pot-ridden, sex-selling capital of Europe and I was a little worried that us suburbanite Christian kids from Boulder would be totally overwhelmed. Luckily, that was not the case!

When we arrived we carefully followed our directions to take the tram to our hostel. When we got there we were pleasantly surprised to find a very cute, clean, safe-feeling hostel. We had chosen to stay in a Christian hostel because they didn’t allow drugs or alcohol and I figured it would be easier to sleep there than the “party hostels” or “house boat hostels” that were advertized. We get a friendly introduction from a guy that looked a lot like Tony (Mike later had a long conversation with him and they ended up getting a picture together, so you can judge for yourself).

After checking in we headed to lunch and then went across the street to the Westerkerk (West Church), which is the site of Rembrandt’s unmarked grave. We then took a trip down the block to the Anne Frank house. I was very excited to see the house since I had been re-reading her diary in preparation for our trip. It was really cool to see where they lived and be able to picture it better when she was talking about things in the book. It was disappointing, though, that they didn’t have any furniture in the house at Otto Frank’s request.

It was pretty cold out, so we decided to head inside to a cafe to have a pancake treat (actually it was more like a crepe- with strawberries and ice cream- yum!). Afterward, we browsed through some shops and then went to the main square where we toured through the Nieuwe Kerk ("New Church"), which is a 15th-century church that is used for royal coronations. We then did a boat tour, which was good because the weather had cleared a bit and it was nice to see the city from the point of view of one of the many canals that run through Amsterdam. One interesting site was a Chinese restaurant that was modeled after the original in Hong Kong. It was floating on the river and seats 5,000 people! We heard the food was not very good, though, so we never ate there. After that, we walked around along the beautiful canals and went to dinner at a pub along one of the busy streets and then headed back to the hostel to get some sleep.

On Saturday, we got a bit of a late start (it was Saturday afterall!) and then went to see the Oude Kerk (“old church”—sensing a pattern here?), which is the oldest church in Amsterdam. They were having a World Press Photo exhibit there, though, so we didn’t want to pay the $12 or so to get in and see it. On the way to the church, however, we did see a bit of the red light district- Mike was navigating us there and didn’t even notice all the seedy shops/people/women in the underwear in the windows. Needless to say, Beth and I were anxious to hurry him along and get out of there quickly. Luckily it was Saturday morning, though, so there really weren’t that many people out on the streets.

That afternoon, we took a bus tour to see more of Holland. I love taking tours, so I really enjoyed this part. The bus drove us first to a tiny little fishing village called Marken that used to be an island. There are only about 2,000 people in the village and they all had their laundry hanging out and their houses were all perfect little Dutch houses all painted the same—it was a bit Stepford-esque actually now that I think about it. . .Then we took a boat across the lake to another village, Volendam, which was a bit bigger—20,000 people living in this one. While in the villages we did some shopping and had a snack at a pub. I ordered an ice cream treat and they accidently brought me the wrong one—a Smurf treat with blue sprinkles and blueberry sauce and Smurf gummies. The Smurfs are very popular there because Amsterdam is the “comic book capital of the world” and several comics were developed there, including the Smurfs.

After the break, the tour bus took us to a cheese maker where we saw the process they go through to make their cheeses. The cheese was absolutely delicious and we bought two wheels to bring home (which turned out to be a bit of a hassle coming back through customs, but not too bad.) Then, we went next door and saw a wooden shoemaker at work and browsed through the enormous collection of wooden shoes they had in the shop. Next stop was a great view of some windmills. It was really interesting to hear about all the different functions windmills have had there—including pumping the water out of their many lakes to make more dry ground for farming. When the tour was over we headed back toward the hostel and ate at a very yummy Indian food restaurant.

On Sunday, we had planned to do a day of museums. So, we headed out after breakfast for the Van Gogh museum. It was especially cool because they had a special exhibit going on called “The Colors of the Night” and it included a free audio tour. We walked around and saw a lot of Van Gogh’s most famous paintings, a lot of which are not always on display in that museum—including Starry Night, which was amazing to see in person. When we went upstairs to see the standard exhibition we also got to see his sunflowers painting, his bedroom painting, the potato eaters, and his many self-portraits. The museum was incredible and we enjoyed his art very much—it has so much movement and beauty, like Mike said “it’s like the paintings are dancing—they are so active and exciting” but his stuff is also very peaceful since he spent a great deal of time painting ordinary people in ordinary settings. After the museum we decided to defy the weather and eat lunch outside. It was a bit chilly, but nice to get some fresh air. After lunch we decided not to go to the other museum we had planned to see (admission was around $20) and instead went to see a free diamond exhibition, which I enjoyed quite a bit J After that we wandered around the streets and shopped until Beth had to part ways with us and head back to the hostel to collect her stuff and go meet her train.

After we bid Beth adieu, we browsed around the flower market, which was incredible. There were stalls and stalls of flowers in every color and variety—very pretty! And the stalls were all floating on the canals, which made it even cooler. We then went to the one place Mike had been wanting to visit the whole time—the Torture Museum. There they had every type of medieval torture device you could imagine. It was pretty crazy to see all those things and read about how they used them. I was pretty ashamed to realize that the majority of the most brutal ones were developed and used by Christians who were usually witch hunting.

As soon as we left the Torture Museum it started raining. Of course it did because this was the first day that I had decided to stop carrying around my rain coat with me everywhere. Luckily I had on a hooded sweatshirt, but I still got pretty wet on the 30-minute walk back to the hostel. When we arrived there, we took some time to warm up with hot chocolate in their café and then headed out to find our bus that was taking us to London.

That’s right—I said bus. From Amsterdam to London. A 10.5 hour bus ride. My initial plan was that we would sleep on the bus and save ourselves the (more expensive) plane ticket as well as another night’s hotel room. Well, we certainly did save money, but we did not necessarily sleep. What I didn’t factor in was that on this ride from 8pm to 6:30am that A. the driver would stop and make everyone get off of the bus for “breaks” and that B. the other people on the bus would have no desire whatsoever to sleep and would talk all night! Needless to say, we were pretty tired when we got to London. We went straight to the airport since we had our bags with us and waited for our plane for the next 5 hours while trying to stay awake (I did not succeed and took a nap for about two hours while my vigilant husband kept watch).

Overall, I really liked Amsterdam—the cobblestone streets and beautiful canals far outweigh the yuckiness of the rest of the stuff that goes on there. And all in all, it was a wonderful trip that we will not soon forget.

I am already excited to get back to London and explore more of the rest of Europe as well. Every time I’m there I discover something new and have a totally unique experience—I love that! Oh well, for now it’s back to work so I can save up enough to pay for the next adventure!