Welkom na Amsterdam
WOW, this city is AMA-zing; beautiful, friendly people, clean streets, canals, food, night life, culture, culture and more culture.
Vrydag coudn't come faster...
I left work early on the Friday which seemed to be everyone else's idea at the start of the bank holiday weekend, sadly our last until August and headed to the tube to catch the Picadilly line to Heathrow. After checking in my bag, waiting for the boarding time, I finally headed to the gate to see the world's smallest KLM plane at Heathrow, a Fokker 50 with I think twin props aka I can see the propellers. After making our way down the runway and taking off we were up in the air and flying over Lundun town and 45 minutes later we were landing at Amsterdam Schipol airport.
I had come for a birthday weekend where 15 of us were all going to Amsterdam to a) see the beautiful city and b) enjoy our friend's birthday on Sunday night. I finally found the girls in arrivals and we waited for the rest of our crew and then all headed to the train that took us to the city central. Transport was nice and easy and since everyone speaks superb English, language was nice and easy. After some brilliant entertainment by the ticketmaster on the train we finally caught a tram from Centraal Station to Leidseplein aka where our hostel was.
Well, as soon as we got out of the tram, we were once again greeted to so many foreign sounds and people bustling all over the square where we stopped. We headed to the hostel, put our bags down and went out to a bar/club/pub/restaurant and had some supper and chilled. After getting back at 3am we crashed to wake up for Saturday's New Amsterdam walking tour.
I need a pair of takkies
Walking in Puma's for 4 hours is not ideal is all I'm saying. From that you may guess that we literally walked Amsterdam centre flat from the red light district, The Dam Square, beautiful cathedrals, churches, canals, Anne Frank Huis, Jewish Quarter, Hash Museums, museums, The Dampkring (where Ocean's 12 was filmed), Coffee shops, Dutch East India Company and so on. I took lots of pictures to remember this day but it was awesome. I had my token clog picture of me in it and bought lots of gifts for family on our way back to get ready for the night. Wow, sentence structure a bit weird. Anyhooooooo
Red Light District
Wowawee... total eye opener in every sense of the word. The day red light district vs. the night red light district are two VERY different places. The night is packed, like Leicester Square packed where you can't move. People are drinking, smoking, smoking and generally looking at the women in the doors, windows and or buying tickets to a live sex show. It's insane is probably the best way to describe it. After our group of now 15 people got broken up, we all somehow managed to book for the same small, intimate live sex show and all I can say is with my eyes wide open; 'Whoa!' It was an experience but just watching how clinical and emotionaless the whole act is, is kind of sad. It loses it's whole appeal to watch these people cater for this emotionaless show and for people who are looking for the 'red light district' Amsterdam experience. Even though we all sat with our mouths WIDE open in awe of how we could see everything in a theatre the size of probably the MD's office, it was as I said WHOA!
Are we in Cape Town?
I kid you not. All we needed was the beach and ocean and I swear we could have been at home on a summer's day. It was like 27 degrees, boiling hot and no wind so we all decided to have a birthday picnic at Vondel park where it became Clifton beach and you were literally sitting on top of the person. It was a chilled day where after that we ate amazing poffertjies (fritters), went on a beautiful canal boat tour and walked around. It truly was an awesome day. At night we all went to celebrate the friend's birthday at Bazaar, a tapas styled restaurant where the food was amazing. We headed back to Leidseplein and walked around the bustling square again.
Nooooo
I don't think many of wanted to leave and after having a late morning, we headed to Anne Frank huis where we all pretty much had a very humbling experience. As a jew, it is something I had to do and well we all had to do and to know that I was in the same attic and walking and standing where she and her family was, really does bring you back down to earth really quickly. The bookcase, the height lines and hearing the church bell ringing from across the road was a very surreal experience!
After the tour, we headed back to do some shopping and walking around the centre on our way back to the hostel. We all had planes to catch and slowly we started heading back via a few stops for some fabulous food, food and more food.
What to do in Amsterdam should you go:
- Go eat poffertjies in Leidseplein (by the canal)
- Canal boat tour
- Free Walking tour
- Anne Frank huis
- Vondel park
- The Dampkring
- Amnesia
- Dam Square
- Flower market
- Hire a bike from Mac bikes
- Sit in a clog
- And of course... The Red Light District