Amsterdam

I will preface this by saying that I was a fool, a FOOL to think that I could cover Amsterdam in one day. Listen to me, youngsters, and plan for at least two, if not three days in this wonderful city.

First of all, how awesome is it that the Centraal station is right next to the downtown area? No need to take busses or walk through creepy industrial sites – just cross the canal (first of many) and head into one of the tiny cobblestone streets that permeate European cities.

First stop of the day was the Oude Kerk (the Old Church … again, one of many, I’m sure). I have a fancy for old churches and cathedrals (due to the fact that there’s a dearth of them in North America … those modern Baptist churches are a joke compared to the cathedrals of Europe; might as well compare the waiting room at the doctor’s office to Versailles).

In any case, like any gullible tourist, I totally paid the 4 Euros to look inside the church, which looked like most other Dutch churches inside. But what the heck, you gotta live a little, right? The interesting thing about this one were the intricate wall and ceiling decorations. So I take a photo of one of the pictures on the ceiling.

Then I read up about it in the handy dandy little brochure, like the proper tourist that I am.
Guess who was in the picture?

St. Crisp and St. Crispin, patron saints of shoemakers.

Bam. Now that I’m buddy buddy with them, I’m hoping for a windfall of Louboutins in the future.
The rest of the church was also of course beautiful …

…  but let’s just say, I wasn’t looking up as much as I was looking down.

See, the floor stones are actually grave stones for the people buried beneath the church. And a lot of them had these weird symbols on them, so I decided to photograph every single one, just in case I become Tom Hanks and have to solve some sort of Templar mystery with these clues.



Dan Brown, feel free to hit me up and make me a star in your next European mystery quest. I’d be only too glad to take another trip through here … as long as it’s all expenses paid, you understand.

Anyways, I figured I should at least see some sights and visit some museums, so I headed to my first destination. (Which was neither a sight, nor a museum, but a Dutch cheese tasting, which unfortunately was full and I had to change my plans). But on the way, I also managed to see some other sights.

Why yes, that IS the world famous naked invisible man. Didn’t you stop by to take a photo with him on YOUR trip?

And apparently the secret hideout of the USSR. Guess after the union broke up, the leaders figured, why not head to Amsterdam and relax with some green? I mean, heading up a dictatorship is really hard work, you know.

With all that sight-seeing, I got a little bit hungry (plus it was what, 1pm already? Did I mention I got a late start?), so I stopped at one of those absolutely cute tiny cafes on the canal and got what must have been my most delicious meal to date. If you're ever in the area of the Hegensgracht, stop by either the Hegensgracht (cafe) or Toos&Roos for a delicious sandwich and soup.

(That is not the actual view from the cafe, but it’s close by, I promise!)

(Fresh and mouthgasmicly soft white bread, mozzarella ready to melt in your mouth, tomatoes and greens basically straight off the farm, all drizzled generously in home made pesto. I die. I die.)

Feeling appropriately refreshed post-lunch, I hit up my first museum. Still, I decided to ease into the cultural tedium of countless masterpieces of the more famous museums with a visit to a small museum with masterpieces of a different kind.

The Museum of Handbags. Yes, it exists, and yes, it was heavenly. The only thing better would be a shoe museum. As it happened, there was a shoe section there too, so I was on cloud 9 for a good hour or so.

There was a bag there from the 1400s, for example …

… as well as a whole cabinet of bags made from various exotic materials, from armadillo to ostrich.

There were also bags there that even I was a little confused about, but then I realized that this was probably a collection of the purses that Lady Gaga had accidentally left behind in her hotel rooms during a tour or something, and it made more sense.

With such an auspiciously great start to my museum-ing, I headed off with a light heart to this here little place.

That would be the Rijksmuseum. Where I paid 14 Euro to see their reduced collection, because the entire building was being renovated and so they were only displaying a small part of their masterpieces. Great.

But I’m stubborn as a bull, and if I walked all the way here, there was no way in hell I’d be deterred by such a little thing as an overpriced ticket to a not-really-worth-it-type exhibition, and in I went. On the way to the more famous Rembrandts and Vermeers and The Night Watch, I learned a few other lessons in art history.

Like that a Dutch lady once paid the price of a canal house for a dollhouse …

… and that apparently Greek men were not very well endowed …

… and that the expression ‘pain in the ass’ was probably first uttered by the model for this particular statue when the sculptor asked him to sit on a snake for 10 hours straight.

The snake’s expression indicates that he was probably not pleased by the arrangement either.

The Vermeers and the Rembrandts were nice and obviously well executed, if not rather small. I guess that’s always the case – I mean if fame determined size, the Mona Lisa would be 10 ft tall. But similarly to Da Vinci’s painting, The Milkmaid and Rembrandt’s self-portraits were all rather small and unprepossessing.

Despite the fact that this was a ‘reduced’ exhibition, I felt like I had had enough by the time I finished viewing it … I only wished it weren’t that expensive. Still, I was determined to also hit up the Van Gogh museum, so on I trudged down the street. But you know, I’m like a magpie, so when I saw a sign for a free entry to the Diamond Museum, I was on it like leopard print on Russian girls.

 No seriously, I can’t resist shiny things. Now they claim that they were showing real diamonds here, but of course I can’t tell the difference, so who knows. There were also real workers who were polishing the diamonds (much smaller ones). Then in a different room, they had actual rooms full of diamonds that were for sale. Now even though this was supposedly part of the ‘museum’, there were still mobs of salespeople anywhere, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt as much that I didn’t belong as I did there.

There were Chinese couples who were literally scooping up diamond-encrusted watches left right and center, and there was dowdy little me, snooping around with my dirty poor-person fingers. Or at least, that’s how the snobby salespeople made me feel. Well never mind them, I still went to every single room, because nothing gets in the way of me and my touristing. And then I quickly tried to exit, but got lost and had to trek through all the snobbily accoutured salesrooms once again.

Bah. I need to get rich.

Anyways, across the street was the Van Gogh museum and I rejoined the touristing crowds with ease. Unfortunately, you weren’t allowed to photograph in the Van Gogh museum …

As I was reminded when I sneakily tried to take a photo. I mean, there really is no reason to take a photo of a painting, when I can get a reproduction/print/really good resolution image on the Internet later. No reason at all. But the touristing impulse is strong, and the traveller’s camera trigger-happy finger can not rest.

I actually really enjoyed the Van Gogh museum, surprisingly. Despite the fact that it was not very big (and yet still cost 14 Euros!), I liked seeing how the works of one painter progressed over time. You could see how he started with thick, dark, oily strokes and slowly progressed to small, quick, multi-coloured strokes. It was also interesting to see this evolution in the context of the events that shaped his life. All in all fascinating.

By the time I left though, it was 6pm. I really wanted to take a boat tour of Amsterdam, but had decided earlier to leave it to the end, so I could enjoy Amsterdam in the late afternoon when I was tired of walking around. But the tours were all 1.5 hours long, which would make me quite late in getting home, so regretfully, I had to get back to the train station.

I still hadn’t managed to have a cheese tasting, or visit the Heineken Brewery or take the boat tour. So clearly, one day in Amsterdam is not enough.

Still, even from such a limited exposure, I would venture that Amsterdam is my favourite city in the Netherlands – its busy atmosphere, its beautiful buildings and ever-present canals and the general feeling of European elegance contributed to a very satisfying day for me.

But seriously, next time, I’m taking the damned boat. Period.

Den Haahhhhhhhhhhh

So in case you thought I was going to The Hague (and by the way, what’s up with the article? THE Netherlands, THE Hague … I shall call myself THE Anna in 3rd person from now on and see how people like it) … well, anyways, I actually went to Den Haag. Pronounced with a extremely loud and vigorous gargle so you sound extra Dutch. I mean, it’s the same place, but I feel way cooler visiting Den Haahhhhhhhhhh.

Well, it’s very much like the other Dutch towns I visited – that is, very cobblestone-y and ‘European’. Because, duh, I’m in Europe. I should be a professional writer, no?

I took full advantage of all of the cute street-side cafes by having lunch at a plaza filled with umbrellas and the sound of churchbells.

The latte macchiato I ordered was once again, a somewhat bland reminder of Second Cup or Starbucks (and then I felt bad, because I’m in Europe and I’m supposed to be drinking refined European coffee), but I felt totally justified ordering an apple tart again (second day in a row, how successful!), because after all, apple tarts are a Dutch specialty.

Now being that this was Monday, unfortunately, all the museums were closed, which meant I had to make do with monuments and buildings that I could look at but could not go inside. On the upside, it played well into my walk fast-see things-go philosophy and also into not spending the moolah. Which, I have to say, was going pretty fast at that point.

I was trying to be inconspicuous about my map-checking to ‘fit in’ (and those who know me, know that I LIVE by the map) – but this meant that quite a few times, I turned off into little alleyways that weren’t exactly where I meant to go. Still, the European charm persisted, and also, I managed to find my way in the end, because unlike London or Paris, Dutch cities are usually pretty good about having perpendicular, rather than star-shaped intersections, meaning that it’s easy enough to get around. (Where as in Paris, someone will tell you to take a right and you’ll get to a star-shaped intersection with 3 streets going off to the right and it’ll make you very very sad and confused).

One of those wrong turns that I took brought me a little off to the side of where I wanted to go, so I cut across through a park (one of a million here – having a lot of green space in the city is something that the Dutch people do very well … or as I like to say, the Dutch do green well ). As it happened, there was actually an exhibition of sculptures by South African artists right there in the park. I wasn’t even surprised, because another thing the Dutch do really well is having really weird public art. Like the strangest shaped things standing in the middle of the street. In Vancouver, our public art stretches to cover huge bear statues painted in different colours, which is, OMG, pretty out there (*not), but the Dutch actually go out there. A lot.

One travel tip though? It’s not as easy to find bathrooms in Europe as it is in North America. I mean, at home, I would chug water like a horse and then find the nearest Starbucks to make use of their facilities. But while Starbucks does exist here, the cafes are far and between and chugging water like a horse is not an option anymore. Since by that point, I absolutely had to make a trip to the facilities, I stopped in the nearest Dutch cafe and bought myself an espresso in order to use their toilet. I mean, two birds one stone, right? (Because you can never have too much coffee …)

Having now frequented two cafes and one Dutch bathroom, I figured now would be a good time to see some of those other things that all those guidebooks talk about.

So I passed by the Paleis Noordeinde (which is the actual residence of the royal family, I believe) on my way to the Vreidespaleis, the Peace Palace. I don’t know who uses it or for what, but it was on my map and a palace, so who was I to say no? (I think it was gifted by some rich dude to the UN for housing all of their aspiring International-Relations-Political-Science my-life-goal-is-to-work-with-international-law interns. Just to show them that there is no such thing as international law. JK. Except for the first part. And the last part.)

The people who were just having a romantic stroll about town also didn’t get to say no … to taking 5 million pictures of me. I would feel bad, but I’m traveling by myself and I mean, someone needs to document the presence of my awesomeness in Europe.

I was still feeling chipper by then, and apparently I hadn’t yet realized that my shoes were giving me some really horrendous blisters, so I had the bright idea of walking across half the city (through the neverending parks, again) to the pier. In reality, it’s actually quite far away and I didn’t actually make it there, so it wasn’t one of my brightest ideas. Note to self: if the tram system is well-developed and costs 1.5 Euros, TAKE THE TRAM. It won’t kill your ‘Best Tourist Ever’ status to ride the bus once in a while instead of walking.

The reason I actually headed that way was the Madurodam, which is labelled as a mini-Holland attraction for kids.

I know, I know but I couldn’t resist.
Actually …

Much better.

Well label me a kid and call me Judy, but it was AWESOME. I mean, I can say that I do have a somewhat developed interest in architecture and this display would help me learn more about Holland, but let’s be honest – I was just excited to touch and pose with all the little things.

Does it look like I was excited? Because I was very, VERY pumped. As were the little kids, who kept running around after the moving trains and boats.

The birds were not impressed however.

Nope, not in the slightest.

Not by the little boats and the little people, and certainly not by the big people. This one kept on just sitting there, even when I was literally 20cm away from it taking a photo. Guess this is where ‘cool as a bird’ comes from … (wait, is that a saying, or did I just make it up?)

Once I had satisfied my inner child, I for some reason decided it would be smart to continue on EVEN FARTHER through the park. Someone teach this girl to quit while she’s ahead. By this point, my shoes were starting to really hurt (despite my sticking on a whole family size pack of bandaids on my feet); still, I pressed on … apparently to the middle of nowhere.

Because the whole time that I walked by the canal and through the park, I met exactly ZERO people. Seriously, how does that happen in a city center? I almost thought I was lost, but my directions were to follow the canal, and that’s kind of hard to miss. FINALLY, I made it to my (last) destination.

Oh yes, the Rosarium. I figured, I might as well end my day on a high and colourful note. I like flowers, and parks, and basking in the sun, so I thought it’d be a done deal. Oh, except that …

Wrong season, dummy! The roses were either done blooming or hadn’t started yet, because aside from these little buds, every other flowerbed was full of tiny leafy bushes, but absolutely no flowers.

Bummer.

Still, I walked (barefoot, thank God!) through the park, attempted some silly self-timer photos (which, by the way, is really hard to do when you need to hang your camera from a branch and there’s wind and birds in the way).

My original plan was to walk all the way back to the train station but I knew by now there was no chance in hell that was happening, so I caught the first tram I found and comfortably made my way back to the central plaza. Then I somehow got it into my head that my tram back home stopped somewhere else, so I walked off and then proceeded to get lost in some very sketchy alleyways, before realizing that I needed to go back to where I got dropped off in the first place. Just pure genius.

By the time I got back to Delft, I was pretty cranky and pretty tired. Thankfully, my host arranged for us to have a very relaxing and happiness-restoring bike ride to the store.

Somehow, he figured out that buying delicious buns for dinner was just the thing to perk me up. I guess I make my feed-me-or-I'll-tear-your-head-off philosophy quite apparent after a long day. Go figure.

(Sidenote: can I just say how much I love European stores? The selection is SO awesome and despite what everyone says, I still think it’s pretty darn cheap. I mean, everything we bought was between 1 and 3 euros, which added up to about 30-40 euros with everything. When I shopped at Provigo in Montreal, the same amount of stuff would probably cost double that. So whatever, I was like a kid in a (candy) store back there).

Dordrecht … I mean, um, Rotterdam

So you know how I said I was TOTALLY NOT jetlagging and how cool I was? Well, ignore that. I went to bed at 11pm last night and woke up at 2am, 4am and finally at 6am. My hosts didn't wake up till 10am. That gave me 4 hours to kill - and let me tell you, even I, master procrastinator and Internet-user that I am, had difficulty finding stuff to do. What's worse is that there were gale-force wind gusts outside that A) made it impossible to sleep and B) made it scary to go outside. Oh, did I mention that I only brought sandals and only 1 pair of capris (not even pants!) to Europe? I don't think skirts and dresses would've fared well today.

Also, this stupid cold that I probably caught from that lady from Dusseldorf on the plane is not going away and I'm very cross. Funny story - I tried to buy orange juice today at the train station (thought the vitamin C would just kick this cold to the curb).

I mean if you saw this in the store, you'd think it was orange juice, right?

Yea, nope. It was an orange-flavoured yogurt drink. Still delicious but nary a vitamin C molecule in sight. Fail.

Anyway, the cold made me feel kind of loopy in the morning, but I couldn't sleep (wind/jetlag/trams/crazy mating birds outside are to blame). So I started planning my day in Rotterdam. And then I watched some Masterchef. And then I blogged and Tumbld and facebooked. It was just ... iffy. I mean, if I'm staying with my hosts and it's the weekend and they were planning on doing something with me, I couldn't just up and leave. Even though I basically spent 4 hours wanking around on the Internet. So I waited until they woke up and then we had a quick breakfast before FINALLY we were on our way.

In any case, they wanted to head to Dordrecht to check out an exhibit at the museum. Ok, I'm game. Because, as my parents like to remind me, I have to absorb some culture while in Europe (into my poor Internet-obsessed, uncultured soul).

So we're driving and driving and Dordrecht turns out to be this very very cute little town. Much like Delft in its cobblestone narrow streets and tiny rows of houses, although the frequent canals were replaced by one large yacht-docking area. But even the boats were cute - straight out of the 19th century (or the 18th or the 17th - I mean, they just looked very old-style).

Cute, right? Except that it was all experienced like so:

Because apparently there is no where to park in Dordrecht. There were parking meters that would let you stay for MAX 28 minutes (WTF? What an arbitrary number ...) and then there were parking garages. Except that ...

Oh yea, they'd say "VRIJ", which I think meant open (or at least it was written in green letters, which I assume means GO in Dutch just as it does in English); and you'd drive up this ramp to the garage and then WHOOPS, it doesn't open. So we had to do a very fun rollercoaster-like maneuver to get down from there and turn around in a tiny cobble stone street.

Well, at least I got a very thorough driving tour through Dordrecht out of that. In the end, we still couldn't find parking, so we just left. (Bummer right? Not every story has a happy ending ... Damn fairy tales, giving me hope and everything - except no fairy tale writer had ever confronted the daunting quest of finding parking.)

In the end, I got dropped off in Rotterdam, while my hosts continued back on their way to Delft. Rotterdam was definitely different. It was much more of a metropolitan European city (although there still were cobblestone streets and tiny rows of houses).

Now Rotterdam is a city of contrasts. There’s your typical little Dutch houses and cobblestone streets …

And then there’s the newly built post-War abstract-modern-contemporary let’s-build-the-weirdest-shaped-house-ever zone.

I kind of mistimed my plan for the city (because I always have a plan … I even circled my route on the map and everything).

Yea, my wonderful plan to take a boat-tour of the city was foiled by the fact that their tours lasted 1.5 hours. And they only had 1 boat. By the time I got to the dock, it was either A) take the 3:30 tour and not have time to do anything else, or B) take the 5pm tour later (meaning I had to get all my sightseeing done in like 2 hours. Impossible).

Instead, I walked down the promenade, bothering poor bystanders to take photos of me every 5 meters. They weren’t pleased (no, jk, everyone was perfectly nice) and I now realize why people travel with friends/significant others. I think a boyfriend would’ve been even better because he would have no ability to refuse taking pictures of me. Note to self for later.

Seeing as I still have to be cultural, I stopped by the Wereldmuseum, which held a collection of traditional artifacts from Asia and Austronesia. Lots of wooden carved masks from Oceania and Tibetan prayer shawls and golden Buddha statuettes from India.

New lesson learned: apparently Buddha meditated for a long time and was actually fasting, so he became very skeletal. All the statuettes I saw here depicted him as a quite lean young man, unlike the plump statuettes you see in America. Correlation? Hmm, I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

I continued on my way after a 30 minute run-through of the museum (artifacts aren’t really my thing … But give me a museum dedicated to shoes, or cheese, or wine, and I’m all yours). Then suddenly, I turned around …

See my previous post on Delft RE: my theory of tourists and tall things. I think I shall call it the Must Climb Uncontrollably Syndrome, or MuCUS for short. Never one to back down from a challenge, I set out to answer my calling.

On the way, I partly forgot my climbing compulsion when I came upon a Father’s Day celebration in the park (whoops, sorry Dad, I totally forgot about it … but you know I love ya all the time, we don’t need a special day to celebrate that, right? Although if we do ever end up celebrating Children’s Day, I’m all for it …). There were puppets and magicians and basically, they had me at hot Dutch guy in a sparkly tuxedo doing magic tricks.

If no one caught my super inventive lyrics, a la JT, I can clarify that I am not a sex-addicted maniac who preys on circus performers. Although they are rumoured to be very bendy.

But at last …

I got to the tower. And made it to the top (there was actually a lift there, which dampened my MuCUS a little bit, but I was still excited).

Basically, you get to the top (also, I would suggest NOT wearing heeled thong sandals that are only attached to your feet by virtue of your toes holding on to the shoe … the little bit of stairs that there is has holes in it, like a grate, and it is absolutely terrifying trying to climb it when you are worried that with every step, you will lose your favorite shoes.)

And at the top, you get into this round spinny thingy and that takes you up EVEN HIGHER and then spins around slowly so you get a full view of Rotterdam. Basically, you see the two things that Dutch people do well …

Really nice parks …

and very weird modern architecture.

In any case, having satisfied my altitude-driven compulsion disorder (maybe I should call it ADCD? Like OCD for tourists … ), I was going to walk all the way back to where I came from, but then I got lazy (slash a very nice looking young Dutch man decided to help me, even though I didn’t really need help, and he walked me into the subway and who was I to say no, right?). Also my feet were super exhausted, because I am not one of those god-awful tourists who wears running shoes around town.

I write this in bold as my continuous DECLARATION of DECENT SHOEWEAR, and I shall not be ashamed of it. I shall only wear nice shoes when I am in a nice place like Europe. To hell with my feet and the blisters. That's what my family-size pack of band-aids is for.

But besides my Declaration of Decent Shoewear, I also fully believe that to truly understand and immerse yourself in a new city, you have to take the public transportation available. Taking a crowded metro in Paris is the way to feel the fast-pace there; taking a tram in Delft gives you a feel for how Delftians? (delfins? dolphins? ahaha) really live.

My impressions of the metro here is that it’s absolutely deserted and Rotterdam is super empty. Maybe it was because it was a Sunday, or I picked the wrong path to walk, but half the time, I was the only person in sight. (That has been a common theme in my travels so far).

I actually ended up taking the metro because I wanted to visit the Arboretum (kind of like the Botanical Gardens), but just my luck – it was closed. So I basically just walked straight back to the train station and went back downtown. I did however step off at Blaak Station to take a photo of the famous Kjub houses, because Wikipedia said I should. So I did.

So that was cool. I think during normal-people times, you can walk in and see how the furniture is arranged so that people can actually live in these cubes, but obviously (as has been the trend so far), I was too late and it was closed.

So I just took the train back to Delft (and can I just say how fricking convenient the train system is? Best. Thing. Ever. I don’t know why the North America doesn’t pony up and build nice clean trains (and those dirty New York trains don’t count) that go everywhere (those 2 metro lines in Vancouver don’t count either) and do it super fast and fairly cheap. Seriously, America, you call yourself the First World?). Had a wonderfully filling dinner with my hosts (all that walking is almost like running a marathon … which means I obviously have to carb-load like a pro, right?). Collapsed in bed and slept like a baby.

The End.