For those of you who don't know, the Netherlands is known for its tolerance policy towards soft drugs. This dates back to the time when they had a huge problem with hard drugs. So instead of focusing on going after people doing soft drugs like marijuana they developed a tolerance policy where as long as you weren't doing hard drugs they would leave you alone. By doing this drug use decreased significantly. If you do go to the Netherlands and would like to smoke, you go to a coffeeshop, but if you just want coffee you go to a cafe. It is also known for it's Red Light District. This is the part of the city were prostitutes pay for a window space for a certain amount of time. Yes this is legal in Amsterdam, however, pimping is illegal, all of these women are self employed. One of the oldest churches in Amsterdam is also right around the corner from the district.
Where we went for drinks for St. Paddy's Day
We arrived in Amsterdam on St. Patrick's Day and luckily for us Maddie's Dutch friend from one of her classes was on our flight. She was able to help us navigate through the airport and onto the correct train before heading home herself. While we got on the train alright, we still had to take a tram from the train station to the hostel. Only knowing what tram number we had to get on, multiple times we considered just using googlmaps to help us. Eventually we saw the tram we needs and hopped on. Everyone else around us swiped some transportation card as they got on but since we weren't from the city we didn't have one. We also had not seen any place to buy one so we quietly sat down and figured if we needed to buy a ticket someone would find us. By the time we made it to the hostel area no one had approached us and we hopped off the bus and headed to the hostel.
After a quick dinner in a small Italian restaurant many people wanted to head to a coffeeshop right away. Personally, I was thinking that since it was St. Patty's Day I would rather drink and luckily I found another who felt the same way. We all headed to Leidseplein (pronounced similarly to Led Zeppelin). So while most of our group headed to the coffeeshop Maddie, Patrick, and I started to head to a nearby bar. Only we didn't make it to the bar, instead we headed out to walk around the city. Amsterdam at night was beautiful. The canals were all lit up up and it was just amazing. By the time we made it back to the bar the others were leaving the coffeeshop. So we headed to the only bar in the area decorated for St. Patrick's Day. After a few drinks we headed back to our hostel.
Canal lit up at night
The next morning we woke up so we could head to Dam Square for a free walking tour through the city. a few of us stopped by a cafe to get breakfast on our way to Dam Square. The four of us split 2 delicious and huge pancakes, one with strawberries and one with bacon and cheese. We then met up with the rest of the group and squeezed into the free walking tour. Technically we weren't supposed to be on the tour since groups of 10 or more needed to have preregistered but they let us on as long as we split into two groups. Not a problem for us we just wanted to see the city. My group was lead by Nouschska and luckily for us she was a native of a small town outside of Amsterdam so she was a real Dutch girl. Often times the tours get led by English speaking students who are in the city either studying or took a holiday and never went home. Nouschska was a student of Dutch history and an amazing tour guide. We saw lots of things on our tour including the coffeeshop where scenes of Oceans 12 was filmed, the Red Light District, the outside of Anne Frank's House, the original offices of the East India Trading Company, and several secret churches. We also learned lots of interesting facts about the city as well. The houses along the canals are all very narrow as to fit as many along the canal as possible. The price of the house also depended on how many meters wide the house so some guy made the narrowest house known which was only about a little under 2 meters (I believe) and someone still lives in it! Another thing about many of the houses along the canal, they're all slanted forward. The genius Dutch people realized that since their houses were very narrow there would be no way to move things into the house through the stairs so instead they would move things in through the window. They built hooks at the top of the houses to be used to pull things up so they could go through the window. And since the large items would greatly swing while moving things in the Dutch built their houses slanted as to leave more space for the items to swing. It was until many years later they realized they could make this space just by lengthening the bar on which the hook was placed.
Delicious bacon and cheese pancake
Narrowest house in Amsterdam (the one in the middle)
Another thing about the Dutch that we learned throughout the weekend was that they love their bikes! And hence the name of this blog, if you hear the bell, run like hell. Cyclists will ring their bike bell if you are in their way and you better move fast in order to get out of the way. Unfortunately, it's often hard to figure out on which side the bike will come. We all had many close calls with getting run over but Maddie had a full on encounter and didn't move fast enough and got run over. If you do have a bike make sure it's locked up or it will most likely end up stolen or tossed into the canal. We were told that the canal has 3 layers, the water, the dirt ground, and a layer of bikes. Over 25,000 bikes are removed from the canal each year because of this. The amount of time you've lived in Amsterdam is not measured by the years you've been there but the number of bikes you have gone through since arriving. 4-5 bikes easily translates into 1-2 years! Bikes aren't the only things on the road though, you also have to watch out for the trams too! Elizabeth had many close encounters with them as you can't hear them until they are almost right behind you. We also witnessed a little boy on a bike almost get run over by one as he was crossing the rail and froze when he saw it coming at him. Luckily the trams are able to stop and did so just in time.
Bikes along the canal, hope they're all locked onto something!
Amsterdam also had a number of museums that we wanted to see. On Friday we went to the Anne Frank Museum which was located in her father's old work building where their secret annex was hidden. While the area itself was larger than I had pictured in my head while reading the book, I don't think I would ever choose to live an area that small out of my own choosing (although my room in Blacksburg I believe is smaller than some of the rooms but I have it to myself and am free to leave it when I choose).
Saturday we ventured to the Rijksmuseum, which showcases Dutch history and art. I was particularly excited to see the Rembrandt exhibit because my dad's great uncle had donated 2 portraits to the museum, however, I was only able to see one of them on display. The rest of the museum was fantastic, I could've stayed in there for hours if the rest of the group hadn't been waiting for me. After the museum Fiona, Trista, and I got some Wok to Walk and sat in Vondelpark to eat and wait for the rest to finish up at the museum since they had started much later.
Rijksmuseum
The evening we went on a bar crawl that Nouschska had recommended the day before. For 18 Euro we got into 4 bars and one club. We also got a free drink at each of the places, either wine, beer, or a Jager shot. There were almost 200 people who went on the bar crawl so they split us into 2 groups. It turns out the leader of our group has been living in Amsterdam for six years but was originally from San Diego. It was a fun night for all of us but we were ready to head to bed so we could wake up early for our final hours in Amsterdam.
Sunday morning we woke up early because we had to check out of the hostel by 10am. We stored our bags at the hostel while we headed to the Van Gogh Museum. The museum not only had Van Gogh paintings but also those of people who had inspired him and who he'd taught. Unfortunately we were running out of time so I was unable to see the Picasso exhibit they had on display for a couple of months. The museum is one of the places I hope to be able to visit on a return trip to Amsterdam. Yes, it's already been decided I will be returning to Amsterdam and the Netherlands and I can't wait!
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