We arrived in the Netherlands the
evening of July 29th. We got to Amsterdam, but quickly hopped a
train to The Hague, where we’d be staying for a few days. Our friend Tamara
Caris (aka Tamaris Caris, aka the Tamerrorist) had been living in The Hague
since January. She did a term of university there, but decided to stay through
the summer and do a whole lot of traveling. She was kind enough to hook us up
with a room at the dormitory building right at the university. Add her to the
list of people to whom we are indebted!
We took a train into Amsterdam
both days we were there, as it’s a short 40-minute ride from The Hague. On day
one, armed with our Rick Steves’ guidebook, we set out to explore the city.
After wandering around for a while, we decided to do as the locals do and ride
bikes. 40% of traffic in Amsterdam is people on bicycles, and we can now see
why.
Amsterdam is very well designed
for cyclists. Red bike lanes line every street, and cyclists must obey just as
many rules of the rode as drivers of motor vehicles. People take their cycling
in Amsterdam very seriously; we were more afraid of getting hit by another
cyclist than getting hit by a car! Seeing a city on a bike was a nice change
from all the walking we had done up until this point.
After our normal afternoon siesta
in a park, we needed to find an ATM to withdraw some money. But we had a better
idea: go into the casino, win about 60 Euros each playing blackjack, and
voila—no need for the ATM. Some people
think we have a gambling problem. It
isn’t a problem if you win all the time!
Amsterdam is quite a fun city to
explore on foot. It’s not that big, and you can cover a lot of ground in a
short period of time. Further, the city itself is quite beautiful. It has a
unique style or architecture, a lot of green space, and more canals than
Venice. Anyone who thinks Amsterdam is just one big Red Light District is
sorely mistaken.
As many of you faithful readers
of atozeurope should know by now, we’re big fans of the walking tours offered
in cities along our route—especially the free ones. Of course we give our
guides tips, as that’s how they make their living, but we still like the idea
of “free” anything, so we go with it. Joined by Tamaris Caris, her best friend
Rosie, and her other friends (who are now our friends, we hope!) Luke and Kate,
we took a walking tour of Amsterdam on our second day, which gave us a great
overview of all major parts of the city and taught us a great deal about the
city’s storied history.
After the walking tour it was off
to an educational experience of another kind…the Heineken Brewery. After a
million museums full of paintings, Roman sculptures, and Etruscan pottery, we
felt we needed a change. This was less of a museum and more of an experience. We
learned all about the wonderful world of Heineken, how the beer is made, and,
of course, how to drink it properly. There was even an interactive 4D ride,
where we experienced what it’s like to be brewed…it was like alcoholic
Disneyland. Did you know when the first bottle of Heineken was brewed? Who
cares…free beer! And free sunglasses! What more could we ask for?
In the evening we took a
different sort of tour…a tour of the Red Light District. This was one of the
more unique experiences of our trip. Our guide was informative, frank (not her
name), and enthusiastic about telling us all about this tourist-filled area of
the city.
The Red Light District is weird.
That’s the only way we can put it. There are prostitutes beckoning men from
their red-lit windows, which are next to a giant church, while one street over
is a daycare centre for the children whose mothers “sell their kisses” (as the
children are taught). Of course, there are other (legal and controlled) vices
which can be indulged in the RLD, and just walking up and down the streets with
our tour guide made us want to go to church for a week. Not the one near the
prostitutes though, that’s just weird.
There has been a recent push to
clean up the Red Light District as much as possible. The number of red windows
has been cut down by more than half in the past 18 months, and some of the
signage over top of certain stores has been taken down. A lot worse signage
remains up though, believe us. However, the area retains its guilt-inducing charm
while still catering to hoards of gawking tourists.
Before the tour, one of the most
exciting things of our trip so far took place. Through a casual browsing of
Facebook, we saw that a certain someone was in Amsterdam at the same time. That
person: the man, the myth, the legend, Mr. Rick Steves himself—author of our
guidebook, narrator of our podcast tours, and one of the main reasons our trip
has been so successful to date. We had to meet him.
We tried to casually post on his
Facebook page to find out where he’d be, and read his other posts and Tweets to
look for clues. None of that worked however, so we thought we’d just go to the
main square and yell, “Rick! Rick Steves! Riiiiick!” over and over until we
found him. As you may have guessed, this did not work. For all we know, he
could have been there and seen/head us, then walked away because he was creeped
out by these two random guys shouting his name. But he wouldn’t do that to us.
Not our Rick.
Next stop - England...but we already blogged about that. Look for posts in a day or two about the last few countries on our trip!
No comments:
Post a Comment