Amsterdam

 

Well, I was caught up. I'll do my best to bring you up-to-date again.

From Paris, Ashley and I took a train to Amsterdam and spent the afternoon walking along canals and exploring the Vondelpark. Like Venice, Amsterdam is full of canals. However, that is where the comparisons ended, at least for me. The canals in Venice form the backbone of the city: trash pickup, grocery delivery, etc. all occur via the canals. They are only a couple yards across in most places, and somewhat serpentine-like.

Amsterdam's canals, on the other hand, are arranged in a methodical, orderly pattern (they are man-made after all). They are bigger and there are plenty of roads to supplement the waterways passageways. I should mention, though, that bicycles seem to form the majority of road traffic there. Another major difference, and in fact, something unlike any other city I have been to, was that the houses almost all used the steepest staircases I have ever seen. Our hostel steps literally appeared almost insurmountable at first glance.

As I said earlier, after inspecting the nearby canals we headed to the Vondelpark. This is one of Amsterdam's largest outdoor parks, and I really enjoyed wandering through it. There were a lot of different birds there - parrots, swans, herons - and it was certainly a nice place to talk a walk or picnic. Oh, I almost forgot. We also were befriended by a funny looking little bird with a stocky body, long legs, a red and yellow beak, and a rear-end that looked as if it had been lopped off. He made a beeline straight towards me and really seemed quite attached to us. Ashley named him Wilfred. Dinner that evening was rather unexceptional, I must say. I found a pizza shop that claimed to be Napolian, but unfortunately it didn't come close to competing with the real thing.    

I woke up early the next morning to eat breakfast and left for the Anne Frank House Museum to try and avoid the long lines. I had read her diary several years ago, and while it was not especially fresh in my mind, I still remembered how impressed I was with her optimism, candidness, and her sad but all-too-accurate description of the Nazi regime.

I am glad I went, but it was not one the greatest exhibitions I have visited. Anne's father, Otto Frank, wanted the house to remain unfurnished, so the house was mostly just descriptions about the residents of the secret annex, summaries about their daily life, and so forth. There were several pages from her original diary which I really enjoyed seeing, but I was a little bored by the end of the tour.

I returned to the hostel and met Ashley (who slept in) and we decided to walk towards the central part of town to look at the Albert Cuyp market. It was billed as one of Europe's biggest open-air markets, but in actuality it was fairly junky and I did not find many of the stalls worthwhile. Lunch, by contrast, was very good. We found a cafe at the end of the market that served fresh paninis and had a late lunch there.

We next walked back to our hostel, stopping along the way for me to look inside an outdoor shop (Austria had whetted my appetite for these). I finished emailing Jeff about our rendezvous plans for the evening and took a little nap; Ashley made some delicious bruschetta for dinner and afterwards we walked North to Amsterdam's historical district to meet Jeff, Jimmy, Caroline, Emily, and Cayce at our prearranged spot near the train station.

They had already eaten dinner so we strolled up and down several of the nearby streets. Along the way, we popped into a bar and also saw the closing minutes of an amazing street performance featuring a man who specialized in the juggling of flaming batons while perched on a ten-foot tall unicycle. I should mention that Amsterdam's historical district is also home to its infamous Red Light District. This side of town was just beginning to wake up while we were walking through, but we saw enough to discern why the town is largely known for its lasciviousness and consumption of, shall we say, quasi-legal substances.

By the way, did I mention that we all got free admission to a bar as well as free drinks? A very generous South African fellow was our benefactor, and we made sure to tell him thanks. Jeff and I were able to represent America with pride as we successfully requested Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA," and it was an overall great night.  It was terrific to see the gang again, but I think it was good we only stayed two nights as there were not so many sightseeing opportunities (unless you happened to be a huge fan of the coffeeshops there).