Hey peeps!
As you will have seen
from my photos on Facebook I took a trip to the Netherlands during my half-term
break. I travelled with a colleague from
my school who is also Canadian (from Cape Breton), in his first year of
teaching and still baffled by the British school system as I am and who had
also never been to continental Europe before.
I don’t think I would have gone by myself so I am grateful that he was
cool with letting me tag along! While
there I saw more bikes than I have ever seen in my life (and learned to stay
out of their lanes or die), was constantly in awe of the stunning architecture and canals, saw the last names of every classmate that I had
over the years in Christian education in various places and learned why they say
“If ya ain’t Dutch, ya ain’t much.” I’m still
not quite on board with that statement but I love the people of the Netherlands
even more after visiting them in their natural habitat.
The adventure began when
a hurricane was predicted to hit the UK the night before we flew out. Every two minutes on the BBC they announced
that trains would not be running in the morning. When it did hit, it was not exactly
“Stormageddon” as some referred to it (nothing to do with ‘Stormageddon, Dark
Lord of All’ the adorable baby Alfie from ‘Closing Time’ the Series 6 episode
of Doctor Who where the Doctor reveals that he can speak ‘baby,’ begins working
in a toy store and saves James Corden’s character from being turned into an
emotionless Cyberman) but it did cause some significant damage in some areas. As a result, I had to take a bus to the
airport that dragged out a 2 hour trip into 3, making the bus ride officially
three times the length of my flight to the Netherlands.
The rest of the journey was uneventful and after I bought some Stroopwafels from the Amsterdam airport we
took a bus straight down to Museumplein which was only a few blocks from our
hostel. The hostel turned out to be
decent with some pretty funky decorations and a resident kitty cat. It was about 11:00 by this point and we
decided to go for a walk and to see the city at night. It was pretty quiet since it was a Monday
night but most things were still beautiful under the cover of darkness. At about 1:30 we decided that we should find
our way back but since we were wandering a new city in the dark we got rather
lost and did not make it back until about 3:00 am!
I slept rather
fitfully that night because I was in a room with four especially smelly guys
and the one in the bunk beside me kept putting his feet in my face in his sleep
and snoring. Also, when I woke up I
discovered that the guy in the bunk above smelly feet guy was not clothed…at
all. And his blanket had not stayed on
in the night. I was scarred for
life. That’s hostel living though! I never ended up meeting the people who I was
rooming with any night because they were always in bed when I came in at night
and slept longer than me in the morning.
Needless to say, I was totally okay with this.
Day 1:
We set off to get
pancakes found a little place that served us the most massive ones I have ever
seen! I asked for bananas, chocolate
syrup and whipped cream on mine and as delicious as it was I could not finish
that much sweetness!
Anne Frank House: We got turned around a couple of times trying
to get to this museum waited for over an hour outside in the rain to get in,
but it was undoubtedly worth it. It was
truly an emotional experience. The first
few rooms (the main rooms of the house) gave some background on the story but
as soon as I walked into the actual annex where the families hid I was struck
by the emotion of it all. Anne’s magazine
clippings of celebrities were still plastered on the walls and there were
numerous photos of what the place had looked like when the Franks moved in.
What really hit me
though was walking around the corner after room that explained what happened to
each person in the annex after they were betrayed. There was a massive, floor-to-ceiling black
and white photograph of Otto Frank (Anne’s father, the only survivor of the
camps) standing in profile in the room where his family had lived several years
after the war. It was one of the most
powerful images I have ever seen and instantly brought me to tears. The final few rooms had writings and
interviews from Otto talking about coming out of the camp hoping that his girls
were still alive, trying to get Anne’s diary published and not being able to
bring himself to see the play that was made based on the diary because it was
too painful for him, even years later. I
was such a mess through all of this. I
cannot even describe it fully. It is
something that has to be experienced. I
would recommend the Anne Frank Museum to anyone visiting Amsterdam.
I was feeling pretty
emotionally wrecked even after I pulled myself together so we went into some
shops and sites like the Cheese Museum (where we sampled TONS to Dutch cheese),
the Tulip Museum and touristy gift shops.
Looking through our tourist attractions guide, we decided that the
Heiniken Experience would be a good place to go next and a lot less heavy than
what we had experienced in the morning.
Vondelpark: We wandered around here for a while and enjoyed the natural beauty in the middle of the big city. It's a really nice place to take photos as long as you watch out for the bikers!
Heineken Experience: We got to see all of the steps in how Heineken
is made, learn to do a proper beer tasting and of course sample the finished
product. There were some random rooms
where you could do things like send e-card pictures to your friends, make a
music video and go on a simulation ride where you felt what it was like to be
brewed into beer. It was pretty cool if
you like beer, but if you are not going to enjoy the drinks that come with the
ticket then it is probably not worth the money.
Dutch Mexican food/Night-life:: At dinner time, we were convinced by the “hype
guy” for a Mexican restaurant that we walked by to come in and try their
food. Since it was the beginning of the
week and it was not prime tourist season a lot of restaurants were trying to
attract customers this way. He offered
us a deal and free drinks so we decided to try it and it was pretty good! There seemed to be every type of restaurant
in the city and very few that were specifically Dutch food. From what we saw the urban Dutch seem to have
a particular affinity for Italian and Argentinian food.
After dinner we wandered around looked for a nice place to hang
out. We ended up visiting two different
pubs, one that said it was an Irish Pub but only had Dutch beers and was
decorated with an over-abundance of Halloween décor and a little place with
jazzy music and a piano with stack of board games on top and a generally cool atmosphere. It was really nice to just explore the city
this way. I felt really safe the entire
time, more so than I thought I would in a big city with a reputation that
Amsterdam has as somewhat of a den of iniquity.
We never ran into the Red Light District at any point so that did help.
Day 2:
We started the day
with more coffee and pancakes from a little café near Museumplein. This time I had a bacon pancake with syrup
and icing sugar so it was super delicious without the total sweetness overload.
Van Gogh Museum: This museum was another highlight for me. It
has most of VanGogh’s works from over the years and showed the evolution of his
style from his early days at art school to his final paintings when he had
really come into his own. There were numerous
explanations of how art historians have examined his pieces and found other old
paintings underneath and discovered his process in creating his art. It was really fascinating and surreal seeing a
lot of these paintings in real life.
What struck me was how many quotations were displayed that showed how
critical of himself he was as an artist and how as I was reading them I was
literally having to fight through crowds to get a good view of his work. If only he had known how loved he would be
and how much joy his art would bring after he was gone from this world (a la ‘Vincent
and the Doctor’-one of my favourite DW episodes). Unfortunately, without a time-lord this
cannot actually happen.
We were determined to
find a canal cruise next so instead of stopping for lunch we went to a tiny
little bakery and ate delicious pastries on the go. My chocolate croissant was divine!
Canal Cruise: We finally got up to the docks by Central
Station where the cruises began and had a 1 ½ hour tour of major sights in the
city by water. This is another must for
anyone visiting Amsterdam I think. You
get to hear about a lot of history and get a good overview of attractions that
you may want to visit and by the end you will probably want to live in a
houseboat!
Nightlife Part 2: This
time we were convinced to try a little Italian restaurant and I had a
vegetarian lasagna that contained the only substantial portion of vegetables
that I ate over the whole trip. Really,
it was the only thing that I ate that was not purely cheese, chocolate or
carbs. Later that evening we spent a few
hours in a tiny hole-in-the-wall bar called “Café de Dokter” which had the
coolest décor, the friendliest people and some good dark, Dutch beer. We met a tram driver named Michael who we
chatted to for a while and who was the friendliest guy ever. He was determined
that through his work he would show visitors that Dutch people are the
friendliest and most welcoming people around.
He was super cool. We found our
way home much more easily this time which was good because exhaustion was
definitely catching up to me!
Day 3:
When I woke up on my
final day in the city and went to the common room for my morning coffee I met a
girl from Minnesota who was studying abroad in Bath and on holiday with her
classmates. It was a bit of a Robin
Scherbatsky/Marshall Eriksen moment, though we were a lot farther from our
respective places of origin than New York City.
She was super sweet.
After packing up and
checking out I put my all of my belongings on my back and set out for a day of
touring along while Dan moved on to Brussels.
Rijksmuseum:
This place was huge
and beautiful and full of art from the best Dutch artists from 1600 to the present. I thoroughly enjoyed it, despite the fact
that I had to take a few breaks on the couches that were placed around the building
since my legs were really getting tired from all of the walking that we had
been doing.
Exploring/souvenir shopping: Since
I had not bought anything to commemorate my trip at this point I finally hit up
the museum gift shop and some souvenir places. Again I went into a few cheese shops telling
myself that I would probably buy something that time but in the end just snacking
on a bunch of free samples. At the Van
Gogh/Rijksmuseum gift shop I really wanted to buy everything related to Van
Gogh’s Almond Blossoms since it is one of my faves (being blue with flowers of
course) but I did not think that a bag for €40 or a silk scarf for €50 were
quite worth it. I settled for a mug that
was a fraction of the price which has made my tea times even brighter over the
past week. Of course I bought a couple
of Delft Blue items for my kitchen as well.
In the afternoon I had
to head back to the airport and I began the journey back home. I finally got back to Southampton by 11:00pm
and then had to walk through the city centre which was full of people in
costumes suffering from the aftermath of Halloween festivities. Good times.
It was such a
fantastic trip but I was SHATTERED after three days of walking everywhere and
getting very little good-quality sleep. I
immediately collapsed when I got in the door of my flat. So many times over those few days I thought
‘When did this become my life? It’s so
COOL!’ which was a sweet feeling. I
cannot wait for my next European adventure and to later return to Amsterdam on
my way to visit my sweet Carmen on Terschelling (hopefully this spring or
summer).
My next term break
will be Christmas though, which means I will be heading back to the Great White
North (43 days and counting)! Love you
all and I can’t wait to see you once again!
-Heather <3