Even
in the cold drizzle, this city manages to impress. Amsterdam carries a pretty one-dimensional
reputation with Americans - they only hear about the red light district. But every European I have talked with describes the beauty
of the canaled city.
Amsterdam is beautiful, even though it rained every day. So I can only imagine this place when the sun is shining.
Maybe that’s why so many tourists flock here. Our tour guide mentioned it while we were in Rotterdam, and
I also found this summary online while researching bike trips:
Within 15 years, the number of international visitors to
Amsterdam has doubled from 4.5 million per year to 9
million visitors per year, with the number of available hotel rooms growing from 16,000 to over 26,000 in
the same period. The public spacewhere the
visitors wish to roam remained the same though, causing stress on the existing infrastructure. In Amsterdam,
locals call this the Disneyland Effect. There is serious
concern that Amsterdam’s City Centre starts to become like a 24 hours theme park, not a
place to live, work or to do business.
I
found Amsterdam to be full of culture, boats, history, and easy-going people. It also has a museum
for everything under the sun. One of the
guys I met there describes it well . . . everywhere you look in Amsterdam,
there is something to see. Just a
sampling: a ferris wheel in the middle of town, a brewery tour, a tulip sales street, museums (for everything from Van Gogh to
Prostitution), modern architecture, windmills, canal tours, cheese tastings,
coffee shops that sell space brownies, the Red Light district, the Olympic
Stadium . . . the list just goes on and on.
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| My city bike - complete with pedal breaks, no gears and a wobbly front tire |
I picked my favorite sites and activities and pedaled
around for a few days like a native on the bike donated by my AirBnB host. The city is well organized for bikers, with bike lanes and bike parking lots. Canals criss-cross this city and one of our tour guides explained that UNESCO
just awarded Amsterdam status as one of the earliest planned cities. The combination makes it a beautiful place to be on a bicycle. But you have to be prepared to dodge pedestrians and cars and trams in the city center.
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| The canaled city |
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| A symbol of the Netherlands |
The
museums in Amsterdam are also some of the best I've ever seen. Each one
contained very impressive content, were well curated, with lots of
information available in English. During my long weekend, I hit up the
Van Gogh museum, the Shipping museum (
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| The Van Gogh was a Dutchman, and Amsterdam contains a great collection of his work |
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| The Van Gogh museum had an exhibition comparing his life and work with Edward Munch |
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| I loved the ship museum! The Dutch have a long history with sailing |
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| They had a full-size replica of a Dutch East Indies trading vessel |
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| The royal barge |
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| The Anne Frank house Sobering |
I
also met with several folks in Amsterdam. Julia was in town to run the half
marathon with several other coworkers and Bobby and Tony were on
business. I need to get more jobs like
theirs.
We all met up to take canal tour after Tony, Julia
and I visited the Anne Frank house. The canal tour was alright, but not great. It was a nice diversion from the misty rain. Dinner was at an Argentinian restaurant that we selected randomly walking down the street. Then we wandered through the Red Light District. Honestly, it was a little strange, but not that shocking; most of the women were wearing more in the windows than they would on a local beach. And there were tourists everywhere. We laughed about the fact there were a higher percentage of women walking down the street in the District than we saw at the steak restaurant where we at dinner. There were also fairly respectable bars and restaurants scattered among the sex shops, with clean cut middle age men and women drinking a beer or coffee. My AirBnB host told me the next morning she thought the District "had a very cool vibe" and that Amsterdam was trying to build up the area into an arts scene. Fascinating.
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| Waiting for Julia at the finish line |
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| The Night Watch The Rijksmuseum has a lot of Rubens |
The next day Tony and I visited the Rijksmuseum while Julie and coworkers ran their 13 miles. We did make it out to cheer her on around mile 10, and congratulated her at the finish line. Her coworker that currently lives in Amsterdam welcomed everybody back at his place after the race, serving lots of goodies, including cliff bars, beer and pizza. It was nice, but surreal to be surrounded by former coworkers in Europe. They are all living and working here now, and still enmeshed in the day to day work struggles. I'm standing on the outside looking in, feeling almost like I never left . . . almost :)
We caught the train back to Antwerp that night so Julia and Lew could go back to work. As for me, I will continue rambling.
Next Stop: Belgium
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