The Holiday

A city with more bicycles than people, more canals than Venice and more weed than my flat in first year at university (hmm debateable) was always going to be fun. As I got carried away with writing (again), here are only 3 reasons why I had the best time in Amsterdam (I could have gone on for much longer). Tap out now if you wanted to read about how I got high on brownies and went to a sex show. I’ve ignored the taboo tourist attractions for which Amsterdam is famous and have instead focused on the more mundane experiences:

1. There are Cafes Everywhere

Yes, there are cafes in all European cities. Yet the friendliness and cosiness of the quaint, old school bars and the quirkiness of the new, trendy hang outs in Amsterdam meant they were particularly inviting. And though Amsterdam is lacking a bit in the culinary department, their hot chocolates and beers were great. I strongly believe that I would fit in extremely well in a city where cafes sit on every street. I am unashamedly a take-your-laptop to a café kinda person – I think I actually have an allergic reaction every time I try and work in a library – and there was plenty of this happening in the cafes of Amsterdam.

On one particularly wonderful afternoon, my friends and I spent an hour or so sat with a glass of wine and a box of freshly sliced cheese watching the variety of water vehicles pass us by. I could have sat here for hours but we only managed to stay for a little over an hour due to the dropping temperature and diminishing sunlight. Thanks a lot winter.

The most common mode of transport on the canals are the tourist-ladened canal boats which claim to show the city as it was originally meant to be experienced. The tourists risk serious neck ache to stare upwards as they wind their way through through the maze of canals. Sadly many of the younger generations’ faces are blocked by their smart phones and cameras. Alas, I am guilty of this too and so, when we embarked on a canal boat tour of the festival of lights, I (for the majority of the trip) put my camera down and made more of an effort to really enjoy the experience. Here is a contradictory picture of people not using their phones and enjoying the lights (plus the beautiful boat man):

The canal boats are most definitely the kings of the canals and we had great fun watching the poor souls who had opted for a pedal-boat ride of the canal and were thus risking their relationships and lives as they continuously swerved out of the way of the unforgiving barges.

2. Using the Transport was an Adventure in its Own Right

Usually I find European transport daunting I’m not going to lie. There’s the language barrier, different currency and trams are just downright confusing. They appear simple to use on the map but paying for a ticket and knowing when to get off is, simply put, not clear. However, in comparison to other European capitals (I’m such a jet setter), I found Amsterdam rather easy to navigate my way around.

Having said that, crossing the road was an adventure in its own right, particularly in the centre of the city. One has to remember to look out for bikes, cars, motorbikes and mopeds, trams and, perhaps the most dangerous of them all, pedestrians. I swear down I got concussion from being walked into in Amsterdam train station.

What I quickly had to get my head around was that it was not always clear that you were actually walking in a road and a car could come along at any moment. Regularly, in order to get to the other side, you have to first check for bikes, then for cars, then trams, cars again and finally, bikes again. On more than one occasion I forgot about the additional bike lane and would casually stroll across naively believing that I’d successfully crossed the road. How wrong I was.

My friends and I bravely branched out on our final day and hopped in a tuk tuk – mainly because we had spent longer at the ice rink than originally intended and had a flight to catch. This was hilarious and I would highly recommend it. Cheaper probably than a taxi and much more fun we were laughing all the way back to our flat. Our tuk tuk rider even returned 10 minutes later when one of our party managed to leave their purse under the (complimentary) blanket. No, it was not me.

On this trip to Amsterdam I failed to rent a bike. I’m horrified at this too. Thus I shall be returning in the near future, preferably Spring or Summer, to spend a lazy afternoon, romantically pedalling around the Vondelpark.

3. The Anne Frank Museum Blew Away all of our Expectations

As tourists we didn’t achieve many of the top 10 things to do in Amsterdam (see http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g188590-Activities-Amsterdam_North_Holland_Province.html). We mainly stuck to wandering along the cobbled streets (we averaged at about 24 kilometres a day), falling into quirky coffee shops, ahem, I mean cafes and bars, and eating up all the free cheese samples in the many Dutch delicatessens. But one activity we couldn’t pass up was the Anne Frank museum. Turns out getting there for 9 o’clock, because that’s the time it opens, does not translate to admission time.

2 hours and 45 minutes, several coffees, a hundred snapchats, 10 frostbitten toes and an impossible game of geographical knowledge later*, and we were finally inside the house where the Franks hid for 2 years during WWII.

I can only describe my experience as numbing. As we walked up the steep, narrow stairs, past the bookcase and into the bare annex, I remained largely unaffected by what we were seeing. It was as though my brain just wasn’t truly acknowledging where I was. The rooms are completely unfurnished save for some pictures and markings on the walls and the windows are covered as they would have been 70 years ago. Coming out of the Franks’ hiding place one can look upon Anne’s diary and see actual clippings of what she wrote during her time in hiding. My mind only really seemed to wake up to the environment when we had stepped out of the annex and into the museum where there are various short films being played. Hearing the array of voices describe the impact of Anne’s diary, the memories of her and her family and so many others like them, the desperation for the horrors of the holocaust to never be repeated again was what brought it all into focus for me and I found myself holding back tears as we walked back out into reality. It was one of the most emotional places I have ever visited.

Basically I am a people watcher at heart and I have found no better place to people watch than the cafes and squares of Amsterdam. It is no global powerhouse like Paris or London, but it is most certainly a mixing pot of culture and nationalities. The Dutch are well known for their fluent English but what took me by surprise was their willingness to use it. One shopkeeper looked almost insulted when we asked her if she spoke English and a waitress was rather taken aback when I attempted to thank her in Dutch. Conversing in English is like second nature to the Dutch who welcome you to their city with open arms. With many cities, I have been content to explore them in a day or two but I am itching to return to Amsterdam. She felt exciting yet chilled, filled with opportunities that are not too far out of reach as is often the case in capital cities.

Also, I’ve come to the conclusion that the Dutch are unbelievably good looking and seeing as my Basque is still pretty much non-existent and Tom Hardy has yet to reply to my letters I may have to branch out a bit…

*ok so maybe not geographical knowledge but still extremely difficult. The challenge was to think of a country whose letters, when written in capital form, does not contain any lines which link up. For example; ‘A’ and ‘D’ have a hole in them whereas ‘E’ and ‘N’ do not; therefore ENGLAND doesn’t count. I thought about this for about 94% of the time we were stood in the queue and only came up with two. Have fun!