Amsterdam Part 2 Finally

To my misfortune and perhaps even to yours, I have not been able to keep up with this pulse I've been beating to recently resulting in a logged up series of events. Now, a week and some after Amsterdam has been over, a number of little events and a whole other weekend trip has happened...they don't call it life in the fast lane for nothing. Yet I still haven't recorded Amsterdam down the best I could have...Even with this ever pensive look I have on me as we rode a boat in Amsterdam trying to write my postcards (credit Jen Chiu for this picture and others in this posting).

On comes day 2 and 3 below:

Saturday, January 30, 2010

After an interesting night visiting the red light district, we stumbled upon a River Canal Bus Hop-On-Hop-Off sort of tour for 20 Euro, not bad for 24 hours of access on the boat. While a few people stopped off at the Anne Frank house, a few of us went to the Rembrant House where the

famed artist once lived. He seemed like an interesting fellow by the looks of his belongings and art pieces mostly centered around biblical scenes. He also collected rarities like sea shells or butterflies to display in his house.

After this self guided tour of the house and its paintings, we found our way to the flower shops which were just about closing down with a beautiful array of tulips and other sweet smelling, colorful buds.

By that time it was pushing on dusk so we were wandering around that area and found our way to a coffeeshop one of my friends had recommended called the Damkring..actually the guide book we had as well had it as a recommendation too. Let me give you the details of how a coffeeshop works and is.

Essentially, some of them have a bar where you can order coffee or drinks at but the main counter they have a selection of weed on a menu. The menu shows the name, amount, the effect and finally the price. Then, after you select what you want, the worker finds the can its in (on display behind them) and weighs out the amount, sometimes they already have pre-packaged bags of it. The interior was decorated with low lights and strange sculptures. Another fun fact about coffeeshops is that you cannot wear hats in there (they're afraid of pick pocketers) and that you cannot smoke tobacco.Here's an article I stumbled on a few days after leaving Amsterdam on how Dutch aren't as much into smoking as some might think.

We met up with everyone for dinner and half of us got American and the rest (including myself) got Greek food because there isn't such thing as authentic Dutch apparently...

For the night, a few of us wanted to just hang out in a very interesting coffeeshop called The Dolphin while some wanted to go to a club. We ended up doing both. This clubbing experience was more than interesting though. A packed house, somehow our friends got us in for free. The place was filled with flashing lights of all sorts of colors in your face, white guys and girls all six feet tall and everyone dancing and singing Dutch party songs...all with the bartender slamming a cowbell every so often. I think everyone knew we were American and because we weren't buying drinks, they were being awfully rude-at least that's what I noticed. Jen, Cara, and I weren't feeling the vibe to club or spend money on drinks so we left to Burger King for a quick snack and to examine their art on the walls while the other girls stayed out.

(A note on fastfood: all over Europe, McDonalds and Burger Kings are a lot nicer than the ones at home, it isn't a quick drive thru stop but rather an experience with finely decorated interiors, McCafe's in some areas, and better than expected artwork on the walls, just something worth mentioning and contrasting against my perception of dirtier American fast food)

So now I'm onto day 3 which basically consisted of delicious breakfast at a Pancake Corner restaurant and then the Heineken Experience. Pictures below describe it more. I had the banana pancakes for breakfast then went with Jen to the Heineken Experience. After samples and 2 turned 4 free beers, we were a bit tipsy leaving and walking the ice covered sidewalks-where I then slipped and fell on my side-ouch. But the Heineken people were very jolly, let us pour our own beer-which I failed at greatly, giving us more beer to drink.

with my banana pancake so delish

next party?

getting to pour our own beers-after 2 tries I got it, kinda

We finished our journey with the amazing waffle and chocolate and ice cream all together for some fatty goodness!.

So, all in all, a weekend in Amsterdam was much to short, probably would've been nicer in warmer weather, but isn't it always like that? Missed out on the Reijk Museum and seeing Vondelpark...perhaps a revisit in the near future will happen, talks about April are already in process!