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!

Amsterdam

HALLO! as they say in Holland! (which we learned was the western area of the Netherlands) This region includes our first out of town European excursion to Amsterdam. Just as a preface, I'm not going to do this weekends events justice with just one blog posting but hopefully WILL cover enough for you to get a sense of how surreal Amsterdam is (with the aid of some pictures of course)

After leaving for London Heathrow airport at 5AM Friday morning with only a backpack and a purse, we checked in well before take off. Therefore we were able to stop in a chain restaurant called GIRAFFE for a proper (and cheap) English breakfast. Scored a plastic giraffe figurine in my mango morning smoothie while wearing my new giraffe shirt. it was a calling to go there..

Our flight took off and one of the most beautiful things encapsulated the window:

SUN. This may seem like a minor detail of the whole trip but seeing the sun lifted my spirits, energy, and adrenaline for what we were about to enter into..

After walking down the airport terminals through customs and baggage claim, we were ready to hit the ground running for adventure. But as we turned the corner where people wait for their friends and family, it was like nothing I'd ever seen. In Hawaii, family and friends wait with leis, hugs, and kisses to give to the arrivals but Amsterdam nearly made me tear up: Entire families had balloons, huge quilted signs, a video camera, entire matching outfits on, all welcoming their loved ones home. It was one of the most incredible images of love I'd seen; really, it reminded me of Love Actually when everyone gets off the plane and is greeted by a loving crowd. I wish I had a picture of it but that was the first of many surreal Amsterdam moments

After our cab ride to Hotel Crystal, just outside of the heart of the city, we got freshened up to find some food of course. Just down the road from us was The Bulldog coffeehouse and bar so we sat down for some well needed food and culture. We found our way to the Van Gogh Museum after trudging through the cold rain (14 Euro for future travelers; pay on Card because everywhere else in the city only accepts cash).

Me posing with Starry Night outside at some store after Van Gogh

After spending a good 20 minutes in the bottom floor looking at some of the most amazingly detailed, three-dimensional and triple layered pictures, we realized we weren't even looking at Van Gogh's art..a pleasant surprise because his paintings were spectacular upstairs, my favorite was called Almond Blossom below, it was fantastic in person:

After our Van Gogh experience we found our way to the Iamsterdam life size lettering to take a few pictures. While my camera battery died, I did get some from my friends. After this photo shoot we decided to take a nap break at our hotel since we had been running on very little sleep and an early morning.

For dinner we headed closer in town at a small Italian restaurant that had an incredible "Amsterdam Pizza" which i devoured along with a Heineken, the only alloted alcohol into my system for the weekend because when in Amsterdam..you drink Heineken's. But also in Hawaii, Heineken is king. Here's a picture of us out at dinner in the cozy corner:

I'm still on Friday night which is crazy because it felt like time flew by. We then headed down to the infamous Red Light District where we met up with our other guy friends who were staying in a hostel closer to the center of the city.

After walking around the main Red Light Area and popping into a couple of coffeehouses, we all met up to go to a sex show..because..when in Amsterdam, you have to see one of these interesting shows. Apparently there are a few venues to see the shows at, we asked the local constables for some guidance (of all people!) and wound up at Casa Rosso.

Really it was much more entertaining than I thought it would be for 30Euro. There were 8 "acts" and well, you'll have to go see it to believe it but that was another surreal experience in this amazing city. I haven't even gone into the actual Red Light District walk through...

After the show we decided we needed to walk around and see these actual Red Light doors with half naked women in them. It was a little awkward at first to be walking by especially because there were a lot more men than women walking by but we had our guy friends there just in case. The skinny, clear doors were literally lining entire buildings with curtains closed on some (meaning they're in business) and the others had girls posing and smiling at passer-byers. Some of the girls looked so young and I was appalled that they were seductively opening their door to try an lure guys near. In each door is a bed already which is SUCH a weird concept that they're business happens literally feet away from the streets.. Also what I found strange was that there were some random groupings of 4-5 doors in other sections of the district just placed by stores and shops. Lots and lots of surreal moments and that's just day one.

Day 2 to come soon.