Amsterdam

Just a few days after I got back from the long road trip with my dad, I headed off at six in the morning for two and a half days in Amsterdam. Catie's boyfriend was visiting, and as the three of us are friends from Wesleyan we thought it would be a fun trip to take together. We definitely did have fun, and saw a lot of museums and ate a lot of delicious food, but I must say it was incredibly cold. I would like to go back to Amsterdam some time in the spring, when I could enjoy wandering around near the canals without continually scanning for somewhere to take shelter and get warm.

Our trip started off with a seven hour train ride from Tübingen to Amsterdam. Because we wanted most of the day on Thursday in Amsterdam, we left at 6:00 am for what was, thanks to the clean, fast, and reliable German train system, a very easy trip. Once we dropped our stuff at the hostel, we decided to spend the afternoon exploring the city. As soon as we stepped outside the door we ran into a beautiful cheese shop, situated in the corner of a building, where they have cheese being made in a big vat inside and more samples than even I, a cheese enthusiast, would have dreamed of. My first few minutes in Amsterdam, and the city had already won me over. The rest of that afternoon we wandered around, peeked in on a few of the coffeeshops that make Amsterdam famous, and then just relaxed at the hostel, tired after our long train journey.

The cheese shop

Making cheese

 Some shots of Amsterdam:

The next day we did a lot of sightseeing. The morning began with a trip to the Anne Frank house, which is the museum that has been made out of the rooms that her family and some family friends lived in behind her father's store for years while hiding from the Nazis. The furniture has been removed, but you can get a sense of how narrow and cramped those rooms were, and how difficult it must have been to live in such close proximity to your family for years, especially as a young teenager. The museum left bits of the original wallpaper where you can see how Anne decorated her bedroom or where the family put marks on the wall to measure the growth of the children. These tidbits were both touching and heartbreaking, seeing as how all of them except Anne's father ended up dying in concentration camps just before the war ended. Thoroughly depressed, we moved on to the next portion of our sightseeing day, which did nothing to cheer us up. Gilder was very enthusiastic about seeing the torture museum, so we headed there. After about twenty minutes of narrow passageways filled with historic torture devices and gruesome illustrations, we emerged back into the suddenly sunny Amsterdam day. We grabbed some lunch to recover from our morning before heading off to the Van Gogh Museum, stopping briefly on the way at a floating flower market, which consists of many stalls lined up along one of the canals and is the only one of its kind in the world.

A few stalls from the flower market

The Van Gogh Museum was wonderful, and fulfilled all of my expectations (which were many, as my art teacher in high school raved about the museum and I've wanted to go ever since). We headed back to the hostel after this to relax a little before dinner, which we ate in China Town. Catie and I were very excited for the prospect of somewhat authentic asian food, as in Germany most restaurants don't serve food from a specific Asian country, but rather "Asia" food. The scope of this generic Asian identity is vast. For example, a friend of ours from New Zealand recently told us that Germans have qualified him as Asian. Needless to say, we were excited at the prospect of a meal other than rice and vegetables with "Asia sauce." Although we were in China Town, rather than ending up in a Chinese restaurant, or even one of the many Indonesian restaurants we had seen and been wanting to try, we ended up at a Thai restaurant where we ate a delicious dinner. It was exactly what was needed after a long day, and gave us a chance to get off our feet.

China Town is right near the Red Light District, so after dinner we walked around there for a little while. Catie and I found the experience somewhat unsettling, continually saying that we didn't know how to feel as feminists. On the one hand, we want to support women in an act that can be empowering and is a personal choice, especially as Amsterdam makes sure that the practice of prostitution is regulated and safe. On the other hand, I found it extremely disconcerting that every single woman was incredibly made up with tons of eye liner, wearing a bikini (I had expected lingerie), and had stick straight jet black or bleach blonde hair. I had expected to see different types of women in these windows, as I would assume that different people have different sexual preferences, and although we saw a few that broke from the description above, the vast majority presented themselves in this manner. Catie and I both said that it felt strange to us being women walking through there, as it was clear that we were not the intended customer. We didn't want to stare, but the women were asking to be stared at - but only by men. It was an interesting experience, and I sort of wish we had seen more of the district, because maybe then we would have seen some variety. It was fascinating to watch men on the street so openly arguing prices and debating whether or not to go in. I feel like I left with more questions than I had had before going, however, such as how does one get to be in a window? How long does she get to stay in the window? In some places are there prostitutes in the back that aren't in the window (sort of like a brothel-type situation), or are they all self-employed?

One street in the Red Light District

One of the Indonesian Restaurants...imprints of colonialism

Amazing, amazing french fries with mayonaise and garlic sauce

The next day we decided to get some grasp of Amsterdam's history, and we began this by taking a canal cruise. There are many different services that offer this, but we went with the one offered by the tourist office because the boat was enclosed (remember, it was freezing). We got some beautiful views of the city and saw important landmarks that we otherwise would have missed, such as the building that used to house the Dutch East India Company. After our canal cruise we went to the Amsterdam Museum, which I highly recommend. It was one of the best museums I've ever been to, incredibly interactive and full of interesting information presented in many different ways. The first exhibit was particularly colorful, youthful, and informative, and I found myself wishing it went on for longer. After a long time exploring the countless other rooms in the museum, we stopped at the café for an incredibly reasonably-priced and delicious lunch, a bonus in a city as expensive as Amsterdam. (The museum gave us a student discount with our International Student Identity Cards, and was thus the first and only place we visited with a student discount). Right near the museum is the oldest house in Amsterdam, and the only surviving wooden house. After a large fire in the 1600s that burnt down most of the town, all of the houses have been made of brick. The house is in a courtyard that belongs to an order of religious women, so it's very peaceful and was a nice place to walk through.

Some images from the canal cruise:

Parking garage for bicycles at the train station

Giant floating Chinese-Indonesian Restaurant

I liked this houseboat

And this one

Gilder and Catie in the courtyard of the Amsterdam Museum

The old wooden house

Overall our trip to Amsterdam lived up to my expectations, and I enjoyed the beautiful city thoroughly. I just wish it had been a little warmer! Tomorrow I'm leaving for Scotland, and then England and Ireland, and eventually Istanbul, so there will be no more blog posts for at least a month. Happy february!