Amsterdam

April 5-7

Amsterdam is crazy, for several reasons. I give you the support of my thesis:

1) The pot is everywhere. And it stinks. I didn't even go in any "coffeeshops" and my coat still ended up smelling like.

2) The prostitutes. Here's my fun tale: I was walking from near my hostel to the Old Church, but I didn't feel like getting out my map. Instead I followed the signs posted around. I walked cluelessly down one street and looked up when I heard knocking on glass. There, in the windows, were many many prostitutes banging on the glass to get the attention of the group of men in front of me. I also realized at this point that most of the people on this particular street were male...oops. One good thing: the prostitutes all looked like the type of girl in high school who was really popular and you secretly hope will end up on the street. Wish granted!

3) Dutch is the craziest language EVER. OK, not really. But it sounds almost exactly like German! I would venture to say that I understood about 25% of what was said without trying hard. It got so that when I heard people speaking Dutch/German I had to stop and listen to at least a sentence or two to figure it out.

4) I CANNOT keep "Dutch" and "Danish" straight. I probably called the citizens of Holland Danish more often than I called them Dutch. Somehow I didn't have that problem in Copenhagen.


K, quick summary. The first day I met up with my parents. They're on one of those organized tours that takes them through several cities in Holland and Belgium. They got in the same morning I did, so we were all tired. We ate lunch near my hostel and then went to the Anne Frank House, where we waited for almost an hour to get in. Why? Because there was ONE ticket seller--who left for about 20 minutes as soon as it started pouring. I would say the Anne Frank House is the second-biggest disappointment of my trips in Europe (first being Sagrada Familia, biggest rip-off ever!!!). The house is mostly empty, giving you pretty much no picture of what it was like for eight people to live there for two years. There were a few artifacts and stuff displayed, but they were accompanied by...quotes from the book. Can you guess what was sold in the bookstore in about 15 different languages? I found the book more informative and more moving than the actual house.

Afterwards my parents went back to their room for a little bit and I walked around for a while. It had stopped raining and the sun had come out, so it was really nice. Amsterdam is a great city to walk around in. Well, except for all the mopeds and bikes (which all want to kill you). After we ate dinner I went back to my hostel...where I unfortunately had the rudest neighbors/roommates ever. I found that quite surprising for a Christian hostel.

The next day I went to Delft to meet up briefly with my parents, and after tagging along on their tour, I walked around the town for a little while and ate lunch. For some reason all of the churches in Delft were closed the entire day to visitors--even though it was a Sunday. I know they have services, but don't most churches usually welcome visitors, especially on Sunday? So, after looking at the churches from the outside, I went to the house of painter Paul Tetar van Elven (yeah, I'd never heard of him either). The only reason I went was that it was free. The inside was really nice and it was cool to see a well-preserved 19th-century Dutch home. Oh yeah, and I also saw the place where Johannes Vermeer's house used to be until it was accidentally torn down or something. Now there's a chapel there (typical).

I hung out in Delft for a little while, but it was really cold, so I went back to Amsterdam. When I got back it had sort of warmed up, so I walked around again, looking at stuff that I had missed the day before (this is when I had my run-in with the prostitutes). Luckily when I went back to my hostel, all my roommates had checked out and new ones had checked in. Those girls didn't come back until about 2:30 (what are these Christians doing??), so I was able to sleep pretty well.

The next day, I got up early and went to Keukenhof Gardens, where there are a ton of flowers and tulips. It was really nice, but the bus takes forrrrever. Also, I had been expecting more tulips. There weren't many at all. And it didn't really feel very spring-like since it was so COLD.

After I was done at the gardens, I went back to the city and met up with Felicia!

We walked around for a while, got lost (thanks, Felicia! haha), then went to the Van Gogh Museum. I liked the museum a lot! It was a little expensive, but it was worth it. Along with all the Van Gogh stuff, there was an exhibit of works by Millais, who I previously knew very little about. I can now tell you practically his life story. Some highlights: he married his friend Ruskin's wife Effie after the two got an annullment, due to the fact that Effie and Ruskin had been married for years but had never consummated the union. Scandalous? I think so. Effie and Millais went on to enjoy much much marital bliss--they had eight children. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Millais's paintings. Many of them look boring from first glance, but the emotions his subjects express are very evident on their faces. He also painted "Ophelia", which I had never known the name of or who painted it.

"The Huguenot", a Millais painting we both liked a lot

Millais's "Ophelia"

Overall: thumbs-up to Amsterdam. It felt much more authentic than Venice, where I heard more English than Italian. The pot and prostitution are not exactly my cup of tea, but both are easily avoided (unless you walk around cluelessly, like me). It's also fairly small and very walkable, which saved me a ton on public transportation. I only had to take a tram once, and even then, walking probably would have taken about the same amount of time as that whole journey did. I really wish I had rented a bike or something though, because while Amsterdam is really nice to walk around, it would have been a lot nicer to ride around. There's not that much to actually stop and look at, so I think biking would have been a great way to enjoy the city. Too bad it was cold and I'm cheap.