Amsterdam

(written March 06)

Mike and I took the train into Amsterdam Friday afternoon. It’s a 90 minute ride straight through from Sittard, The Netherlands which is a small town about 15 minutes from our house. Once we got there we followed Rick Steve’s (tour book writer) advice and purchased a 3 day pass for about $15. That gave us unlimited travel on the trams, busses, and the metro. The first night we stayed in a quaint (European for “small’) room at the Hotel Jansen. The biggest problem with Amsterdam is the hotel prices. Anyplace you can afford you don’t want to stay in…ha ha. Well, the room was clean and we did have our own bathroom, but it was just a little more than two twin beds wide and the floor had a funny angle to it. The rain had started but we wanted to go out and see the city. We had passed the Hard Rock Café and a few other hot spots on our tram ride to the hotel so we headed back in that direction.
Walking in Amsterdam is downright dangerous. It’s very busy with cars, busses, trams, motorcycles, scooters, and bikes. In fact all of the main streets have a special bicycle lane and if you dare to walk in it, you are taking your life into your own hands. They will run your ass down without ringing their bicycle bells. I was caught on a median when a tram took the corner and well…lets just say that if I was a cup larger…I wouldn’t be anymore. We saw many car/tram near misses and paid extra attention to avoid the bike paths. Hungry and wet we entered an Irish pub only to get blasted by rap music. After a beer we decide that we would eat elsewhere. We had not intended on eating at the Hard Rock, but it was late, we were tired, and it ended up being a great meal. It’s really hard to get a good burger where we live, so it was a nice change of pace. After that we headed off to the Red Light District. We didn’t go to any of the shows, but people watching provided plenty of entertainment. It’s hard to explain, but this area is a MUST VISIT if you get to the city. I felt very safe and the biggest danger is pick pockets. While soft drugs are legal, just take a sniff and you knew it, many harder drugs were plentiful based on the number f business propositions we received from the ubiquitous drug dealers. Again, I felt very safe as they took “no” for an answer.
The next morning we took the tram to another hotel where we would spend the next two nights and where some friends of Mike were staying for a NATO conference. They were people that Mike had worked with while we lived in Texas. We dropped our bags off and then did some more city sight seeing. The Anne Frank house line was too long so we decided to try again later. After some shopping, walking, and people watching we headed back to the hotel. Most of the group was there so we drank beer…lots of it. The group of 13 headed to another Irish pub for dinner then over to the Red Light to another pub for drinks. We had a great view of some of the working girls behind their windows and just watched the show. Many guys went up to the door but wouldn’t pay the price. Finally two guys went into a room with two girls, one man came out in 5 minutes, and the other hung in for 12. Needless to say we were laughing our asses off. Unfortunately the pub was located above a coffee house (which doesn’t serve coffee if you get my drift) and the pot smell was so obnoxious that most of us wanted to move on. The rain had started up again so about half of us called it a night, Mike and myself included.
The next day started bright and early at 10 for a walk and breakfast in a local place near the Heineken brewery. The brewery tour was the best that I have even been on! It was 10 Euros, but you got 3 beers, a souvenir beer glass in a cool tin, and they had many interactive displays and 2 cheesy rides. I now know what a Heineken bottle feels like. Speaking of Heineken, I had sworn the stuff of a few years ago as being skunky, not so here. It was very, very good. It just doesn’t ship well in the green bottles so the flavor turns before we can drink it in the states. They are trying some new bottles, so hopefully it will taste better in the US. After that tour our group of 6 broke up and 3 of us went to the Anne Frank house. That is another MUST DO while in Amsterdam. I wasn’t as emotionally moved as some people were, but after seeing Dachau last year the Annex visit just wasn’t as depressing. Still, it was just amazing to think that they almost made it through the war living in such deplorable conditions.
Back at the hotel we met up with our buddy Pete Godwin from England and we spent the rest of the night just catching up on old times. Pete insisted that we head to a decent pub for some “brown stuff” (Guinness beer) as he can only drink so much of the bubbly pilsner beers…so good friends that we are, we headed to yet another Irish pub. Did you know that the first bar opened in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban was an Irish pub? We had to head back on Monday so we slept in, did some more walking, watching, and shopping then returned by late afternoon. We really didn’t do much real “touring” but since it’s so easy for us to get there we plan on going back any playing “tourist.” We wanted to do a canal cruise but it was windy and cold and since we had family and friends coming to visit so it seemed silly to do everything in one visit.