Adventures in Amsterdam

Amsterdam is unquestionably a city ruled by bicycles. They whiz past without warning, as bells are rarely used except to request passage around people walking in the street with their backs to the bicyclist. I quickly learned to look both ways for bicycles more than cars when crossing roads, because in most of Amsterdam, bikes are far more common. The city is much more the soft whir of bicycles than the sound of motors (at least, everywhere I went). Bikes are locked up everywhere--on bridges over the canals, to lampposts and signs, in ubiquitous racks. Something like 85,000 bikes are stolen every year, so no one has a flashy bike; they are all well-used and inconspicuous.

Interestingly, Amsterdam actually has more canals than Venice (something I will investigate fully later this summer!), with four major ones ringing the center. The main image of the city that I have retained is one of long stretches of canal lined with trees and tall, elegant townhouses; most of the center of the city follows that pattern. The infamous coffeehouses are there, to be sure--"coffeehouse" being the word used for "marijuana-dispensing cafes"--but mostly in the very center of the city and easily avoidable. Amsterdam is more a city of food from all around the world, very tall people, good shopping, lots of entertainment, beautiful parks, and sunsets at 10 pm in the height of summer (bizarre!), and I could see myself living there quite happily.

I visited Amsterdam on my own, so I walked and walked and walked and then sat in cafes, people-watching and reading. Some hostels are the kind of place where you meet people and others are not, and mine was of the latter genre. So it was a very quiet few days, but I enjoyed it. And even better, walking around on my own meant that I was taken for a local and asked for directions twice--a nice change, because in many of the places I've been to in Europe, my coloring unquestionably marks me as a tourist!

My first day there--18 July--I tried to go to the Anne Frank Museum,  but even at 10 am the line looked two hours long, so instead I strolled along the Prinsengracht towards the Museumplein. (Within five minutes, I ran into a couple from the ship. In the course of the day, I met two other couples--I felt like I knew all sorts of people in Amsterdam. Funny how no matter how many little streets there are to wander down, we still end up on the same ones at the same time.)

I visited the Rijksmuseum in the morning. In the 1700s in Amsterdam, it was quite fashionable among the very wealthy to make dollhouse replicas of their own homes, and one room in the Rijksmuseum had an exhibition of these. A notice said one dollhouse cost as much as a medium-sized canalfront house at the time! Also lots of Rembrandt paintings...I liked the way he painted hair; he would take the end of his brush and scratch curls into the wet paint. In the afternoon, I went to the Van Gogh museum then rambled around the Vondelpark for a while. The Vondelpark is massive and quite the place to be on a Sunday afternoon--people were sunning themselves on every bit of lawn (bikes nearby, of course), and musicians weaved their way though the bodies.

I ate a noteworthy lunch at the Cobra Cafe by the "I Amsterdam" sign: toasted multigrain bread with warm goat cheese, apple, rucola, and honey on top. So good that I scraped my plate to get the crumbs!

As a trip to Amsterdam would otherwise not be complete , I did take a walk up through the red-light district. Even though it was only 7 pm at the time, I had to talk myself into it because that very wild part of my imagination was picturing opium dens, sex trafficking kidnappers, and for some reason, leering one-eyed pirates, but as soon as I got there, I realized it was just blatant coffeehouses, the marijuana museum and "college," and prostitutes sitting behind windows, beckoning men of a certain age. Every five minutes, a horde of Japanese tourists would fill the sidewalk. Hardly my scene, but not nearly as menacing as I had imagined it!

The Anne Frank Huis (Dutch for "house") the next morning was like a European Holy Grail for me. Her diary made such an impression on me; I remember I wrote to "Dear Kitty" in my own for months afterwards. I booked my hostel to be very close to the location of the Secret Annex, so I arrived just after the museum's opening at 9 am (another feat of stupendous tourism!) and only had to wait in line for 15 minutes. To see the wall she looked at while writing so many of those entries and the chestnut tree through the attic window was stirring. It has been a while since I read the diary, and I think now it is a high priority on my To Re-read list.

My one complaint about Amsterdam is the significant dearth of shady benches to sit on along the canals. There seems to be a city-wide aversion to them. I ended up eating my lunch of a freshly-purchased pastry on a clean doorstep of a canalfront house. I was a bit worried a wizened old lady would come out and threaten me with her broom, thinking I was a vagrant, but I was thankfully left in peace. (Perhaps wearing a sundress prevents such an impression.)

That afternoon, I poked around the stores of the 9 Streets (de negen straatjes), the area of quirky shops Nan from the cruise had said are fun. I did find one lovely dress that I probably would have bought, were I not backpacking around Europe; I pictured myself picking apples on Prince Edward Island in it. I did find the toothbrush shop Sandy had told me about; it had a miniature Ferris wheel rotating in its window with 10 or 12 toothbrushes riding it and bent into a seated position. This was directly next door to the bow tie shop.

That evening, I rented a bike from the hostel for 3 hours, picturing myself joining the elegant legions of bicyclers who speed around the streets of Amsterdam. Thus commenced my grand adventure. I thought I would just hop on my rented bike and glide off, BUT--I had forgotten the nature of rented bikes. At first the seat was too high--easily fixed. Then the hand brake was loose, although this was not apparent to me until I could not stop and proceeded to crash into a door coming down from a bridge. Thankfully, I soon discovered that backpedaling also worked as a brake, but this discovery was made by accident, and I nearly fell off the bike in the process. Following the route I had mapped out, I was soon off the back streets by the hostel and on the busy road along the harbor, and I then realized I had put the further continuance of my life up for grabs by getting on that bike.

Bicycles may rule Amsterdam, but it is a cutthroat, bike-eat-bike style of governance.

All the other bikers whizzed past, sneaking up silently behind me and from around corners--and since I was also moving quickly, this was far scarier than when walking--and there were also cars to deal with. I still don't understand the European traffic signs, having never driven anything in Europe, so I guarantee I broke multiple traffic regulations without realizing it. I started trying to just follow the other bicyclers when the intersection was not very clear, hoping that they were not all tourists like me, but then I think I followed a lady through a red light! I expected the Amsterdam bike police to descend on me en masse for that one... Although the biking was physically easy, I was soon drenched in sweat from nerves. I did a long loop, following Lijnbaansgracht then turning onto the harbor from Houtmankade, following along the quai past the train station then turning back into the city at the NEMO Science Center, down Sarphatistraat then along the Singel until I crossed over to Stadhouderskade after Frederickplein, and then finally I reached the oasis of Vondelpark. (Swen, those logistics are for your Google Maps pleasure.) I had finally reached some sort of truce with my untrustworthy steed, although still it wobbled ominously every time I started after a traffic light. Not battling cars was heavenly, so I circled the park 4 times. I stopped once to get a hot dog from a vendor, and the seat must still have been a bit high as I whammed my right leg into the seat when trying to dismount, nearly losing my balance yet again. I finished the tour with the relatively quiet streets around Prinsengracht.

Basically, I looked an utter fool while bicycling around Amsterdam, and I am glad no one I knew was there to see because they would undoubtedly tease me for 20 years to come!

Photographs.