We arrived in Amsterdam on Sunday, Oct. 20, in the afternoon. It is a huge city and the train station is massive. We plugged our hotel address, Holiday Inn Express, into the iphone GPS and it told us it was about a 17 minute walk from the station. A 17 minute walk for us is nothing, so we headed out in the direction GPS told us.
After just a couple of minutes, GPS told us to take a tunnel. We didn’t see any tunnel. We walked around and then down some stairs but could never find the tunnel. By looking at the GPS I saw where it eventually wanted us to walk and just started heading that way. And, we were right, we got to the street we were supposed to be walking on soon enough without the tunnel.
What the big surprise for us was the rampant odor of marijuana we ran into as we walked. The foul odor was everywhere. We supposed that it is legal to buy and smoke it in Amsterdam because we ran into it everywhere we went.
We arrived at our hotel, got checked in and decided to go looking for a place to eat. All we had to eat on our trip was a cinnamon bun each and Coke because of the cancellation of one of our trains. We were hungry. We entered restaurants near us in the GPS and headed out. Amsterdam doesn’t appear to have as many restaurants as we’ve had in other large cities. Our GPS led us into an area that had numerous restaurants. The first one we tried was completely booked, so we continued to look. The restaurant The American Grill grabbed our attention and we both enjoyed burgers and fries. The fries were huge and came with a combination sauce in the same container that looked like ketchup and mayonnaise. When we ordered Karen asked if the restaurant had mustard and our waiter said he’d check—a 50-50 chance he said. The combination sauce didn’t taste like ketchup and mayonnaise, but it was good on the fries. As per usual, we ordered “still water” for our beverage, which is tap water and costs about 7.50 euros per bottle.
We came back to the hotel and were soon ready to turn in. It had been a little stressful having to rearrange our travel plans at the last minute.
Sunday morning we had a boat tour scheduled on the canals in Amsterdam. Amsterdam has 165 canals and all were hand-dug, according to our tour guide. The boat ride was very interesting. We had no idea where we were riding but we saw a lot of the big city and went under lots and lots of very low bridges. The temperature was at 60 degrees but winds were blowing at 18 and gusting to 30 so it was a little chilly. We wore our heavier coats. Even though the tour boat was enclosed it was still chilly.
The captain and a tour guide took turns giving us stories and history about the town. Both were young, I’d guess in their 20s, and seemed to be more impressed with the town’s party life than we were. They were proud that the first gay couple had been married there and said one of the biggest parties each year is the gay pride week-long event. And, we saw several pride flags flying around as we cruised and walked. It was an interesting cruise.
One of the most amazing facts that was shared with us is that Amsterdam has more bicycles than it has people. Our tour guide said everyone in town has two bikes, one to go to work or school on and one that you don’t mind if it gets stolen. The guide said bike theft is one of the biggest crime problems in the city. And we could see why. There are bikes everywhere, not only people riding them but parked everywhere. They are often blocking the sidewalks. There are just thousands and thousands of them.
Our tour guide said that last year 18,000 bikes were pulled from the canals. Why are they in the canals? They fall in and people throw them in. The city goes through the canals with large magnets attached to the boats and pulls them up. And, said the guide, people who steal bikes will often thrown their old one in the canal so as not to have to bother with it.
And we learned today, Monday, Oct. 21, on a different tour, which I’ll talk about later, Amsterdam greatly discourages people to own cars. She said it costs 8 euros an hour to park on town streets and that fee is going up to 10 euros per hour.
After our boat tour we walked to the train station and ate at a restaurant there. We had smoked salmon on a bagel, which was really good. However, we did not try the most talked about fish in Amsterdam, the hering, as they spell it. I don’t know if it’s like our herring but our guide told us people eat them not really cooked thoroughly. She said the wives tale is that if you eat one, it will keep the doctor away, and if you eat two it will keep everyone else away.
We came back to the hotel, rested a little and then headed out for a tour of Anne Frank’s secret hiding place during Amsterdam’s occupation by the Germans. We got to tour the actual secret quarters she, her parents, sister and some friends were able to live in for almost two years. Interestingly the secret quarters were over a warehouse where people worked everyday but they did not know the people were living above them. During the day they had to be very still, quiet and unable to run water or use the toilet. They were eventually discovered and all sent to different concentrations camps where everyone died except Anne’s father. Anne kept a diary of her time in secret. She wanted to become a journalist. When her father was released after the war, he discovered her diary and had it published.
We ate fish and chips at a seafood restaurant after the tour. It didn’t say what kind of fish it was. When Karen asked if it was cod, the waitress said no but that it was a white fish like cod. Karen later discovered it was Hake, which is related to cod and was very good. It came with a little salad in a huge scallop shell.
In as much as we’ve basically stopped trying to watch television at night because there’s nothing on in English except CNN and British Broadcasting, neither very interesting we just go to sleep.
As you can see, there are bicycles everywhere. And a lot of them you can’t see because they end up in the 165 canals in Amsterdam. The second photo is of us standing on a bride over one of canals you have to cross to go anywhere. Interestingly, many people live in boats along the canals, you can see behind us.