It all began with Bjork. The songs were newer, perhaps from Biophilia, weird and soothing, dissipating my deep-seated tension from all the trip-planning, packing and airport obstacle course. We were on Icelandic Air, en route to Reykjavik for our transfer to Amsterdam. The attendants (and some passengers) looked typically Icelandic, all blond, round-faced friendliness – I kept having the sense that my Icelandic friend Baldur was just around the corner.
We deplaned and walked through the elegant woodwork of the Reykjavik airport, and Irina derided the tourist ads in the corridors – come visit dreary Iceland, yeah right – but it seemed fantastical to me, the kind of place where Selkies might actually exist. We kept an eye out for our aerials instructor, Leah, who was rumored to be somewhere in Iceland, but only saw strangers and adorable security personnel in short pants with checkered cuffs.
It was a small surprise that the customs area was empty and everyone breezed through with nary a passport stamp (little did we know), everyone was so cool and friendly there. I almost didn’t mind being so sleep-deprived and famished. We boarded the plane to Amsterdam and were delighted to discover we had emergency row seats with tons of extra leg room and no extra fee. I still didn’t sleep, but the ride went by smoothly, with lots of melodic Icelandic announcements and their much shorter English translations.
When we got to Amsterdam (around noon on May 23), we easily found a taxi driver, who spoke perfect English and asked if we’d prefer to go through the city (slower) or take the highway closer (faster). I was suspicious at the time, but later, after walking around Amsterdam, I understood what he’d meant – it is not a very car-friendly city, which is very strange for me as an American. Pedestrians and, more so, bicycles, rule the roads in Amsterdam. The taxi driver took us efficiently through the crowded streets and we got to Dam Square without difficulty. After a long wait to check in, we finally got our room and, after fixing up our network connection and a little research, were back out on the streets to get me some food.
Just walking down the street was an adventure. We couldn’t pronounce or remember the long Dutch street names, so we navigated by counting canals (and our trusty lonely planet map). There were touristy shops, pastry shops, a few punky clothing stores and an overwhelming number of cannabis-oriented shops in the first 3 canals (6 blocks?). I thought people would think I was stoned, because I was punch-drunk from all the travelling and no sleep. We made it to Soup en Zo where I had a lovely pumpkin soup and roll. On the way back, practically stumbling from fatigue, we wandered into a shop with lovely handmade shirts and the shoplady suggested Irina and I were siblings, perhaps because we were wearing almost identical glasses. When Irina corrected her, she went on about how similar our features were, insisting we must have common ancestry. I just laughed and said we weren’t planning to have kids, so no problem.
Back at the hotel, we collapsed into something between a nap and a night’s sleep, awaking maybe around 8pm, in time to go check out some other streets and some lovely food at the charismatic TerraZen Centre, which reminded me a bit of New Orleans, so laid back and with character, except of course that it was VEGAN. The owner/chef was friendly and interesting, with various colored nails (a man after my heart). I got an Ital stew which was very good – nice healthy and tasty food after 24 hours of nothing but lara bars and a bowl of soup, but the portions seemed a bit small – we weren’t yet used to European portions, which aren’t the eat-until-stuffed portions we usually get in America. While at dinner, the sun finally set – at about 10pm!
We wandered around a bit more, enjoying the summer night, having a drink at a bar, then headed back to the hotel. When we got to the hotel, Irina suggested a stroll around it to see what was nearby, so we did that and inadvertently wandered into the edge of the Red Light District. We saw prostitutes in windows and, overtired as I was, it was scary, but we made it back safe and sound and got a fairly decent night of sleep.
The next day, we got a quick lunch at Maoz Falafel and then hopped aboard a tram and made our way south to the Van Gogh museum. It was interesting to learn about his sad life and of course to see the fruits of his phenomenal (if underappreciated in his day) talent. Even his early sketches, before he had any artistic training were extremely well done.
We’d made a reservation for dinner at De Waaglhals (Daredevils in Dutch) at 7pm, but ended up getting there early, at 6 and they were happy to take us. We ate outside, enjoying the lovely Amsterdam “afternoon” with about 4 hours of daylight left.
After that, we headed back to Dam Square and decided to check out the Red Light District for real. We went to a bar from the tourbook, crossing lines of red lights on the streets, not sure when we were in or out of the district in the last hours of sunlight. After sunset, the “storefronts” opened with rectangular red lights above them and inside each was a scantily dressed woman smiling, waving or winking at the passers-by. We saw some men enter: one came back out quickly, apparently not liking the terms, others seemed to negotiate for a while (one gesticulating madly) and then the curtain would come down. It seemed perfectly safe as the streets were swarming with tourists, men and women. A fascinating experience.
We had big plans for the next day to get onto a boat tour, but ended up spending most of the day shoe shopping, first at Vega-Life (where I got red sneakers and some new nailpolish colors), then at United Nude (where Irina got some cool shoes and I relaxed on a couch on the 2nd floor with rainbow light display). We missed the afternoon boat tour, but had a nice walk in the Jordaan district, stopping by a popup art gallery, and had a nice dinner at Bolhoed. This was the only place in Amsterdam that wasn’t very English friendly, but they still spoke English (if reluctantly) and had a few English menus. The food was excellent, all except for giant, washed out looking stalks of white asparagus – they looked like leftovers from Bunnicula. I managed to choke down 2 of them, but they were quite bland and overly chewy. I didn’t know it at the time, but this asparagus, better known as “spargel” was to become the running punch-line of our trip. After dinner, we had a nap and then went out to “Kill All Hipsters” at the Melkweg and had a nice time dancing. We even enjoyed the late night walk home (about 2 miles at about 2am).
Saturday, we were feeling a bit sore from all the walking, but managed some more, getting over to the Vliende Schotel (The Flying Saucer in Dutch) in time to meet up with my friend Hanneke and her husband Herman. We had a lovely lunch, avoiding the asparagus options and chatting about many topics such as the childfree lifestyle, differences between Belgian and Dutch culture and more. When it came time to end our meal, we managed to convince them to join us for a visit to Electric Ladyland, a fluorescent art museum.
Upon entry to a small storefront jam-packed with fluorescent paintings and blacklights, we were greeted by an older woman who asked if we were wearing sunscreen. 3 of us were and she told us to wash it off. I asked if it was just our hands, but she said arms and everywhere. Apparently the UV protecting qualities of sunscreen could damage the UV-enhanced fluorescent art. After clarifying that we didn’t in fact need to wash our faces/heads (which I was not going to do), just hands/arms, we complied with a hose in the back area. Then, she talked to us for a while about the history of their museum, while other visitors were finishing up in the basement. Eventually, we were allowed in, which involved climbing down a ladder and avoiding some low hanging beams, but the main sculpture, which we could touch and take pictures of, was pretty amazing.
After a semi-interesting lecture by the ex-hippy/explorer proprietor on an extensive array of rocks and a few fluorescent paintings, we climbed out of the basement and went out into the street, where I quickly opened my parasol and applied more sunscreen. Herman, Hanneke, Irina and I went to a cafe for a drink and saw a bicycle driven large music-maker thing, which apparently is a Dutch tradition. We donated a few euros, but opted not to buy a 10 euro CD of the tinny music playing. Alas, then Herman and Hanneke had to go, so we said our goodbyes and Irina and I made our way towards dinner and our last-chance boat tour. We were running short on time, so we grabbed a nearby pedicab (luckily on smoke break) and we finally rode a bicycle in Amsterdam, but with someone else pedalling. It was quite fast and a little frightening coming so close to cars and curbs, but the driver was an expert navigator and we made it to the restaurant in good time.
Dinner was at Golden Temple where we had delicious Indian-influenced “thali” type dishes. I loved the atmosphere too, though we had little time to enjoy it, needing to rush off after about 45 minutes to get to our boat tour dock, which we made just in the nick of time. The tour went all around the canals, which was really interesting, to see some of the same streets from different viewpoints. The information about permanent houseboats, building architecture and more was interesting too, but the best part was out in the canal harbor where we could clearly see a sculptured boat, the modern train station with canal-spanning tracks, as well as a floating Chinese restaurant and other architectural oddities. As we were winding our way back, I became aware of how exhausted I was and struggled to pay attention. After the tour, Irina insisted on stopping at her new favorite bar, which we did. When we finally entered our hotel for the last time, it was like saying goodbye to a new friend.
More pictures from Europe on flickr (Amsterdam starts here).
