Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Part 2

The final day and associated times spent in Amsterdam were ones of wandering and walking.  Rae and I both like markets.  We are also both interested in living on a boat and/or houseboat someday.  Luckily, Amsterdam had both of these items in plenty.  We spent the third day visiting several open markets, one of which was devoted to nothing but tulip bulbs and other assorted flowers and bulbs.  Strangely enough the price decreased as you approached the center and then increased again as you headed for the other end.  So if you were patient and could stand to pass through about a thousand people before buying your tulips, you could save a euro or two.  Rae had done her research and there were about 3 different markets she wanted to hit.  Our next stop took us beyond the tulip market to a very long stretch of stalls that was probably 3 or 4 city blocks long.  

This really long market had everything!  It was snack time.  Raw fish on a bun with onions and pickle was the appetizer followed by fries with ketchup and mayo with onion.  For later, we picked up some more cheese and an entire smoked mackerel.  No joke, the whole fish.  The guy picked it up, slapped it in a newspaper, bagged it and handed it to us.  Good times.  Now every market we've been to has it's own peculiar quirk.  It may be a layout choice, it may be the times they're open or it might be a particular kind of stall that shows up.  Here in Amsterdam it seems the bath and body section of your local Walmart can only be found in the outdoor market because that's the only explanation I have for why stall after stall would be shampoos, conditioners, razors, hair coloring kits and a whole assortment of bath and body products.  It never ceases to amaze me the oddities that markets have.  If I ever design one, I'll have to remember to throw in a subtle strangeness.  

After all this wandering through crowds of people, Rae and I headed back to our home base and dropped off the wares we had purchased.  Then we went out to the neighborhood of Jordaan and simply walked around the canals looking at the converted house boats.  It was so nice and so peaceful.  There weren't a lot of bikes or cars or even city sounds for that matter.  We walked for hours away from all the people and talked and talked.  So many of these houseboats were converted freighters or haulers.  Now they haven't moved in years.  Some of the little coots (a duck like creature is my best description) have gathered dozens of twigs, sticks and other rubbish together to make their nests on the canal wall side of these houseboats.  The turbulence from passing canal tour boats is lessened there.  One such nest already had the couple exchanging turns on 7 eggs.  It was pretty adorable seeing them interact.  We sat and had a beer for a while and watched them.  

All in all, our final time in Amsterdam was spent enjoying the food and the atmosphere of the quieter neighborhoods.  Many more chocolate covered waffles were consumed along with more fries, bread, cheese and beer.  We caught the train for Frankfurt and headed home with 4 beers and 2 packs of stroop waffles.  I can safely say that we should have brought more stroop home with us.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Part 1

Amsterdam is filled with a lot of nice people.  Most everybody speaks English there and it is really easy to get comfortable and adjusted to the city.  The city has been called the Venice of the North and I have to agree.  Only they should have said the much nicer Venice of the North.  Having just recently been to Venice I can say that Amsterdam is both cleaner and prettier than Venice (in my humble opinion).  Although the trees were not leafing we were still able to enjoy the sites of the area.  

We were able to find some deals for the high speed train and made it to Amsterdam from Frankfurt in only 4 hours.  It was early afternoon and we immediately attacked the town.  I think we wanted to get some parts of the city out of the way the first day since they were the more touristy and we dislike multitudes of people.  However, the first thing we did was to find a pub near a canal so that we could have a beer.  With the sun out and warming everything we spotted two chairs (no table) and pounced on them.  We had good timing and the server was there immediately.  We ordered our beer and then moseyed the chairs right to the edge of the canal with everybody else behind us and out of view.  For the next hour and a half we sat with our feet nearly dangling over the edge watching canal cruise boats go by us.  It was a pretty good start to a stay in a city.  Four or five more hours of exploring and we wind up back at our place laden with three kinds of cheese (sambal, smoked and hollandaise mustard), bread, apples and chocolate covered pearl sugar ladened waffles.  

Our lodging was one of the cheapest places we could find and it wasn't too bad.  It was in the red light district but that just gave it some character.  It was an extremely narrow building, as they all are, and the room was noticeably listing to one side, which was a little weird.  The ceiling was shorter than I am and had beams so I was always watching my head.  

The next day was Rae's birthday and we began by heading back to the train station to grab a train to Leiden, a good sized town 40km south of Amsterdam.  It is the jumping spot for getting to the tulip fields so it made Leiden a pseudo-tourist town.  Our plan was to bike ride to the fields but the weather was very cold and cloudy dreariness.  I had wi-fi in our room though so I saw the prediction that by noon it would be partly cloudy and warmer.  So we had coffee and explored Leiden for a few hours in the morning.  I exercised all my will power to the weather and blue skies started peeking around 1100 and by 1145, it was nearly completely clear!  We were very happy we decided to not wait for the weather to clear in Amsterdam first.  We finished our wanderings of Leiden and had a pre-bike ride beer at this cool restaurant with a cat.  Then it was off to the train station to put a deposit on some bikes.  More to come...