Amsterdam: City of Sinners

Ok now we all know about Amsterdams reputation as quite a hedonistic and sinful city. There are two ways I could approach this post, and I am going to go with the blunt option. Yes, parents, we did go to the red light district. Yes, we had a look around. No, we didnt decide to try ( I mean come on! WE ARE ON A STRICT BUDGET HERE PEOPLE!). Now that that is out of the way and there is no room left for dust swept under the carpet, I can begin the post proper.

Me and Rishi arrived in Amsterdam as sick as dogs. There is nothing else too it. We were absolutely shattered from Paris and Belgium and the pace at which we were powering through cities. I think we were also suffering from the inevitable effects of walking around in very cold conditions all day and had developed a couple of bad colds. For these reasons, we decided to take it much slower in Amsterdam and booked to stay an extra day or two in order to rest and partially recover. Our first day in the Nedtherlands was, therefore, a bludge day. Mundane things like laundry, blogging, emailing, catching up on sports news, planning the next leg of our trip and booking accomodation took up most of the day. We ventured out to get food and such but otherwise stayed indoors in a hostel that had some very good facilities.

In the morning, feeling slightly better, we decided to go on a walking tour of the city with the same company that organised our extremely successful pub crawl in Paris. This was very well done and the guide was extremely friendly, funny and knowledgeable. It served as a fantastic introduction to the city and the culture. The layout and history of the city were quickly grasped and lots of great stories were told, including one about some an indestructable medieval ball of bread. On a more serious note, I was quite stoked to visit the once headquarters of the Dutch East-India Company, about which I heard so much in History class back in S.A. Fun times. At the conclusion of the tour, we decided to tackle the nearby Anne Frank House which had been turned into a museum. If you dont know the story of Anne Frank, I suggest you do some research and read up about it a bit. It is quite an inspiring story which I found overwhelmingly sad at its conclusion. Nelson Mandela once said that 'The Diary of Anne Frank' gave him and many of the prisoners on Robbin Island strength. The museum was very well set up and provided quite an experience. After exiting the museum misty eyed, we had a bit of an exploration walk through the central city basically trying to get a grips with the city which can be quite confusing with its canal system and narrow streets. We managed to get to Central Station and reserve our seats on the overnight-train to Copenhagen later in the week and then realised we were in time for another tour by the same company, their Red Light District Tour. Now despite what you are thinking, the tour was done in a very professional and informative way. We were given the history behind the district and how it came to be what it is today. They took us through the district as a group and navigated us through some of the tourist traps, explaining how the whole industry operated. Urban myths were destroyed and amusing stories were told. All in all, a great way to see this often misunderstood and frowned upon neighbourhood. By this time, my cough in particular had mutated into some sort of monster that was trying to eat me from the inside, so we went back to the hostel in search of a good nights rest.

In the morning, at the behest of my parents, we decided to go get our coughs checked out at the nearest hospital. After quite a lengthy process we were seen by a very nice doctor, who pretty much just laughed at us and said 'Welcome to Europe!'. All we had was bad European colds which can take weeks to go away. Feeling slightly wounded at our comical concern, we decided to hit up some high culture for a change and headed straight to the Van Gogh Museum. This was another museum that was extremely well put together. Extremely informative, the museum provided detailed information on Van Goghs ideas, philosophies, techniques and evolution as an artist. There were some very famous Van Gogh's on display, but unfortunately, as with lots of these art museums, photographs werent allowed in most of the rooms. This pretty much concluded our day, but we managed to get our hands on some Dutch 'Bolletjies' (basically a Dutch Donut without the whole in the middle) which Rishi completely fell in love with. Quite touching. Rishi as an eligible bachelor is no more young ladies! His heart is now in Amsterdam with the Bolletjies. Unfortunately, his fidelity was tested almost immediately as for dinner we decided to risk a place called 'Febo'. Please reserve judgement. Basically its vending machine burgers. However, let me explain. The customer is confronted with a wall of vending machines, presenting different kinds of small burgers, and other cheap fast food. There is an actual CHEF behind the wall of vending machines cooking up the burgers and putting them in their slots. As a result, the food is extremely fresh and VERY good. In fact, probably some of the best burgers I have ever had. Cheap, fast, convenient. Genius. Rishi cheated on the Bolletjies without a second thought and is now permanently reminiscing about Febo, but unfortunately it seems to be an exclusively Dutch thing. Such a tragic story. Shakespeare would be proud, or rolling over in his grave.

The next day we were leaving for Denmark, but still had most of the day ahead of us. Once check out was completed, we roamed the city in search of some descent pictures. We went inside the 'Rijks' Museum, both an Art and a History museum, which had a very good section on the Dutch Golden Age and the VOC (Dutch East-India Company). it also had some fantastic art from Dutch Masters, including the extremely well executed and famous 'Nightwatch' by Rembrandt. I think he is definitly up there as one of my favourite artists. His ability to portray different textures and his almost genius like approach to utilising light is fantastic. Hats off to you sir. After we had finished there we collected our bags and headed to the station where our 14 hour treck to Denmark and Copenhagen was about to begin.