Bikes and Dikes

6 - 9 July 2008 – Amsterdam

By the time I arrived in Amsterdam, I was absolutely positively knackered.

Caught the train from Schipol to Amsterdam Centraal Station. I was very muddled and confused at that stage, so I’m surprised I got on and off the right train at all. This is the brilliance of the Dutch, they make things easy for us stupid tourists.

Everything is pretty simple and easy to follow, but damnit, what is wrong with the Europeans? They have heaps of easy to use ticket machines that only take coins and don’t take notes!!! Who the hell designed these machines? Who the hell approved their use? It’s a simple addition, dagnabbit.

It was a quick train ride, and even though I wasn’t sure whether or not I was getting off at the right stop, I got off anyway because everybody else was getting off. After a lot of time spent traveling you learn that in any major city, most people tend to get on and off at the “Central Station” So if you see lots of movement of people, the chances are high that you are in one of the main stations, if not the main one. I took my chances… fortunately it was the right choice, otherwise I’d be screwed.

Marisa’s friend, Sidhi, was kind enough to meet me at Central Station because Marisa was daytripping in the Hague visiting relatives.

Sidhi and his girlfriend, Amie are wonderful and friendly and even though they don’t know me at all, I was made to feel welcomed in their home. I was pleasantly surprised to find Sidhi’s apartment so big and spacious and not all cramped like how I imagined many Amsterdam apartments to be like (you have to see how the buildings look on the outside!)

The only thing we did that night was watch the Wimbledon final between Nadal and Federer. I don’t know if I was able to do anything else… What an exciting awesome game though, I would’ve been happy for either to win but I do have a soft spot for the Spanish boys ;)

It took my everything to stay awake enough to watch the entire game and have something to eat before crashing like a rock. I slept like a baby.

Day 1 (full) – Amsterdam

While our hosts slept in, and deservedly so, Marisa and I made our way to Anne Frank’s House, a sad and depressing memorial of some of the happenings of the war but a definite worthwhile visit if ever you’re in Amsterdam.

This morning the weather isn’t great, it’s looking rather grey and cold outside. I also notice how pretty the city looks, it’s very cute, almost cartoon like in a way. I guess because of lack of space, many offices are located in the houses and apartments and the ones on the ground floor have windows that face the street, like shop windows. I find this quite awkward, I would hate to work like that, I will feel like a zoo animal on display. I would hate to know that anyone can see what I’m looking at on my computer… especially if I’m in the mood to look up porn *ahem* I mean, shoes….

Then after that, we met up with Sidhi and Amie and we all went on a free bus tour to Volendam, a little “traditional” town just outside of Amsterdam. Shame about the weather, it’s very cold, windy and wet. Feels like Winter more than Summer.

Thing with these sorts of tours is that you spend more time traveling to get where you need to go and not a lot of time actually spent being where you want to be. But I guess, for today it was ok because the weather was just shocking.

Before we get to Volendam, we spent a good half hour at a cheese factory, probably because it’s in an area known as Edam, and I love Edam! So you can be assured that I ate all the free cheese I could get my hands on. It’s a pity that I can’t buy any because there’s no way I could have taken that back to Oz with me.

(Say Cheese?)

Volendam is known for its fishing boats and traditional dutch costumes, the ones that are very recognizable, the ones you see in postcards and travel magazines. It’s a bit like that, I would’ve had a better look around if it wasn’t so windy and wet! All I heard from the guide was that the dutch surrounded a part of the sea and turned it into a huge inland lake, dammed it up to stop the town from flooding (the Netherlands are full of 'dams'), and the built up area is called a dike. People go fishing in this lake…

We then took a boatride to Marken, an even smaller town just near Volendam. A pretty looking place, but we didn’t spend much time there unfortunately.

(See how cold I was, and how dark the sky was, and how cute are those houses?)

Headed home and checked-out of Sidhi’s apartment and checked-in to our hotel and then headed out for dinner.

This city is full of bikes. You cannot imagine how many people cycle in this city. Bicycles everywhere! Where people park their bikes needs to be seen to be believed! And I’m not surprised to learn that people forget where they put their bikes and lose them all the time.

(Bicycle parking lot)

Anyways, Sidhi’s apartment is not too far from our hotel, so we just made our way there using leg power, if only Mother Nature wasn’t such a bitch, she decided to start pouring bucket loads of water on us during our entire journey. We were drenched and soaked by the time we reached the hotel. Fortunately, it was a really nice place to stay. Close to lots of cafes and restaurants, lots of bars and lots of shops, and even lots of “coffee shops” - it’s quite central.

After we dried off and changed, we met up with Sidhi and Amie for dinner at the Tokyo Café for a sushi buffet dinner, Dutch style. Interesting concept really, you order pieces of sushi you want to eat in each round and you get upto 5 pieces per person per round and 8 rounds of order per table - that’s 40 items of food per person, quite a lot if you think about it. Apparently, it’s rare for people to go much more than the 5^th round. And if you’re greedy and order too much, for every piece that you don’t eat, it’ll cost you an extra 1 euro, so it forces people not to be wasteful.

Nice place, I like it.

(Yummy sushi and the two of us enjoying a delectable green tea ice-cream, or "macha")

Early night for us tonight. I’m so buggered, my body clock is really screwed now, I can’t really eat, I can’t sleep regularly and I feel exhausted and weird….