Netherlands

Amsterdam

June 14th 2008

This is Amsterdam minus the all the bikes, the cheese shops, and plethora of tall people!

Day Trip

Procrastination is the word to use when it comes to me seeing Amsterdam. I have been living in Dusseldorf for 4 and a half months now, which is only a 2 hour train ride to Amsterdam. Well at least I made it. The morning started early, but I didn’t get into Amsterdam until 12:00 because my train was late. Leaving the train station, we headed immediately for the Dam square with the historical museum and royal palace/town hall. Wandering east we walked through some of the Red Light District, which proved to be rather tame during the day. The only thing you really noticed was a slight hint of marijuana in the air. For lunch we first tried to find a local café that was recommended by one of our Dutch friends. Unfortunately, it was packed and the Dutch proved to be too much for us. We ended up eating at a café along the flower markets, trying “Amsterdam’s best pancakes”, which really turned out to be more of a crepe. We also stumbled upon one of the best used bookstores we have seen in Europe. They had three different floors of books, with every topic imaginable. It was basically just a “Half Price Books” (but not really half price because of the whole Euro thing!), but we hadn’t been able to find anything like it in Germany. The best we have is bookswapper.de where you can post and trade books. Anyway, the rest of our afternoon was spent people-watching in Dam Square and shopping. But before we got to the train station we decided to get some cheese, Dutch cheese is amazing, and eat it on a wall over a canal. Then we took a train back to Rheine, and that was the end of Amsterdam!





Amsterdam is a 4. The Dutch are great about keeping things real. They don't dub films, and they read English novels! Not to mention the city is beautiful.