April 4 - April 5: The Netherlands (Amsterdam)

We barely slept during our last night in Berlin because we were up late drinking bad German beer. We caught a morning train to Amsterdam! It took about 6 hours but I didn't do any sleeping on the train.

We arrived in Amsterdam at the Centraal station. The weather was overcast and chilly, being next to the water did not help. Luckily it was only a 15 minute walk to the hostel from the station...


Yea, we stayed on a houseboat. I'M ON A BOAT!!! etc etc. The host couple was very nice and helpful, with good senses of humour.

After dropping stuff off in our really small room (argh I didn't take a picture of it, but if you've been on a cruise before and shared the cheapest stateroom with your family, it's the same thing), we decided to walk around. I knew Amsterdam was quite liberal with sexual things. I don't know if this ad is also used in other countries or if it's just local. But yea, first sign of sexual liberalness.


We were walking towards the Red Light District, but not quite there yet. Here's a gay bar.


Some people were partying on a boat in the canal. Now they're on a boat!


People chilling in the Red Light District.


It's illegal to take pictures of the prostitutes in the Red Light District (if you do, you get fined like €100 or your camera confiscated, something like that). Thus, this was the best I could do to capture that I was in the Red Light District.


Of course, 'high'er education in Amsterdam. Har har!


Biking is wildly popular here, treated more as a means of transportation than as an exercise option. Everyone was biking, young and old, natives and even tourists (on their made-to-be-rented-by-tourists bikes). Seriously, it was difficult to walk around Amsterdam because I had to watch for both cars and bikes. And bikers aren't any nicer than car drivers. If anything, they're probably more arrogant. I wasn't a fan. Anyway, I thought this sign was pretty cute and quite Amsterdam-y.


Leaving the Red Light District, we walked a bit and came across a pillow fight in Dam Square (de Dam) near the National Monument. It was kinda weird.


But there seemed to be a Carnival-type event going on nearby. So maybe it's related? Actually, a quick Google search informed me that April 4 was World Pillow Fight Day in the Netherlands. This country sure loves to have fun!


The "smallest pub in Amsterdam" is located really close to Dam Square. It serves Duvel, a beer that I tried later that night at another pub called Cafe Batavia 1920.


I took a nap after walking around a bit, then it was time to get dinner. One observation about Dutch cooking: they like to add vegetables to everything, in such a way that it doesn't really make sense... hey that's usually how I do vegetables too! I had a chicken pizza on French bread but some extra toppings on it were corn kernels, diced onions, peas (maybe? can't remember), potato cubes, and maybe some other green veggie in small cube form. It wasn't really pizza anymore, but more like a hoagie. I still liked it a lot though! However, the following day for lunch, I had a cheeseburger with egg... with lettuce, tomatoes, and carrots... carrots?! That was definitely weird, but still tasty because I was hungry. Though, bottom line: veggies = win. And further making Amsterdam seem like a place full of liberal hippies, as if the MJ wasn't enough.

Wandering around, we see a McDonald's restaurant. And so begins our ice cream consumption on this trip. The McD in Amsterdam sells ice cream cones (IJ-shoorn) for only €0.50. They're the equivalent of the cheap ones in the US northeast that go for $0.60 or so.


We went karaoke-ing at Cafe Casablanca! Cafe Casablanca is a jazz club, but on weekends it turns into a karaoke bar. There's a small dance floor and a stage for the karaoke singers (yep, no private karaoke booths. If you're singing, everyone is gonna see and hear ya!). It was fun dancing amongst the giants that are Dutch people on the dance floor, but people were mostly singing Dutch songs. The music videos were soooo 80s and cheesy! I wish I understood Dutch.


We were feeling pretty ballsy so we put our names down for karaoke. We called ourselves Scooter and sang "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson. Ohhh yes. Luckily I had a beer in me before we took the stage haha. It was an awesome time! The Dutch loved us! Then again, they were pretty drunk and probably didn't notice three "short" Asian people singing bad Michael Jackson.

After Scooter left the stage we went to Cafe Bavaria because Ivy said the (cute) bartender was really nice and let her try a few beers earlier. Here, I tried the Duvel, which is actually a Belgian beer. Quite good and not very bitter, if at all. The bartneder recommended that I try Kasteel Rouge, a 8.0% Belgian beer with cherry flavor. OMG it was excellent! Yea, with the fruitiness, it's barely beer but I don't care. It's pretty much my favorite beer!

Inside Cafe Bavaria, this poster was on the wall next to our table. Question mark?


We each ordered a beer, and they weren't weak beers either (I think everyone got something above 5%) so we were pretty tipsy when we decided to wander the canals of Amsterdam...


It was awesome that people were still out and about. Of course, not altogether surprising. We avoided walking through the Red Light District though.

The next morning tried Dutch pancakes at a Tex-Mex restaurant. Yea, we were hungry and this place was the cheapest (though still expensive by regular standards. Stuff in Amsterdam is expensive!). I apparently didn't take a picture of it so I guess it wasn't worth remembering. I do remember it being large in surface area like a crêpe, and similar to pancakes at Pamela's in Pittsburgh but less heart attack-y.

After breakfast we bought tram tickets and explored stuff a bit further away from the boat.

Obligatory visit to the "I amsterdam" sculpture. Literally crawling with tourists...


This took a while, as I overcame my fear of slipping and falling off.


We went to the Rijksmuseum, an art and history museum with some works by big name artists, like Rembrandt. Rembrandt's "Night Watch" (Nachtwacht) is housed in this museum. It is really huge and incredibly detailed. I think it's my favorite piece in the museum. Currently the special exhibit is Vermeer (but "Girl With the Pearl Earring" was not at this museum). I don't know anything about art, unfortunately, but I found the museum to be very accessible to an art n00b like me. The Van Gogh museum is also in Amsterdam but since advance tickets were required, we didn't go in.

Outside of the Rijksmuseum was a real American hotdog stand?! The vendor looks so listless.


Walking around, I felt like Amsterdam was stuck in the 1980s. Everyone's wearing skinny jeans (because either the jeans are fashionable now and/or they're a smart choice for bikers). The shops and houses are made out of brownish reddish bricks with simple rectangular windows, reminding me of houses built in the 1980s in New Jersey. I felt like I was in those cheesy Dutch music videos.


Windmill sighting! Only had to travel to the edge of Amsterdam to see this. Windmills aren't in the city, understandably, what with being difficult to catch wind.


Heineken brewery (Heineken Brouwerijen). We didn't go there or try Heineken beer whilst we were in the Netherlands. I didn't like it when I tried it in the US anyway.


Interesting, but slightly morbid, graffiti. I feel like I've seen this before, though.


Since we were in Amsterdam and neither biked nor took a canal cruise, we needed to do something -- like canal bike. We went to one of the canal bike stops to check the rental rates and -- 'lo and behold -- it was free to rent a canal bike for the first hour! Something about it being the Canal Bike's 25th birthday that day (April 5). Sweet!


It's basically like paddle boating. A canal bike can seat 4 people, but only the 2 people sitting in the front need to pedal and navigate. We decided to canal bike to the Anne Frank House (Anne Frank Huis).

Along the journey to the Anne Frank House, we saw a musician performing classical songs.


We were constantly competing with tour boats. The canal bike was difficult to steer and the tour boats were unforgiving so it was scary at times. Towards the end of the journey, we were stuck under a bridge when we saw a tour boat coming at us. There wasn't enough room for both the boat and our canal bike. We thought we were gonna die, or capsize at least. The tourists on the tour boat were snapping pictures of us! Then the boat made contact with our bike. It was a tight squeeze under the bridge but we ended up not capsizing, just pushed out from under the bridge a little bit. Phew!


We made it to the Anne Frank House in under 1 hour. Yay! There was a huge line to get into the Anne Frank House, like with other attractions in this city, so we just took pictures of the facade.


Even though we were in the Netherlands, we didn't see many tulips. There was, however, a floating tulip museum?! Uhh sure. We also didn't go into this museum because it looked lame.

The northern church (Noorderkerk), a Protestant church found along Prince's canal (Prinsengracht), the same canal as the Anne Frank House.


Teehee Asians taking pictures of a condom shop.


We wandered around looking for Asian food for dinner since we were all feeling a bit homesick. Eventually we stumbled upon Wok to Walk, the restaurant that we had been looking forward to all trip (we were told that this place is awesome by other study abroad students who went to Amsterdam before spring break). Yum! It's basically like a higher quality Mongolian BBQ found in Chinese buffets.


Bye Amsterdam!