Amsterdam in all its glory

I felt like a mandatory stop on my European trip this spring was Amsterdam, the capital of Netherlands or Holland or whatever you call it, the home of the Dutch. Last but not least, it also serves as Europe's playground, due most notably to the lack of laws pertaining to prostitution and marijuana.

Anyways, I'm a little burned out from by fourth flight in 8 days, so I'll spare you the running diary, or highlights and get right into it.

My trip started out with an hour and a half wait on a Copenhagen runway, the captain explained, bi-lingually ofcourse, that we had some sort of technical problem that needed to be checked. This guy next to me was punching the seat in front of me due to the frustration of it all. Now I know that comedy about air travel is pretty well over done, so I won't try to be original here... but I'm willing to wait if the plane needs to be checked, an hour on the runway is better than an eternity on some beach starring in a struggling ABC drama that is two years past its prime and has no end in sight.

Problem was eventually solved. I made it to Amsterdam, and met up with my buddies from Middlebury, Jamo and Ridge.

Our hostel for the first night was a disaster. Let me save you the trouble... if you're ever in Amsterdam do not stay at the White Tulip. I don't want to list everything wrong with this place... if I was I would mention the horrible service, dirty room, seedy building, seedier people, outrageous pricing, miserable management, the fact that the room next to us had the door kicked in and all their money stolen and the front desk wouldn't call the cops... needless to say we checked out of their the next morning, a process which involved me explaining the term fraud to the guy at the desk... and headed for the next available hotel booking agency... which led us to, the Angeline.

That's us in front of the Angeline, the boat we stayed on for the last couple nights. The boat usually takes people on bike cruises during the summer (a pretty cool idea I think), and then sits in the harbor all winter as a bed and breakfast. It was perfect, we got on our room, breakfast, great views, and no body lice or breaking and enterings.

The first afternoon we were there, we made it to the Heineken experience, which was very similar to the Carlsberg brewery, you know... beer facts, company history, free beer... the whole nine yards. This one was a little more commercialized, but it was fun. You can see Jamo through a brewing vat of some sort below.

One of my other favorite things we did was hit the Van Gogh museum. I know practically next to nothing about Art History, so I'm not going to try and impress you here, but I was amazed by his work. There was something about how many different styles he succeeded at, and all the other artists he influenced really struck me.

I also used the Van Gogh museum for inspiration and tried to shoot a little art myself. Here is us sitting on a bench with some of the guys friends from Prague, and the second one is at the Rijks Museum right up the street.

That brings me to my next point. I bumped into so many people I knew in Amsterdam. The studying abroad in Europe community is pretty small and you tend to see each other quite a bit. I saw probably 10-12 kids who I'm studying with in Copenhagen. The one that really blew my mind was when I was walking down some street and I heard "Is that Alex Garlick?" and I turned it was Dave Burg who i graduated high school with. He was with Matt Noon, Ben Richman, Nicky Berman and Kate Alwon, also, all were from Needham! It was a surreal moment.

In general, it was a fun weekend but... it was a little weird. Amsterdam lacks the historical significance of Berlin, the charm of Copenhagen, or the bustle of New York. The city's main attraction is the prostitution industry and marijuana culture, and while those are both shocking to observe at first, it kind of gets old and makes you just feel a little dirty. It's kind of a weird city, because you can tell everyone in Amsterdam is fine with these laws, but I felt like it wasn't something the city takes alot of pride in.

But I had a really fun time there, it was good to catch up with my Middlebury buds and plan a little for this semster, we had some good times in some coffee shops and just wandering around the city.

I thought the city was just beautiful. I loved the canals and the old architecture. Everything there was just so old and ornate. This picture here is the harbor which our boat was in at sunset... so it was our home kind of.

We ate a lot of pretty good food, but much like Denmark, Holland doesn't really have its own ethnic variety of food, so we mostly ate Italian or Spanish or whatever.

In the end, I can cross Amsterdam off my list. It was an experience, and I'm glad I went... I don't know if I'll be back, but at least I made it out of there.