Originally, Amsterdam was not on the original agenda; it would’ve been Paris directly to Berlin, and spend an extra day in Berlin, or something like that. I don’t actually remember how the idea came to fruition, but in the end, I’m very glad that we went to Amsterdam at all, and if I had to pick one place of the four cities seen to come back to first, it would most likely be Amsterdam.
Mind you, I’m not into weed, much less smoking at all, nor do I have an inherent want for prostitutes, so the obvious jokes are not any viable justification at all for why I have such an opinion. Ultimately, it boils down to the fact that Amsterdam is a city that exuded life and activity, seemed so chill (probably due to all the weed), there was a lot of good food, and since we were there for literally a 24-hour span, we most certainly felt like we couldn’t have done a bunch of the things we would’ve liked to have done.
Really, Amsterdam is just a cool city. It’s a vibrant and diverse place, proud of its heritage, and in the end it feels like I barely got to scratch the surface of what potential cool things there could be out there. Seriously, I felt like I could spend several days worth of time walking through alleys, looking down canals, and wandering around the varying neighborhoods just seeing what lies where. It felt like absolutely any type of food in the world (except Korean) could be found there, and naturally if there’s one thing that drives my fat guy problems, it’s the pursuit of new good food.
In the time that we were there, we did a canal boat tour, which I would highly recommend to anyone to get a general, quick nitty-gritty synopsis of what the history and most of the typical tourist sights are, if you want to learn quickly and/or get them out of the way in an expedient fashion. It’s actually interesting to hear some facts about the place, like why some buildings literally are leaning, statistics on the seemingly countless number of bicycles across the city, and other information you may or may not have been curious about in the first place.
Additionally, we saw the Anne Frank Huis, which is what it sounds like is, the actual building in which Anne Frank and her family hid in Amsterdam for two years from Nazi persecution. I remember this story being one of the few stories that really stood out and was memorable back from the 8th grade, and it was kind of surreal to be walking in the actual place in which the story took place. Ultimately, the big takeaway for me was just how great of a person that Otto Frank was, as he was clearly an intelligent, savvy and competent man for the working world, and on top of that he was a caring and considerate father to his daughters. It’s good that he survived in the end, but subsequently tragic that he lost his entire family as well.
And of course, there was a tremendous amount of eating done in Amsterdam as well, as we sought out local foods that Amsterdam and Holland themselves are known for, such as fries and bitterballen, among other things. We also went to the Rijiksmuseum, which I thought was kind of better than Paris’ Louvre, as they actually seem more educational than a museum trying to force rent a Nintendo 3DS preloaded with educational software on it.
But yeah, 24 hours in Amsterdam, spent eating a lot of food, seeing a few sights, and dodging the endless swarms of bicycles which are clearly the preferential mode of transportation, getting the most attention and priority all over the streets than anything else, including walking. I would very much like to come back to Amsterdam again in the future, perhaps AirBnB out of houseboat to stay on, and do a lot more wandering, exploring, eating, and perusing through the red light district huehue.
It should also be noted that among the hundreds and thousands if bicyclists seen in Amsterdam, I didn’t see a single one of them rolling up one of their pant legs, so I come to the conclusion that such a trend is solely based on being a hipster American douche.
