Amsterdam

Arriving in Amsterdam last Thursday afternoon and quickly making my way through the airport to the bus station seemed a little too good to be true. It was a very swift maneuver; maybe ten minutes tops - and this includes the Starbucks pit stop. And especially, coming after my Paris airport/metro experience - where a good hour and a half found me, among other things, three ticket machines that don't accept Visa, a change station that doesn't give change, a pack of gum that finally got me that change, the correct train track, the actual train, the actual train going in the right direction - I was shocked that this time, in Amsterdam, it wasn't too good to be true.

At the bus station I asked some guy which train to take in to the city. He was headed that direction too, so he showed me the way.

An interesting guy, he's a Dutch college student studying Industrial Design. He lives in Amsterdam with his family but travels three hours daily getting from his home in Amsterdam to his college, and back.

I asked him about Industrial Design. He was fascinated with my Starbucks coffee cup. "Do you know why there's that indention right there?", he asked, pointing to the indention on the top of the cup. "No," I said. "Do you?"

"No, but there's a reason for it." And after a short pause he laughed, admitting, "I'm only a freshman. One day..."

He told me that Holland is a very smart country in terms of industrial design. For example, he told me, it is a law that each classroom in Holland must have windows on the left side of every room. This is because most students are right handed and, having windows on the left side allows sun to flow into the room, shining light on the student's paper, leaving no shadow on the page for the (right handed) student.

He got off at his stop, I transferred buses, and made my way into the city.

The bus ride was nice. It's very relaxing looking out the window and seeing the suburbs of a town at dusk - the kids playing outside, everyone biking or walking home-, while all the while feeling the excitement of an approaching big city.

Everyone talks about how crazy Amsterdam is, but no one really talks about how beautiful it is...which it is.


I got into the city itself around 6PM, right as the sun was setting, and walked around for a couple of hours before getting in touch with my other friends in town.

I love going to cities on water (I think the arrival-walk-around-the-water walk is my favorite thing to do upon arriving somewhere), and I really enjoyed this walk up and down the various canal-ed streets. It was a nice cold night; as I walked down the quiet canals, the sun was setting, windows were open and I could see families eating dinners, boats were slowly making their way down stream. I was the only person walking down many of these streets, and the colors of the sky mixed with the brushes of trees, wind, and water made the walk extremely charming.


The following day we visited the Van Gogh Museum. I loved it. Since coming to Europe, I've seen a lot of art. Much of it is very church related or grandiose, a little (or way too much) overdone. The works of Van Gogh, and especially Monet, really caught my eyes. Their paintings of nature and portraits of regular people was a real breath of fresh air. More than anything though, I really gained a sense of appreciation for pointillism. I never really understood it until I found myself standing an inch away from one of Van Gogh's forest paintings; all I could see were brushed dots and it was just fascinating to move back and watch the dots turn into depth and shadows and trees and ground.


We also visited the Heineken Museum, which sounds much cooler than it actually is. We went excited - on the lookback, not really sure why? -, but found ourselves in a serious exhibit about the history of Heineken. Throughout the hour long exhibit, I couldn't help but think: Who gives a shit?

The Anne Frank House was a very powerful exhibit. It's somewhere I've wanted to go my entire life, and it was an extremely eery and creepy place.


Anne Frank has always been someone who has fascinated me since I was a child; after reading her diary when I was 9 or 10, the book and her picture scared me, and I often kept it hidden at night. I remembered a certain picture from the photo section of her diary especially standing out to me when I was younger. It was a photo of everyone in the house posing for the camera. As I saw that picture last Saturday at the museum, for the first time in many years, I immediately recognized it. Remembering the creepy feeling it used to give me, I was shocked at the label below it's frame: "Taken in this room."

It was creepy standing in her dark bedroom, with the blinds still shut, wondering where in this room she would sit in the dark.


It was creepy as I approached the bookcase, knowing that many people, including the Nazis that had captured her and all those inside had gone through this bookcase...They probably ran a lot faster than I did though...Or did they? Did they sneak up quietly or did they break in loudly?...The mind can't help wandering once you're inside.


It was creepy sitting in Anne's parent's bedroom wondering where they all were when the Nazi's captured them that morning.

It was creepy looking out the window, the window Anne mentions in her diary for peaking out sometimes, and wondering if I am seeing the same things she saw.


One of the creepiest things about the museum took place before I even went inside. It was a foreshadowing of what was to come. Just before leaving the brightly lit up ticket office and entering the dark house, a quote from Anne's diary is posted on the wall.


Amsterdam was a wonderful trip. There are some things I think I'll keep to myself. For example, I'm not going to tell y'all about the sex show that we went to.

Oh yeah, but look what did make a pop up:

Look closely, it's Hotel Atlanta!