During my time in the beautiful city of Amsterdam, I was able to visit the Rijks Museum, the Anne Frank House, IAMSTERDAM sign, tour a few flower markets (complete with cannabis starter kits), check out a cheese shop, get a taste of the Dutch take on Mexican food, and hit up a nightclub. I absolutely loved everything I did, and only wish I’d had time for the Van Gogh museum and canal cruise.
When I first arrived in the city on my bus, I was greeted by the contrasting view of gorgeous architecture and traffic.
After the bus stopped and I departed, I was confronted with Amsterdam public transportation. It was snowing, it was cold, and this yellow machine was only in Dutch. The machine and I did not get along well, at all. Naturally, the Help Desk was located inside the station, which you could only enter after buying a ticket from said Dutch machine. Luckily, my guesswork was correct. (one day = 1 dag).
For anyone going to the Netherlands, for general public transportation, you don’t even want to go to this machine. I’m still not clear on what this machine is actually for. It turns out, you need to go to another machine, usually right next to the yellow ones, that says GVB on it. Those are the tickets you want! I asked many people a lot of questions, and thank you, Netherlands, for being so kind as to help me figure myself out. Not having data on your iPhone makes everything a struggle (and character building. Lots of character building!)
After buying my subway ticket, I was greeted by this sign. Essentially, it says, “DANGER, tourists. Killer cocaine is here! It’s actually heroin, not cocaine. People are dying. So don’t buy cocaine here!” Awesome. Thank you, Amsterdam. Good to know.
Finally, finally, after a chat with the Help Desk and a few tram transfers, my friends and I made it to our AirBnb. After dropping our stuff at our weekend home, we hopped back on the subway(which they call a tram, because it’s aboveground), and ventured into Centraal Station. This seemed to be the equivalent of Grand Central in New York, a kind of central meeting place. And, the inside is pretty!
From Centraal, it’s easy to jump on a tram to just about anywhere. We started off by going to Museumplein, which is this awesome centrally located area that you can walk to quite a few attractions from. Right when you get off the tram, you can see the Iamsterdam sign. Iamsterdam is a huge sculpture/sign that spells itself out. People climb all over the letters, sit in them, jump from one to the other, and bring out their selfie sticks to get their tourist photos in. Gotta do it at least once. Protip: If you want to get a group photo, offer to take someone else’s group photo first. It shames them into doing the favor for you, too.
Not going to lie, sitting in the letters was fun!
That beautiful building behind the Iamsterdam sign? That’s the Rijks Museum. The Rijks Museum is full of primarily Netherlandish/Dutch paintings and artworks from the medieval period up until the 1900s. There are also decadent exhibitions of pieces of furniture, artwork, tapestry, and silver sets from various royal families in the Netherlands. My personal favorite part of the museum was that it housed three Van Goghs, including one of his self portraits, and entire room of Vermeer, and a half room devoted to Rembrandt. The icing on the cake, though, was the library in the museum. If you’ve seen Beauty & the Beast, you know Beast had a pretty kick ass library. This one was better. Floor to ceiling, with multiple exposed floors, of books, and a gorgeous spiral staircase to climb up and down.
Van Gogh
Vermeer
Fairytale library of my dreams in all its glory
I mean, seriously, look at that lighting! This is what dreams are made of. Talk about international love.
A few tram stops away is the Anne Frank House. The skip-the-line entry is booked months in advance, so for an impromptu trip like this one, it was a one hour wait in line – and worth every second. The people in charge have done an incredible job creating an experience for you as you walk through the rooms, read Anne’s diary, and watch clips of surviving friends speaking about the Frank family. It was a very intense and emotional visit, well worth the wait.
No pictures allowed inside, in order to give visitors their privacy
After the Anne Frank House, we took the opportunity to walk around and wander. I absolutely recommend doing this in every city you visit. It allowed me to get a glimpse of the culture, the people, and everyday life in the city. One of my favorite things I walked through was a flower market. This is blocks of flowers and garden kits for sale. The best part, though, was the flowers hanging from the ceiling of the shops. Gorgeous. And, among the garden starter kits you can buy, is a cannabis starter kit. Just don’t try to take it home with you! Border patrol would not approve.
Stumbling across a flower market in the middle of winter was the perfect reprieve from the cold
Saturday night, after a jam-packed day, we went to a night club called Escape, and it was by far the best music I have encountered in my European clubbing experience so far. We happened to be there for an event called Brainwash. The bass was so intense, this was an actual possibility; kudos to Escape’s speaker company! The DJ played a lot of original music mixed with some current stuff, but the kicker was the AMAZING saxophone player they had playing live along with the DJ’s work. This, with the sporadic confetti and streamer rain, the extra-large sparklers for bottle service, and multiple levels of platforms to the club made it a ton of fun. However, word to the wise: free tap water is not an option. In New York, it’s not an option either, but the bartenders will usually take pity on you and give you a cup of ice you can pretend is quenching your thirst. Escape was not about that. So, prepare yourself to spend an excessive amount of money on water, and hope you can find someone else to pay for drinks! The energy in this place was fierce, though; totally worth every penny.
photo via Dennis Velderman
Even though I only had a weekend, I felt like I really got to soak up Amsterdam in all of it’s glory While I wish I’d had more time there, it was worth every single second to get my taste of the Netherlands, and hopefully I can visit again in the future!
xox,
Lauren
