AMSTERDAM

“Amsterdam’s reputation precedes it – and what a reputation it is. Born out of a murky bog and cobbled together over eight centuries, the “Dam on the River Amstel” (pop. 743,000) coaxes visitors with an alluring blend of grandeur and decadence. Thick clouds of marijuana smoke waft from subdued coffee shops, and countless bicycles zip past blooming tulip markets. Against the legacy of Vincent van Gogh’s thick swirls and Johannes Vermeer’s luminous figures, gritty street artists spray graffiti in protest. Squatters sharpen the city’s defiant edge, while professional politicians push the boundaries of progressive reform.” – Let’s Go Europe 2008

Arriving in Amsterdam with Fab, we split up at the train station and headed towards our respective hostels. He had booked a place outside the city center, while my location was right in the middle of everything. I’ve found that you get what you pay for with hostels – the few euros more per night that I paid for my hostel got me free wireless internet, free breakfast, and a location central to all the major sights.

Stepping out into the sunlight, I got my first impressions of the city that everyone has an opinion about. The town is criss-crossed with lazy canals, and bikes whiz by you in every direction. Every so often, you’ll walk by a coffee shop with their door wide open, tourists and locals alike smoking marijuana in the dimly lit cafe. If you didn’t realize, marijuana is legal in the Netherlands, as well as other “soft drugs,” such as mushrooms and peyote. So-called “smart shops” deal in the latter, normally stocking all sorts of natural or herbal supplements as well. No matter where you are in the city, you can probably smell or see someone smoking marijuana at any given time.

In the same sense, the Netherlands has also legalized prostitution, which gave rise to the famous Amsterdam red light district. My hostel is actually only a block or so from the red light, so I walked by it on my way in. At its core, it consists of rows and rows of doors, each one housing a prostitute trying to lure in customers. At the top of each door is a long red neon light, which indicates whether anyone is working there at the time (hence the term red light district). The girls are pretty gross – you want to spray yourself down with Lysol after just walking through. I only managed to get one picture of the RLD, as pictures are strictly forbidden, and if the girls see you trying to take one, they’ll send over a 12-foot dude with a baseball bat to ruin your weekend. Luckily, I got away unscathed. Outside of those rows (there are probably 200 doors or so in the core), there are porn shops that litter the rest of the inner city.

I made it to my hostel with little trouble (Amsterdam is actually a pretty small city) and got checked in. It’s called the Bulldog, and in addition to a hotel/hostel, the Bulldog also owns numerous bars and coffee shops, and is apparently very well known in Amsterdam. As I walked in, some middle-aged guys were rolling joints in the lobby.

After getting settled, I e-mailed Fab to see if he wanted to meet up somewhere. After finally getting a hold of him, he met me at my hostel, and it was already 7pm or so. We set out into the city, walking in the direction of a famous park, called Vondelpark, which is supposed to be really beautiful. After twenty minutes of walking, I realized I’d forgotten the memory card for my camera, as it was still in my computer from when I copied my pictures over earlier in the day. Thus, I didn’t take any pictures the first night. We walked to Vondelpark and wandered around for a bit. There were a TON of people there; you could barely find a place to sit down on the grass as it was so crowded. After an hour or two, we both decided to head home, tired again from moving to yet another country.

Monday 6/9 – The following morning, I set out on my own to see what I could find. I stumbled upon this really cool outdoor flea market, and I spent maybe an hour wandering through it. There was some really cool art that I wanted to buy, but I’ve so far not bought a single thing as a souvenir from any city, so I couldn’t break my streak now. My pack is already heavy enough as it is. After the flea market, I walked along what almost looked like a harbor, which was right by Amsterdam’s opera house.

Next, close-by was the Rembrandthuis Museum, which is the house that the famous artist lived in during the 1600s. The house itself was very expensive back in the day, and Rembrandt went bankrupt a few years after buying it. The house was seized and everything he owned was auctioned off. The good part, however, is that the officials running the auction took a very detailed inventory of what Rembrandt had in each room of his house, and that inventory list has survived to this day. That formed the basis of the reconstruction of his home, in addition to a few sketches of the rooms that the artist did himself.

It was pretty interesting to see – in addition to an artist, Rembrandt was also an art collector/dealer, so every room was filled with original paintings. Rembrandt also taught art from his home, and his pupils had their very own art studio upstairs where they could practice. In Rembrandt’s private studio, the windows were strategically covered with a semi-transparent paint, which would let in only the perfect amount of light needed for painting.

One of the highlights of the Rembrandthuis was a newly discovered painting, which was originally thought to be done by one of Rembrandt’s pupils, but is now believed to have been done by the master himself. It was first revealed at an art auction, where it was appraised at only 1000 pounds (about $2000). However, collectors of true Rembrandts realized that there was much more to the painting than met the eye, and a bidding war pursued that raised the price exorbitantly. Whoever bought the painting gave it on loan to the museum, and it was on display there. It’s called Rembrandt Laughing, and is a self-portrait. He had been experimenting with different techniques of showing human emotion in the faces of his subjects, and this painting is believed to be one of his preliminary works in that regard. It’s still not totally verified as a true Rembrandt, but the case they made for it seems very solid.

After Rembrandthuis, I wandered around Nieue Market and visited a building called the Waag, which literally translates to “Weigh.” This is where merchants traveling up the canals would bring their goods to be weighed and thus have the value determined. It’s hundreds of years old, and now unfortunately houses a restaurant. Interestingly enough, the red light district was formed close to the Waag, so that weary sailors didn’t have to travel far to find a lady of the night.

Next, I visited Amsterdam’s Sexmuseum, after hearing several recommendations from people at the hostel. It was pretty interesting, but it was mostly just novelty as opposed to factual exhibits.

After this, it was about 6pm, and I headed back to the hostel, as Fab and I had signed up for an Amsterdam pub crawl, sponsored by a company called Ultimate Party. Fab had done it last year, and said it was a really great time. I showered up, sent some e-mails, and headed out at the meeting point at 8:30. I didn't take my camera because I didn't want to risk damaging it, so once again I have no pictures of this night.

As luck would have it, Netherlands was playing Italy in the Euro Games that night. If you haven’t heard of it, the Euro Games is a huge soccer tournament that has taken Europe by storm. As you probably know, they’re very serious about their soccer and it’s a source of great pride for their home team (or shame if they lose). Thus, the night was bound to be a good time.

I found Fab easily at the first bar we went to, and the game was just getting ready to start. The Ultimate Party guys treat their customers pretty well – you get a free drink and a free shot at each bar you go to, as well as unlimited shots from 8:30 to 9:00. They walk around with 2-liter bottles filled half with vodka and half with juice, pouring mouthfuls into whoever crosses their path.

As the game kicked off, everyone was getting rowdy, and all the locals were in their orange jerseys and hats, supporting their team. Netherlands got off to a quick lead, and the score was 2-0 by the time we left the first bar. At the second place, Netherlands secured their victory over Italy, and the town was on fire. The pub crawl goes to six different bars, and you spend an hour at each place. It was a lot of fun, and the fact that we got to experience a hometown soccer game (a blowout over Italy of all things) made it all the more exciting. The pub crawl wound down around 2 or so, and I made the walk back home to the hostel, happy after a great night in Amsterdam.

Tuesday, 6/10 – On this day, I spent most of my time wandering through the city, checking out all the nooks and crannies of Amsterdam. The two major sites I hit, however, were the Vincent van Gogh museum, and the Anne Frank house. On my way to the first, I spotted the famous “I Amsterdam” letters and took some time to pose for a picture or two. The van Gogh museum was right around the corner, which I was pretty excited about.

The van Gogh museum was a hefty ten euros, but I think it was worth it in the end. It chronicled his life, displaying paintings from each major chapter that he went through. The museum has by far the largest collection of van Gogh’s work, with more than 200 paintings, 500 letters, and a great deal of etchings as well. His story is ultimately a tragic one, with van Gogh committing suicide at only the age of 37. He had become an artist at the recommendation of his brother Theo, and took to it very quickly. However, his work was not as well received during his lifetime as he had hoped. One particular example involves a now-famous painting he did called “The Potato Eaters.” It had been his first real attempt at painting a “masterpiece” – it was a physically large work, involving numerous figures sitting down at a dinner table, with an oil lantern burning above them. When done properly, painting the emotion on the faces is very difficult to do, as well as painting the reflected light from the oil lantern. He did his best, but critics did not receive the painting well, and it did not garner the masterpiece title that he had hoped for. Discouraged, van Gogh never attempted another painting of this type, and it remains the only example of such a work. So that was really interesting to see. In town, I later saw a parody of the painting on the side of a fry shack.

Some other cool van Goghs I saw were Portrait of the Artist, Sunflowers, and Wheat Field with Crows. However, plagued by a form of epilepsy, van Gogh was subject to psychotic fits, such as the time when he famously cut off a part of his own ear. Burdened with his illness and his limited success as an artist, he unfortunately shot himself in the chest, and died two days later with his brother at his side. It was not until the 20^th century, after his death, that van Gogh’s art was received well by the critics. I wish I could have seen Starry Night, or Café Terrace, but they had a lot of his other good stuff.

After van Gogh, I hiked across town to the Anne Frank house, and got some awesome pictures of the sky on the way. It was bright blue, and looked amazing above the canals.

The Anne Frank house, a few blocks away, is the original house where 13-year-old Anne Frank penned her diary in the early 1940s. Facing persecution by Hitler and the Nazis, Anne Frank and her family went into hiding, living in an annex above the canal house for two years. They managed to elude the Nazis by living in silence, tip-toeing around the annex and getting food from their “helpers,” close family friends that were covering up their operation. For years, Anne’s only contact with the outside world was a fleeting glimpse of a chestnut tree that she could see from one of the annex windows. Every day, she chronicled her thoughts and experiences in her diary, which painted an intimate picture of their lives while in hiding. Unfortunately, the Franks’ hiding place was betrayed by an anonymous member of the community, who alerted the Nazis of their presence in the house. Just months before the liberation of the concentration camps and the end of the war, the Franks were split up and sent to Auschwitz and Burgen-Belsen. Of the eight individuals who were hiding in the annex, the only person to survive the war and return home from Auschwitz was Otto Frank, Anne’s father. He was unaware of the rest of his family’s fate, and spent months trying to find them. After it was certain that they were all dead, the helpers returned to him the belongings of his family that had been left behind when they were arrested. Among these was his daughter’s diary, which he had never read and barely even knew about. After reading them, he had the letters published, which have now been translated into countless languages worldwide.

The house was very interesting – it’s been preserved and decorated to look mostly as it did when the Franks lived there. In each room are artifacts and quotes on the wall from Anne’s diary, and even the secret bookcase hiding the tiny staircase to the annex has been reconstructed. In the last room, her original red plaid diary was on display in the center of the room, opened to a page that she had penned more than sixty years ago. Now, in addition to preserving the Franks’ legacy, the museum serves as a proponent against discrimination, with a number of programs and efforts that they support. I’m very glad I went.

To finish my day, I walked home as the sun was setting over the canals of Amsterdam. It had gotten a bit chilly, but I didn’t mind. I was going to savor the rest of the time I had there. In the end, there’s a lot of talk about Amsterdam, but no matter what your thoughts or opinions, it’s still an incredibly beautiful city, and I really hope I get the opportunity to go back someday.

Tomorrow morning, I take the first train to Berlin I can find. I can’t wait to see what the energetic, formerly war-torn capital of Germany has in store for me. Until then…