The conference I was attending in a small city in the Netherlands finished on Saturday at noon, so I made a break for the train station to get back to Amsterdam as quickly as possible. My travel companion had stayed behind in Amsterdam while I went to my conference. This hardly makes him a travel COMPANION, but he's waiting for me to get back. We quickly set out to make the most of our remaining day and a half in this incredible city.
First, some day-time tourism: get lost on the beautiful streets in the canal district, enjoying the architecture, water, bridges, and bicycles.
The low car traffic makes the city surprisingly quiet. Even a crowded street is relatively silent. Or maybe everyone around me is stoned?
Stop for some traditional dutch food - deep fried everything. Far from tasty - and drink a few Grolsch (which is pronounced Chrols! The 'ch' is that flemmy, back-of-your throat sound... like in chutzpah and chanukah). But the Dutch know cheese and don't limit pancakes to breakfast. The cuisine is redeemed!
So what are these coffee shops all about...? It's getting dark, so we wander into the red light district. Surprisingly not sketchy. And now we know why it's called "red light". We discuss at length the many reasons that a legal redlight district would never fly back home. Can't remember what we came up with, but it seemed REALLY intelligent at the time. We stop at another coffee shop.
The next day, we visit Anne Frank's house -a must see- and then travel out of the city to see windmills, dykes, locks, and we marvel at how Holland deals with- dominates, really- water. If they don't like it, they move it! They dig canals through cities, and dreg the sea bottom to "reintroduce land" whenever they need more space. They create dams, dykes, and locks to keep that land dry. And this technology is all wind powered! Amazing.
One more night of bad behaviour before we fly home. Amsterdam gets 2 thumbs up!
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