Amsterdam, Netherlands
where i got lost in a dream
Of course I had always wanted to visit Amsterdam, but it wasn’t really high on the list. Over the years I had heard different things about the city such as the many canals, bikes everywhere, the Anne Frank House, and legal weed. So while I was touring around Europe I figured I’d head North and make my way down, but I wasn’t necessarily looking forward to Amsterdam. I saw it as just another city to visit. Maybe I was getting a little burned out from going city to city. But Amsterdam shook me out of my sightseeing doldrums and I found myself falling in love with the city. It might have something to do with not having expectations and then being pleasantly surprised with everything. I originally booked a hostel for 3 nights but ended up extending it two more nights, partly because I was trying to figure out if I could pull off a spontaneous bikepacking trip and buy a bike but partly because I really enjoyed being there.
Day 1
I quickly learned that Amsterdam is full of museums. I have coined it the city of museums. There’s the famous Anne Frank House, the Rijksmuseum, and the Van Gogh Museum, all museums I had on my list to visit. But there were so many more like the Moco Museum, Stedelijk Museum, and more kitschy museums like the museum of cannabis and the sex museum.
So first things first, I woke up my first morning in Amsterdam and went online to wait in the queue for Anne Frank House tickets. See, they open tickets months ahead of time which sell out and they only have 20% of remaining tickets that they sell at 9AM the day of visiting. I got on the site and I was around 400 in line. They had notes saying that if you were after 200 you probably wouldn’t get a ticket, but I stayed on and low and behold other people left and I ended up getting a ticket for later that day. I think for folks like me who are passing through it’s harder to make this work as a lot of people expect to just arrive at the museum location expecting to get a ticket, but for all the museums I visited I needed to buy them online ahead of time, even days before.
But before going to Anne Frank House I went to another museum exhibit-Body Worlds. It doesn’t pull a huge crowd but I knew about the exhibit beforehand because I had read about it and plastination in a book I read earlier this year on death - Displaying Death and Animating Life. To explain briefly, the Body World exhibits (located in various cities) showcase real bodies of deceased people. The creator developed a process called plastination where they are able to preserve the bone and muscles but remove the skin, some organs, and fat. This exhibit was focused around happiness so they posed the bodies doing fun activities. It’s interesting from an anatomy standpoint and I overheard others who I assume are in the medical field. But as the observer you tend to forget that these are real bodies that were real people who were alive, and that is an interesting thought provoking situation to be in.
After being surrounded by bodies I went to feed mine with a cone of fries that are popular and can be found throughout Amsterdam. I wandered around passing canals and bikes and eventually made my way to the Anne Frank House. I find that my instagram post tells of my experience best-
“Walking through her father’s warehouse and stepping behind the bookcase that hid her family and 4 others was surreal. Seeing the pencil lines on the wall from where her father marked her and her sister’s height changes over the two plus years they hid there reminded me that she was just a child. Stepping on the creaky floor I could somewhat imagine how quiet they had to be so as not to make noise that would cause suspicion from the workers below. I tried to keep it together but I lost it when a video clip of her father Otto, the only one of the 8 to survive, reflected on reading his daughter’s diary. He said that he was surprised by what she wrote and how the writer wasn’t the Anne he knew. You could hear the pain in his voice when he said, “and my conclusion is, as I had been in very, very good terms with Anne, that most parents don’t know, really, their children.” It broke me because I know that to be true and it’s true for all of us. No one really knows what those around us are going through. And we could all benefit from offering more empathy, grace, and love to our brothers and sisters on this planet. ...Never forget, never again.”
Afterwards I went back to a spot I had seen earlier and thought was cute, a restaurant/bar with tables lining along the canal. I enjoyed a local beer (not Heineken) and watched the many tour boats and recreational boats pass by. Then I searched out and found a gourmet stroopwafel shop, and people watched around the red light district before heading back to my hostel.
Warning: some pictures below may be disturbing. There are pictures of bodies.
Day 2
My mission for my second day in Amsterdam was to try local food and to tour the Rijksmuseum. So I took the tram to the Albert Cuyp market, an outside market with food stalls, produce stands, and tourist souvenirs. First I tried kibbeling which is just fried fish bites. Then I had a traditional stroopwafel which is two very thin wafers with caramel sauce in the middle. They make it right in front of you and you get it nice and hot with the caramel melting out from the wafers. Even though I could have ate the superstrooper, I went with the original just to be safe.
Next I went to the Rijksmuseum. Art museums, or museums in general, can be overwhelming with so much to see so I highly recommend getting audio guides. They help you focus on the masterpieces and give you a little more information than what you can read on a placard. If I didn’t use one I would probably wander about aimlessly and most likely would miss the must-see pieces cause I would fall into an art daze and slink from one piece to another. But I digress.
After the museum I walked through a park and did an internet search to find where the big “I Amsterdam” sign was in the city. I found that it was across the river from the main train station so I headed in that direction. Later as I was boarding the free ferry it started to pour. Luckily I had my rain jacket and once on the other side I made my way to the sign and was able to wait a bit a get a picture with no one in it, which when visiting touristy areas can be a thing. …For dinner I searched for a vegan restaurant and found Meatless District where I had a jackfruit pulled pork style bowl with beans and avocado.
Day 3
a replica of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers that you can touch
Since I wasn’t able to get my ticket for the Van Gogh Museum until today that was my main focus. Y’all I spent 3&1/2 hours there. I got an audio guide and I proceeded to read every placard I came to. I’d say I became an expert on Vincent by the time I left. Not really, but I’m glad that I had such an open schedule that I was able to spend as much time as needed there rather than feeling rushed to move on to the next sightseeing objective on the list, which can be the case when you’re on a strict touring timeline. So allow me to go on a brief VG spiel…I always love to hear about people who find their passion and become successful later in life because as I get older I hope that to be true for myself. Case in point, VG didn’t start painting until he was 27, so he didn’t start super young. The amount of art he produced over the next 10 years up until when he killed himself is remarkable. I really enjoyed how the museum followed his progress through life and the different places he lived. After he cut off his ear he went to an asylum where he still produced 142 pieces in a year. Then afterwards he made a work every single day till he died. That’s impressive. That’s genius. And which is usually the case of remarkable people, he suffered with mental illness. It’s sad that he killed himself, but in his short life he produced things that will be regarded for centuries to come. (And I just want to add because I think it’s important to mention, that our worth is not tied to productivity. He didn’t have to be an amazing artist for his life to be of value.)
Now that I brought things deep, I’ll lighten the mood by talking about the powdery heavenly goodness that is poffertjes. Essentially mini pancakes, a serving carton of 10 mini circles of pastry topped with butter and powdered sugar was the highlight of the Albert Cuyp market for me. I went back there after the museum to try them. I wasn’t expecting much but I really enjoyed them. Sadly, I messed my palette up with the next Dutch cuisine choice, raw herring. I got a raw herring broodje which is a herring sandwich with onions and pickle. I ate a few bites but couldn’t stomach the slimy soft texture of the herring and had to chuck it. I guess I’ll never be the host of a traveling food show.
But the day was not lost to high cuisine tastes. Back to my vegan restaurant search I found and was immediately attracted to Dutch Weedburger. And just like I usually proceed, I looked up the menu online. I thought the name was catchy and funny since Amsterdam is known for the coffeeshops where they sell marijuana, but these burgers (and hot dogs) are made out of seaweed not cannabis. So for dinner I got the weed dog, fries with weed sauce, and a ginger beer. I enjoyed the beer, the meal was okay but I did surprisingly like the seaweed dipping sauce for the fries.
Day 4
I was trying to go for a blurry photo to capture movement and I ended up getting this subtle swirling effect that I thought was quite apropos after visiting the Van Gogh museum.
My last day in Amsterdam was focused primarily on figuring out if I could make a bike touring trip work, ie. if I could find a reasonably priced bike. Even though I left it to the last minute with finding a bike, I had at least done some research about where to go and such so the trip wasn’t completely spontaneous. I had first got the idea of a bikepacking trip back when I was walking the camino with my mother. I like biking, I’ve done some long distance biking trips, and I enjoy seeing a place by slowly moving through it. I had looked up the distance between Amsterdam and Brussels, found a Dutch bike route planning website, read a man’s blog who biked from Paris to Amsterdam, read articles on Dutch bike rules (helmets are not required), read articles about issues with folks stealing bikes and selling them online, and joined Facebook marketplace groups specifically selling bikes in Amsterdam. I visited two bike shops in town and learned more about the better brand bikes to look for and how much they go for. Basically, I was apprehensive about the bikes being sold on the facebook groups but I also didn’t agree with the bike shops selling used rusted bikes for 145 euros. I had thought that being in a city with a surplus of bikes that bike prices would be lower, and I had a price range I didn’t want to go over. Plus some guys at one of the bike shops kept telling me that I needed a certain bike for the trip I wanted to do. I found it condescending and patronizing of them implying what I could or couldn’t do, because simply they have no idea what I’ve done or am capable of, they just see a tourist woman wanting a bike to go across the country. They don’t know that I make it work with what I have. I’ve biked hundreds of miles on a bike I bought for $50 at a college campus auction. I’ve walked and rowed thousands of miles, I think I can bike 180 miles on a cheap ass bike. -End of rant.
After contacting several folks through the facebook group and receiving a couple of messages, I went back and forth not knowing if I should trust that the bikes weren’t stolen. I went back and forth on whether I should even do the trip if I couldn’t find a reasonably priced bike. But in the end I decided that I would regret not doing the trip just because of money. I didn’t want the price to stop me from doing something I really wanted to do. I got real close to forking over the 145 euros for a used bike at a shop but I decided to trust a man who messaged me about his bike (after messaging him extensively, looking him up, and requesting a bill of sale). I met him in a public place, test rode the bike, asked him questions about the tires and more, and ended up buying the bike with a heavy chain lock for 85 euros. I was pleased as it was a Gazelle brand bike which is one of the higher quality bikes there and it was in decent condition with a new back tire and tube. So it all came together rather quickly and I spent the night figuring out where to go the next day and booked an airbnb for the next day at midnight. I decided to keep an open mind and figured I would go as far as the bike lasted, but I recognized the very real possibility of it breaking down. Which is another reason why I decided to take it easy and not do a lot of miles so as not to push the bike. I figured if I was going to do a bike trip I might as well do it in the country with the highest rate of cycle use and extensive bike infrastructure. Plus it’s a small country and you’re never too far away from somewhere you can get public transportation in case my bike did break down. Oh and it’s super flat so it’s easy riding.
But I haven’t even shared the best part yet. What turned out to be one of my favorite moments of my whole trip, and quite frankly possibly in my life. …Immediately after buying the bike I rode it around not knowing exactly where I was going. I came upon a garden park and decided to cut through it to the other side and where my hostel was. But as I entered the park it is if time stood still and I was dropped into a dream. For the next couple of hours I spent wandering around and getting lost in the maze-like gardens and tiny homes. I didn’t know what it was at the time but all I knew was that this is exactly where I wanted to live. After googling it later I learned that the Dutch sometimes move into their garden allotments during the summertime. .. I enjoyed taking lots of photos and felt as though I was channeling my inner art director to capture the beauty. Getting lost in Tuinpark Nut & Genogen was one of the best and least expected moments of my time in Amsterdam. Sometimes it pays off to stray from the tourist “must-sees” and let yourself get lost and explore. ..There was also some major drama as emergency officials rode in on bicycles asking me in Dutch if I knew where a house was because someone needed CPR. They themselves got lost. It was as if I fell through the looking glass kind of experience and it was a beautiful ending to my time spent in Amsterdam.
I left the next on my biketouring trip headed South toward Mons, Belgium
