Amsterdam

On the short list of places to visit that we had not been was Amsterdam, so the natural thing was to look for a time when there was work to be done in town, Google came calling and off we go for a weekend.

I mean a lot of bikes!

You hear about the canals, the red light district, the “coffeeshops”, museums, and general party like atmosphere of the place.  Sure sounds like fun and if nothing else interesting and different.  Amsterdam lived up to all of the above. What I didn’t realize was the bikes.  Wow, a lot of bikes.  And a very aggressive nature of those riding the bikes, cars and walkers are second class citizens in this town.

 Arriving on Friday afternoon, finishing up the week's work and looking for something to start the weekend of sightseeing.  The Anne Frank haus is in town, sounded both interesting and busy on a Saturday so we took the opportunity to check this out on Friday night before dinner and were glad we did.  Small-ish exhibit but quite interesting, you see the small hidden rooms two families lived in for several years trying to hide before they were ultimately found as well as a big display of many of Anne’s writings while living there.  Highly recommend making the trip if you have never been.

From there, time for a drink and some dinner.  We walked around a nice little neighborhood, found a neat little hole in the wall place serving Belgian beer and Nachos (yeah, nachos.  And have to say the Salsa was good.  Probably from a jar), then stumbled upon a little Ductch place for dinner which we enjoyed thoroughly.  From there we wandered slowly back to the hotel and called it a night.  It was a work week after all!

Saturday morning – let’s get some breakfast, and walk around some more.  Did some shopping, saw the flower market, and eventually found a littler corner café where we got a drink and sat outside.  (was cold, but not crazy cold!)  And this is where we witness the wrath of the bikes.

People about to get DINGED!

In Amsterdam they have roads, sidewalks, and specific Bike only lanes.  Problem is that for out of towners, these bike lanes look, well, just like a sidewalk.  So people across the street from our café kept walking in the bike lane and getting “dinged”.  “Dinged’ in the urban dictionary refers to walking in the bike lane while being given a warning “ding” by the person on the bike who is about to hit you.  One of those little bike bell “dings” that you would have had on your bike if you were a 5 year old girl.  Now the adults have them along with a right-of-way and they are pissed.  DING! “this lane is for bikes!”.  DING! DING! MOVE.  “DING” then give a stern head shake as you pass the walker who jumped out of the way just in time.

We watched this for about 20 minutes, it was very entertaining.

That never got boring but we did have to move on.   We decided to Visit the Dutch Resistance Museum which covers World War II from the Dutch perspective and what life was like while the Germans occupied the country.  Was again quite interesting and had lots of interesting artifacts and stories.  Not too big either but very well done.

Then off to dinner where we found a little Thai place, which was nice to have some variety.  And from there spent the rest of the evening  walking around including parts of the Red Light District which was far more circus novelty feeling than anything else.  It’s like it’s set up so that people can come “see” it but no way anyone would actually walk up and make a um.. purchase?    Not the most charming part of the city, that's for sure but something you have to go check out.

Overall a great visit and I know we'll be back.