So Brit pretty much covered the gist of all the touristy stuff that we did in Amsterdam but I thought I’d also add my take on the place. (sidenote: unfortunately it seems that wordpress is having some issues. When I tried loading Brits post it stalled and his post was lost. Hopefully he’ll post it again soon.) I think Amsterdam along with Rothernburg were my two least favorite cities so far (although Paris is getting to be a close on making that list too). I think it could have been a combination of travellers fatigue, poor roommates lack of privacy, high cost of everything and poor weather. Despite all this there were some particular highlights (eating food from a wall, fries with peanut sauce, Kevin the tour guide).
When we visited Leilani in Heidelberg she was able to give us some tips of things to eat in Amsterdam. She mentioned eating fries from a cone (seems that things from a cone always taste better) and to try the various sauces that goes with the fries. Stay away from raw herrings and things will be expensive. So when we arrived the first thing I was determined to do was eat fries which we did surprisingly well having got off the bus before our stop and landing smack in front of Feebo. Feebo is a chain of fastfood stores that has food in their walls. It also happen to be the place to purchase these fried veal sticks (another recommandation from Leilani) think pogo but much better and not on sticks. Having filled our tummies with yummy we headed to our hostel. When we arrived we got a pretty nice room on the third floor and found out that breakfast was included in our room price: Sweet! Unfortunately, we also discovered that Internet was 3€ an hour or 10€ for 5. The cost of being connected is high in Amsterdam (actually it’s rather high in all of europe if you want to use a computer)!
Our first night in Amsterdam was rather uneventful, we stayed in and slept pretty much after exploring our immediate area which consisted one of the big parks in amsterdam (Vondelpark). We also took that opportunity to post up the first batch of pictures that you see on our blog. The next day, we met our new roomates for the next 5 days: the dreaded computer junkies. These two guys were one of the main reasons why Amsterdam was such a dud for us. Trying to start a conversation with them was like pulling teeth, they pretty much stayed in the room the entire time (5 days) there watching American tv shows and eating at burger king. The worst part was they were mathies and cs students at U of T giving a bad name to geeks everywhere! The worst part was they were quite self congradulatory on their saving money tactics (eating fast food and not going to museums, etc). It was really fustrating for us to see these guys who paid so much money getting to Amsterdam and on lodging (60€ a night) just to do the exact same thing they would have done back home then congratulating themselves for saving money.
Not helping was the fact our hostel seemed like a hot spot for school groups. The hostel atmosphere where you can just hang out and meet people didn’t seem to be there and that was a huge disappointment since we had really enjoyed that aspect at our last hostel. 5 days of not feeling like we could wind down was definitely stressful and it totally showed in the way Brit and I interacted. Still I was really proud of the way we handled it though, and on our last night in Amsterdam we found ourselves in a Ben and Jerrys eating crepes and waffles and chatting. Who knew all it took was sitting in a corner booth?
Now for a female take on the red light district: they have a lot of sketchy looking people (that were not prostitutes) which made the experience rather uncomfortable for me. I was definitely glad that I was in a tour group even if the tour itself was a bit of a dud. The girls themselves were also a bit disappointing: they were all wearing regular underwear/ bras, not a lingerie in sight and looking rather bored. I’d think that one would make more of an effort to entice customers. After the tour and our dessert break Brit expressed how he wanted to to back to the red light district to get a better feel of what it’s like (i.e. Not in a tour group with your fiancé); being the totally trusting fiancé that I am I let him go back all by himself at 11pm. Just in case his stuff gets pickpocketed though, He left with only the key to our hostel, bus tickets to get there and back and 10€ in case he gets really lost and needed to take a cab ;). (Brit’s note: I did get lost again) According to Brit, his lone adventure garnered him a few more come hither looks from the girls; but you’ll have to ask him for the details.
At the end of the trip I was definitely looking forward to going to Brussels the land of chocolates and waffles.
Tags: food, roommates
Posted in Europe, Misadventures |
