Amsterdam: Round Two

I’ve been to Amsterdam before. I loved it the first time round so when a couple of friends decided to plan a long weekend away together, there was no way I was going to say no. There are plenty of reasons to visit Amsterdam and The Netherlands and not all of them involve visiting coffee shops or the Red Light District. I’m not going to pretend that these aren’t excellent reasons to visit Amsterdam, they are. But the now two times I visited the cities of the three Xs I’ve managed to only spend a couple of hours in total in the Red Light District and still have an amazing time.

Flights were booked and we’d arranged a houseboat. All we had to do now was check into our flights online and everything was sorted. That was when I discovered that I had somehow lost my passport (again). I won’t go into the story here as I’ve already written about it before. In short I managed, after much hard work, sleepless nights and thinking about how I could smuggle myself into the Netherlands in a boat or acquire a fake passport, to get an emergency passport from the Irish embassy less than 24 hours before we were due to take off. Talk about cutting it fine.

The early morning flight from Edinburgh to Amsterdam is always a noisy one. Amsterdam is stag central and we managed to sit ourselves in between two or three different stag parties who were already drinking and showing off their t-shirts. I’m not sure who was getting married but ‘fudwank’ was the dad and ‘clunge muncher’ might well have been the best man. On arriving my temporary passport didn’t get a second glance. Ibrahim on the other hand (yes you can tell from the name where this is going) was asked plenty of questions as to why he was visiting, what he did for a living and most importantly, when he would be leaving again.

Life On A Houseboat

Despite a minor hickup where we didn’t actually have any money to pay for the houseboat once we arrived (we hadn’t been told that cards wouldn’t be accepted) it wasn’t long before we were settling into what would be our new home on the water for the next few days. I’ve always wanted to experience a houseboat. I’m jealous that the first people to start living in them in Amsterdam (back in the day, around the 60s and 70s) just rocked up. Mooring rights and licences didn’t really exist  and there were a lot of trawlers and other similar boats left over from the second world war. These days getting a houseboat (or more importantly the mooring spot to park it) is very costly and in high demand so I’ve temporarily put to bed any dreams of doing that soon.

The Red Light District

You can’t visit Amsterdam without taking a trip through the Red Light District. We wandered about, gazing in the windows, taking it all in. It’s a very surreal experience, especially when the curtains are drawn and you start to think why.

Unfortunately I couldn’t take any real photos. If you are seen taking a photo the lovely ladies will come out and throw a cup of piss over you. Either that or you’ll get chased by their pimp. This is what I was told the first time I visited Amsterdam. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I wasn’t really interested in finding out. Besides I’ve only ever seen one person take a photo so they must have some way of enforcing it. I did manage to see a buttplug the side of my head though. Not sure if I’d count that as a pro or con.

Hiring Bikes & A Picnic in the Vongelpark

If you want the real Amsterdam (or Dutch) experience, you’ve got to do it on two wheels. I hadn’t hired a bike the last time I was in Amsterdam. It’s something that everyone has got to want to do and when there’s only two of you, and only one of you cycles, it can be difficult to come to a compromise. This time however there were five of us and three of us cycled regularly so the other two had to forfeit.

Cycling in Amsterdam is fun. Jemma and Ibrahim seemed a little bit nervous but for me it was a lot more fun than cycling in Edinburgh. Sure there were trams to dodge but eventually you got used to the flow of cycle traffic and were able to find your own way easily.

We ended up in the Vongelpark where we had a picnic of baguettes, cheese, meat and beer. After that we spent the rest of the day enjoying our new bike gang, dodging other amateur cyclists and stopping every now and then for a beer.

Heinekin Experience

Plenty of people have recommended the Heinekin Experience to me but being honest if it hadn’t been for everyone else’s interest in going I probably wouldn’t have been that interested.

In the end I really enjoyed the tour. I learnt a little bit about how beer is made, the history of Heinekin and most importantly how to drink beer properly – something I probably should have learnt a long time ago. We even got our own custom bottles made.

An April Fool and a Wonderful Annual Tradition

Colin has an April the 1st tradition that has to happen, no matter what country you’re in. In fact, it seemed to fit better in Amsterdam than at home. Every year on the 1st of April he eats his dinner backwards, starting with the dessert and finishing with the starter. The waiter, bemused, was happy to accommodate his request and in fairness has probably heard far more ridiculous things in his time.

BlumenMarket

We had planned to cycle for miles and miles to see fields full of tulips. We didn’t make it that far but we did find this flower market.

A Windmill

This windmill was only a 20 minute cycle away from the houseboat. If you’re really keen to see some windmills, I found a ‘windmills database‘. It’s in Dutch so only for those who are really keen. Otherwise this windmill is located on the East side of Amsterdam and is part of a small brewery. The official website can be found here.

Raw Herring

Raw herring (or haring) is a traditional Dutch delicacy, one that’s mainly enjoyed by locals rather than tourists. You can get it very easily throughout the city, from one of the many foodstands.

It was nice. I probably wouldn’t order it in a restaurant but I enjoyed it and was glad I managed to try something somewhat ‘typical’.

Twin towers

All adverts should be culturally sensitive. This one however was not. Gave us a chuckle, but perhaps not everyone has the same dry sense of humour as us.

In Conclusion

There are plenty of reasons to visit Amsterdam and we experienced them all. Well with the exception of hookers and buttplugs the size of my head. If you do decide to visit you absolutely must a) hire a bike b) experience a night on a houseboat and c) do with some great people. (Note: when I travelled to Amsterdam before, I camped. If you’re on a budget, it’s a much cheaper option and almost as good.)