Every CA's Nightmare

You may be able to infer from the title of this post which city I'll be writing about now. Or maybe you're thinking you've cheated the game altogether because you remember the last word of Hannah's post about Brugge. Or maybe you're just feeling rather embarrassed that you have absolutely no clue which city I'm talking about and, consequently, you're grateful that nobody can read your mind right now. Well, if the latter is the case for you, allow me to spare you further embarrassment:  Hannah and I just spent three nights in Amsterdam!

Probably the first thought that comes to your mind is that marijuana is legal in this city. If you think for one second that Hannah and I took advantage of this fact, you clearly don't know us well enough to warrant reading this blog, so go ahead and close your browser. The next thing you think of is likely the Red Light District, a section of the city where prostitutes stand waiting for customers in the windows and sex shops can be found just steps away from a beautiful and historic old church. It's truly an ironic sight, and also one that elicits both disgust and pity for the people who fuel this terrible aspect of Amsterdam's culture.

As luck would have it, our hostel was right on the edge of the Red Light District. However, it was really a great hostel! Inside you never would have known this Christian hostel was anywhere near a part of town so rampant with sin. It was very secure, and it had a great sense of community, largely created by the cafe and courtyard areas where we spent a couple hours each evening. What's more, it had a free breakfast that was actually quite delicious; we had pancakes two of the mornings, and yogurt with granola and fruit the other morning. We also drank quite a bit of their hot chocolate to warm us up after two very cold and windy days out in the city.

Our first night in Amsterdam we wandered through Dam Square and more of the western part of the city. We found a cute little organic pancake shop that served some killer crepes for dinner!

The next morning we were greeted with a steady drizzle of rain. We walked ten minutes to the Anne Frank House and found an extremely long line. Rather than wait out in the cold, we decided to take a covered boat tour of the canals. We were the only ones on the boat except for a nice old couple from Canada, and it was a very informative and enjoyable journey.

Afterward we walked down Prisengracht - one of the city's most iconic canals - to Leidseplein, an urban hub containing a large number of shops and restaurants. We found this quiet little sandwich shop down one of the side streets and had some fantastic sandwiches. It was, in my opinion, the ideal European meal: unique, cultural food from a small, non-chain shop with no connections to Yelp or Facebook or anything of the sort! We also bought a package of these delicious little pastries called stroopwaffles. They're soft, flat, miniature versions of waffles with a thin layer of caramel sandwiched in between. So good!!

Next we walked through the Rijksmuseum to get to Museumplein. As the name suggests, it's kind of a cross between a city square and a museum; it was a large outdoor area that had some pretty gardens, a few food shops, and a bit of art. Most notably, it has a large structure composted of the phrase, "i amsterdam," where the "i am" is a different color than the rest. I'm not sure of its significance, but it seemed to be a pretty popular tourist spot.

From there, we wandered through the beautiful (and relatively quiet due to the inclement weather) Vondelpark.

Now that it was late afternoon, we went back to the Anne Frank House in hopes of finding a much shorter line to the museum. We were fortunate to find a line significantly shorter than what we had found that morning, so despite the ever windier and colder weather, we decided to wait in line. It was so very worth it:  the museum was very interesting and very moving. We got to walk through the entire house, through the hidden passageway behind a moving bookshelf and into the Secret Annex, reading about Anne's experiences and all the backstory along the way. She was such an intelligent girl! If she could have lived a full life she probably would have been one of the most famous and influential writers of her time - though, truly, she still is.

Sufficiently cold and with soaking backpacks, we decided to head back to Dam Square to find a quick bite to eat for dinner, then wrap up our evening just hanging out in the cafe at the hostel.

Thankfully the next morning brought us the same cold and wind but without the rain. We took advantage of this by taking a walk through the Jordaan, one of Amsterdam's prettiest neighborhoods. We then visited a museum called, "Ons' Lieve Heer op Solder" (Our Lord in the Attic). Apparently, back in the 17th century, Holland had outlawed the public practice of Catholicism and other non-Protestant religions. A trader whose name I forget decided to buy a house - three adjacent houses, in fact - and convert them into a single, fully functioning Catholic church! The church has since been restored to its original appearance and still holds mass today on major Christian holidays; but when it's not serving religious purposes, it's a museum. It's really a beautiful place.

Afterward we walked across the street to a cheese shop for lunch. On top of their delicious sandwiches and pastries for sale, they allow customers to sample a dozen or so different cheeses, all made in-house. It was so good we came back for dinner!

We spent all afternoon exploring the northeastern part of Amsterdam. We visited this enormous, modern public library called Openbare Bibliotheek - the largest public library in all of Europe! It had seven stories and lots of windows, so we found a couple chairs that overlooked the rest of the city and relaxed and read for several hours. We also visited a science center called Nemo, which had this really awesome clock driven completely by siphoning! All I could think was, I'm thankful my thermofluids professors at school didn't use this clever machine to create fluid mechanics problems for our exams!

Overall, Amsterdam is a very pretty city with a lot of interesting history... So long as you stay out of the Red Light District in the evenings. Hannah and I were grateful not to have any responsibility concerning all the weed-smoking, like we did when we were CAs at ASU this past year! We never really got used to the smell during our short time in Amsterdam. I swear I saw Hannah's hand twitch toward her phone a few times when we walked by a particularly rank cloud of the stuff. After being a CA for a couple semesters, calling ASU PD becomes a physical reflex to the smell of marijuana. But hey, apart from holding our breath, we don't have to do anything about it on our four-week trek through Europe! Speaking of which, I can't believe we're already ten days into it. Though 18 days still sounds like a lot of time, I know it's gonna fly by way too fast. For now, our near future holds plenty of pretzels, sausage, and beer as we spend our next week in Germany! When next you hear from us, I'll probably be a few pounds chunkier. #worthit