I.AMsterdam

While spending time in Germany with my fantastic grandparents, Anthony and I knew we would want to take a little train trip to visit somewhere new.  We decided on Amsterdam because it's only a few hours away, and it's somewhere I've always wanted to visit.  Boy, did we make a great choice!
          In short, Amsterdam is one of the most beautiful cities I've been to.  All, yes, ALL of the building are so pretty to look at.  The buildings give a bit of an old feel to it, but it's bustling with people, and is very modern with all of easy public transportation and everything.  The wonderful warm sunshine weather we got during our stay made it hard not to like.  It was glorious.
         We had planned to go Thursday and Friday, to try and avoid some of the weekend insanity, but when we went to get our tickets (we could buy them right from an office in Ratingen here) the man (who I'm positive was a German version of Ken, one of my old managers at DQ/OJ) informed us that we'd save about 35 Euros by booking 3 days in advance, so that meant Friday and Saturday.  Friday morning we got on the train and had to transfer once in Dusseldorf to get on the international train.  As we're coasting along just about to Dusseldorf, I realize..."oh bollocks!  I didn't bring our passports!"
      Anthony tries to assure me (weakly) that it'll be ok, we might not need them... entering a new country..... but it's by train.  Crapstick.  Well, it IS the E.U still. We get on the connecting train anyways, and figure we'll deal with it when we get there.  Along the way to Amsterdam, some guy comes around asking to check ID's and Passports.  First, I must point out that this dude was casually dressed in jeans and a shirt, and was walking around with a backpack on, he really didn't look very authoritative.  Everyone else was handing over their cards, most people being from the E.U, only needed to show an ID.  I did the same, and gave him my South Dakota driver's license.
       He looked at it.  "Where are you from?"  "The United States."  "Do you have your passport?"  "Uh.. no, I forgot it in Germany at home."  "You are traveling to another country?"  "Yea... sorry."  "This doesn't tell me you are American.  I can go here and get one of these too."  A pause while he takes out a little magnifier to inspect my ID closer.  "Ok," finger point! "Next time you need to remember to bring the passport." "I will, thank you!"   Then he looks at Anthony and says "Same story with you?"  "Yup..."   I try to do what I can to help improve the image of Americans in foreign countries :)
        Yay!  We made it through the border and in to the Netherlands.  After finding a map of the city we decided to skip taking buses and just wonder through the city until we found the places we wanted to visit.  Ah the weather was so perfect!  It was a lovely stroll, stopped for some lunch, and amazingly enough, we fond our first destination- the Anne Frank house.  It was around noon time, and the line wasn't very long, we waited only maybe 15 minutes to get in.  It was incredible to be able to go inside and walk around and see where they really were.  Very powerful.  I was so impressed with all the languages everything was in.  When watching videos, they had phones you could pick up and press any number of buttons to get a variety of up to 10 languages!

       Next we wanted to go see the Van Gogh museum.  These are the two attractions that gave me the main desire to come to Amsterdam.  We continued walking along the canals, in no hurry.  Along the way we stopped in a main square area.  I learned one word in Dutch (I think)  "plein" means "square."  So a lot of the area names were like "Leidseplein" means "Leidse square."  Maybe "leidse" means something too, who knows.  We stopped in this area to get a drink and watch some hip hop rapper/dancers put on a show.  This area was full of people, but didn't feel too crowded.
      Continuing on, we found the IAMsterdam sign, took some pictures, and then joined loads of other people in laying ourselves out in the grass under the sunny skies at Museumplein, (Museum Square) which is a big park area.  Conveniently, one of the museums here is the Van Gosh Museum!  We got inside and spent a while enjoying his paintings.  Only two floors, so not very overwhelming as far as most museums go.  After this we went to find food, sat around watching people, walking about.

       Our hostel was around 20 minutes outside the city area by Tram, which didn't feel like it was out of the city, really.  It was about the only place we could find that was both under 400 US dollars, and didn't require us to stay 4 nights due to the weekend.  This place used to be a hotel, but converted to a hostel a few years ago, so each room had a fancy little hotel bathroom in it!  Score.  We even got a huge breakfast with it.
        The next morning we made plans to meet up with Nate.  Yes, we seem to be following each other all around the world.  He was also traveling in Europe after leaving Taiwan, and messaged me saying he was in Amsterdam for the week, worked out that we would be there over the same time.  We met outside the train station, and while waiting here I noticed one of those big machines that play like a full band old circus type music.. but it's just a machine.  They're usually decorated quite nicely, and look kind of like an organ.  After leaving the train station and walking to (another) square area to have coffee, we passed loads of them on the street, and there were even more scattered all throughout the square.  They were very loud to walk next to, and with all the people, it did kind of feel like a Saturday morning circus!



         This was Nate's second time in Amsterdam, but he agreed to go on a boat tour of the canals with us.  He even knew a place where we could get cheaper tickets.  At the dock it would have been 14 Euro, but we only paid 8.50.  It was an hour long tour around the many canals of Amsterdam.  They gave you head sets (you could also choose up to 10 different languages to listen in) and told you all about the places you were passing by and the history of it.  It was super neat.  After this we got lunch, and walked around enjoying the city.
        Originally I had suggested we rent bicycles.  I love bicycles and it sounded like fun.  After just a short time walking in Amsterdam, I realized it probably wouldn't be a good idea for me.  First, I had no clue really where we were going, and there are SO MANY bicycles.  I remember the tour telling us an outlandish number, but I forgot, so Googling it just now it says that there are 780,000 people living in Amsterdam, and 880,000 bicycles!  Our course many people rent them while traveling here, too.  I deemed it unsafe, and that I would probably hit either a pedestrian, or another fellow biker.  Then Saturday morning while taking the bus in to the city, we for real almost hit a lady on a bicycle!  She wasn't looking and tried to cross the street, the bus had to honk and swerve out of the way.  I must be bad luck on buses, first hitting a car, then almost a person.  I figured this was a sign that I shouldn't rent a bicycle that day either.  Hence, we chose to go by boat.



       Soon it was time to leave already.  It was a short trip, and I'm sure we could have fit in many more museums or attractions.  Amsterdam is just such a lovely place we wanted to spend our time outside and looking at the buildings and bridges, walking around and checking it all out.  Next time we can see more, as already I'd love to go back again!
       We didn't get badgered about passports, or any form of ID on the train coming back to Germany.  This leads me to believe that perhaps that man on the first train was just a skeez, maybe trying to steal identities!  So, good thing he didn't get his hands on our passport numbers!