After some frustration and annoyance, on February 11th IBWIP and I managed to escape the five feet of snow
and head to Amsterdam for a week long vacation. WOOOHOOO!!!!
We arrive in Amsterdam at 7AM local time, we have not slept and we are deliriously tired already, but we still have getting ripped off by a cab driver and finding our hotel to get through. So we did that. Our hotel room was awesome other than the toilet.
A poop shelf is never a good idea
Also, our hotel room was on the 6th floor of a five story building, which meant that to get to our room from the fifth floor we had to climb the steps of doom!!!
These became more hazardous as the week wore on.
But since our hotel room was on the top floor we had one of two rooms with outdoor living space. It was kind of a patio, but really it was the roof of the building.
We did have to climb out the window to get to it which I thought was cute and neat anyway.
So after resting up a little we went out for a walk to get our bearings. It was very cold the whole week so we bundled up a lot. The first thing I noticed about the place is that it looks just like you imagine it would. If you've ever been to a Busch Gardens theme park where they have a Dutch theme, you've seen what the buildings in this claustrophobic little city really look like.
My inability to hold a camera straight aside, these buildings are all leaning to one degree or another. Freaky really.
Incidentally, those buildings there along the canal in the last pic are the backs of the tulip market shops. They have quite a few open air markets there even in the butt assed cold. These people are either crazy or tough, I haven't decided which yet.
After our first day we sort of fell into a routine of tourist during the day, party during the evening. There's not a lot of nightlife in the town, it seems to shut down after 10 or 11 pretty much.
Our touristy things were:
The Heineken Experience
What a load of crap!!! I just paid something like $20 to be advertised at for a while with a five minute lecture on how beer is made. I was really hoping to see some big factory machines and the actual brewery or a facsimile there-of. But nooooo, I just gotta look at crappy Heineken displays and then I get a couple free beers at the end. This is about when I remember I don't even like beer, especially Heineken. Ah well, Dan violated a display
and I did my best to break things
Muiderslot Castle
This was by far my favorite thing to do in Holland. We rented a car...
And let me make an aside here and recommend something to all you travelers out there. If you are going to Amsterdam and want to rent a car and drive around the city, DON'T!!! It is a terrifying experience because there are trams and buses and other cars and bicyclers and pedestrians coming at you from every direction. If you do not possess at least 10 eyes it is impossible to keep track of everything going on around you, plus they don't have convenient things like road signs and lane markers and stuff like that. The fact that we made it out alive and we didn't kill anyone else is a friggin miracle.
so anyway, we got this car and drove a little ways outside the city to this castle where you could pretty much just wander about and look at stuff on the grounds and inside. There were a few areas closed to the public but for the most part it was open. It is humbling and stunning to be in something so old. We have nothing quite like this here in America. Construction on this place began sometime in the 1200's and was improved upon over the next few hundred years. NEAT!!!
Wow, what a bunch of dorks!!!
Please note it is snowing outside which was very frustrating. We cannot seem to escape from this shit.
de Haar castle
I have no pictures of this because photography was not allowed. But here's a website with some good pics http://www.castles.nl/haar/haar.html
Looks neat right? Wrong. You can only actually go into a couple of rooms in this massive place. You MUST take the tour, which is in Dutch, so if you don't speak the language you can't understand a bit of it, and it's really long and boring tour where I can only assume they talk about the ongoing restoration and the families that lived there. I'm guessing it was a boring tour even if you could understand it. It was kinda pretty, the parts we could see, but I don't really recommend it.
The Rijksmuseum
As you can see on the left of this photo, they are doing work on the outside of this building which I bet is incredible.
I didn't take pictures inside because if you want to see a Rembrandt or a Vermeer you can just look it up on the internets. It was smaller than the museums I'm used to, but worth it since it features Dutch masters which is some of my favorite stuff in art history. If you like art, this is not to be missed in Amsterdam.
Churches
There are several churches of note in Amsterdam. We went to a few and actually went inside one. We don't have great pics because there was not great lighting in the place and I failed to bring my camera along so cell phone pics in poor lighting, ugh!
Oudekerk (old church)
There are really beautiful and faded paintings on this ceiling that you can't see because it's so blurry.
Stunning pipe organ
Seats with freaky carvings on the backs
My blurry husband has always wished to be a model on The Price is Right
Yup, gravestones, the entire floor of this big church was made of them. In many 5-10 people were buried. Freaky place to be when the
uprising happens.
I really wanted to go up the staircase, but you couldn't. This church is undergoing massive restoration. It's in pretty poor shape.
Westerkerk
You couldn't go in this one, but here's the outside.
Begijnhof
This is an old courtyard which used to house un-nuns and also has the oldest standing house in Amsterdam in it. It also has a chapel standing in the middle of it. It's kinda pretty and quiet there which is shocking since it's in the middle of the city.
In the evenings we spent our time like tourists in Amsterdam should spend their time.
We also ate a lot of damned good food.
The pancakes in Amsterdam are these weird flat big things that are delicious. I recommend Sara's Pancake House for delicious toppings.
The french fries in Amsterdam are to die for and I wish I was eating them right now. Manneken Pis was the fry stand deluxe and right around the corner from our favorite coffee shop, the 420 cafe. We chose this spot for the music they played more than anything.
We had a couple of yummy dutch meals at some nice restaurants and we also had Indonesian on our last night there.
The cheese is divine in Holland.
The only complaint I have about food in this place is that the bacon is not up to my standard. The idea that even bad bacon is still okay is actually not true I've discovered. Unfortunate really.
The thing to note about food in Amsterdam is that even in the real dives you can get a delicious sandwich that you'd think was made with love by your own mom.
At first I thought the people were pretty awful, but I think they just aren't a bright and sunny people. We did meet some nice, welcoming and fun people along the way. Overall I'm glad we went, and I'd be comfortable visiting there again.
These and the rest of our pics can be viewed at http://eileenbunny.imgur.com/all/
and head to Amsterdam for a week long vacation. WOOOHOOO!!!!
We arrive in Amsterdam at 7AM local time, we have not slept and we are deliriously tired already, but we still have getting ripped off by a cab driver and finding our hotel to get through. So we did that. Our hotel room was awesome other than the toilet.
A poop shelf is never a good idea
Also, our hotel room was on the 6th floor of a five story building, which meant that to get to our room from the fifth floor we had to climb the steps of doom!!!
These became more hazardous as the week wore on.
But since our hotel room was on the top floor we had one of two rooms with outdoor living space. It was kind of a patio, but really it was the roof of the building.
We did have to climb out the window to get to it which I thought was cute and neat anyway.
So after resting up a little we went out for a walk to get our bearings. It was very cold the whole week so we bundled up a lot. The first thing I noticed about the place is that it looks just like you imagine it would. If you've ever been to a Busch Gardens theme park where they have a Dutch theme, you've seen what the buildings in this claustrophobic little city really look like.
My inability to hold a camera straight aside, these buildings are all leaning to one degree or another. Freaky really.
Incidentally, those buildings there along the canal in the last pic are the backs of the tulip market shops. They have quite a few open air markets there even in the butt assed cold. These people are either crazy or tough, I haven't decided which yet.
After our first day we sort of fell into a routine of tourist during the day, party during the evening. There's not a lot of nightlife in the town, it seems to shut down after 10 or 11 pretty much.
Our touristy things were:
The Heineken Experience
What a load of crap!!! I just paid something like $20 to be advertised at for a while with a five minute lecture on how beer is made. I was really hoping to see some big factory machines and the actual brewery or a facsimile there-of. But nooooo, I just gotta look at crappy Heineken displays and then I get a couple free beers at the end. This is about when I remember I don't even like beer, especially Heineken. Ah well, Dan violated a display
and I did my best to break things
Muiderslot Castle
This was by far my favorite thing to do in Holland. We rented a car...
And let me make an aside here and recommend something to all you travelers out there. If you are going to Amsterdam and want to rent a car and drive around the city, DON'T!!! It is a terrifying experience because there are trams and buses and other cars and bicyclers and pedestrians coming at you from every direction. If you do not possess at least 10 eyes it is impossible to keep track of everything going on around you, plus they don't have convenient things like road signs and lane markers and stuff like that. The fact that we made it out alive and we didn't kill anyone else is a friggin miracle.
so anyway, we got this car and drove a little ways outside the city to this castle where you could pretty much just wander about and look at stuff on the grounds and inside. There were a few areas closed to the public but for the most part it was open. It is humbling and stunning to be in something so old. We have nothing quite like this here in America. Construction on this place began sometime in the 1200's and was improved upon over the next few hundred years. NEAT!!!
Wow, what a bunch of dorks!!!
Please note it is snowing outside which was very frustrating. We cannot seem to escape from this shit.
de Haar castle
I have no pictures of this because photography was not allowed. But here's a website with some good pics http://www.castles.nl/haar/haar.html
Looks neat right? Wrong. You can only actually go into a couple of rooms in this massive place. You MUST take the tour, which is in Dutch, so if you don't speak the language you can't understand a bit of it, and it's really long and boring tour where I can only assume they talk about the ongoing restoration and the families that lived there. I'm guessing it was a boring tour even if you could understand it. It was kinda pretty, the parts we could see, but I don't really recommend it.
The Rijksmuseum
As you can see on the left of this photo, they are doing work on the outside of this building which I bet is incredible.
I didn't take pictures inside because if you want to see a Rembrandt or a Vermeer you can just look it up on the internets. It was smaller than the museums I'm used to, but worth it since it features Dutch masters which is some of my favorite stuff in art history. If you like art, this is not to be missed in Amsterdam.
Churches
There are several churches of note in Amsterdam. We went to a few and actually went inside one. We don't have great pics because there was not great lighting in the place and I failed to bring my camera along so cell phone pics in poor lighting, ugh!
Oudekerk (old church)
There are really beautiful and faded paintings on this ceiling that you can't see because it's so blurry.
Stunning pipe organ
Seats with freaky carvings on the backs
My blurry husband has always wished to be a model on The Price is Right
Yup, gravestones, the entire floor of this big church was made of them. In many 5-10 people were buried. Freaky place to be when the
uprising happens.
I really wanted to go up the staircase, but you couldn't. This church is undergoing massive restoration. It's in pretty poor shape.
Westerkerk
You couldn't go in this one, but here's the outside.
Begijnhof
This is an old courtyard which used to house un-nuns and also has the oldest standing house in Amsterdam in it. It also has a chapel standing in the middle of it. It's kinda pretty and quiet there which is shocking since it's in the middle of the city.
In the evenings we spent our time like tourists in Amsterdam should spend their time.
We also ate a lot of damned good food.
The pancakes in Amsterdam are these weird flat big things that are delicious. I recommend Sara's Pancake House for delicious toppings.
The french fries in Amsterdam are to die for and I wish I was eating them right now. Manneken Pis was the fry stand deluxe and right around the corner from our favorite coffee shop, the 420 cafe. We chose this spot for the music they played more than anything.
We had a couple of yummy dutch meals at some nice restaurants and we also had Indonesian on our last night there.
The cheese is divine in Holland.
The only complaint I have about food in this place is that the bacon is not up to my standard. The idea that even bad bacon is still okay is actually not true I've discovered. Unfortunate really.
The thing to note about food in Amsterdam is that even in the real dives you can get a delicious sandwich that you'd think was made with love by your own mom.
At first I thought the people were pretty awful, but I think they just aren't a bright and sunny people. We did meet some nice, welcoming and fun people along the way. Overall I'm glad we went, and I'd be comfortable visiting there again.
These and the rest of our pics can be viewed at http://eileenbunny.imgur.com/all/
