Amsterdam

November 11, 2012: (Happy birthday, Dad!)

We woke up bright and early in order for Kristin to catch her flight back to Minsk and left her friend's house by 7am. We took the train from Den Haag to Schipol where I said goodbye to her and continued on to Amsterdam Centraal.

The first step in any new city is to find a map. I looked everywhere in the train station, but there wasn't even a tourist office. I finally found an advertising packet with a map in the back in one of those free stands in front of the car rental booths. I had a make-shift train station breakfast of a fruit cup, a twisty-cheesy bread thing and a chocolate letter T (which I guess is traditionally Dutch for Sinterklaas).

Step two was to find my hostel so that I could put my backpack into a locker. It was called Shelter City and when I booked it I thought that it was a little strange that there were no co-ed dorms (usually these are cheaper than the single-sex dorms). When I arrived, things started to make more sense. Shelter City is a Christian hostel. How does a Christian hostel differ from a regular hostel you might be asking yourself? First of all, on Sundays, a group of the people staying at the hostel head to church together. Secondly, the wall of the lobby is covered in different churches in the area. And finally, when you get past the lobby all of the walls are adorned with Jesus-related decorations topped off with just a giant word JESUS painted on the wall in the cafeteria. I found it ironic that I had to walk through the Red Light District to get to the hostel...

 

I had planned to meet up with a friend later in the afternoon so I had the morning to myself to wander around aimlessly looking at all the things. We agreed to meet at the Dam Monument, so I thought I would find that first so I could make sure to be back at the right time. Assuming the Dam Monument would be near water, I decided to walk along the Amstel river. All of the canals in Amsterdam are gorgeous.

At one point, I got caught up in a crowd of people speaking French (which was disconcerting) all headed in the same direction. They were all headed toward a building called the Hermitage and I thought it must be for a conference or something. I decided to follow them in through the main gate to see if I could figure out what it was about. I made it all the way to the line up to buy tickets without any obvious clues as to what it could be for, so I left. After more than an hour wandering up and down the Amstel in search of a really distinct monument, I decided to verify the map once again.

Obviously I am too logical for my own good. The Dam Monument isn't anywhere near the Amstel, nor is it really anywhere near to the canals. It's across the square from the Royal Palace on the other side of the city. Luckily, the city is not enormous and I managed to make it there on foot in under 20 minutes. This area of the city is the really touristy bit. I went through a few souvenir shops (mainly to see what their offering on magnets was) and returned to the Monument to meet my friend.

Michiel is another iRYLA participant who I met in 2010 in Montréal and I remember that I instantly liked him. He might have had a different impression of my 19-year-old self. I have a habit of asking really dumb questions in order to keep a conversation going... often I realize later much better questions I could have asked or just how dumb my questions really were. For example, I asked Michiel where he was from and he told me "The Netherlands". I was obviously aware of the existence of The Netherlands.. my uncle's wife came from "Holland" as we have a tendency to call the whole country where I'm from. However, I didn't immediately make that connection and so I asked where it is located. He told me that it was above France. Having very little education about the geography of Europe I remained perplexed, so I asked what language they speak there. "Dutch" should have made things obvious to me, but instead I just found this really interesting and a strange coincidence. A day later, I made the connection and felt like the biggest idiot. Thankfully, he appeared to have forgotten this incident (or maybe just tactfully didn't use it as a basis for forming an opinion about me).

We had lunch on a side street restaurant a ways from the touristy places. I had an enormous (and amazing) goat cheese salad which took me ages to eat, so we ended up discussing just about everything. He is a PhD student doing his thesis on the cooperation of organizations that are trying to solve social issues from different perspectives... I think. For example, if there is a homeless drug addict, an agency helping homeless individuals might say that the key is finding him a residence, whereas an agency dealing with individuals facing addiction might say that he needs to have help to fight his addiction, and another agency might say he needs help finding a job. In fact, all of these are relevant to his solution, but individually none of them will effectively solve his problems. So, Michiel looks at how to encourage these organizations to cooperate and what that would look like from a pratical standpoint.

We also talked about my interest in education and mainly what challenges face the education system. We made comparisons between the Dutch school system and the system in Ontario. This is not the right blog for me to rant about what I think needs to be changed/improved upon, but Michiel offered a receptive ear and relevant discussion which I think may be a trademark of iRYLA participants (if I do say so myself). We came to Rotary in a very similar way: both of our mothers are Rotarians and we both decided to participate in our local RYLA. He was selected from his class of RYLA, whereas all of the Ontario participants had an opportunity to attend since the conference was in Montréal. Neither of us has had an opportunity to continue active Rotary involvement because there was no Rotaract club at our Universities or in our cities and neither of us had any extra time to commit to founding new clubs.

We walked around the city a lot and got weasled into trying a magic nail buffer system by the best saleswoman ever. She was unbelievably good. I was able to resist only by virtue of the fact that I had no room in my backpack and the kit cost 30 euro. Which is outrageous. And I am practically broke. Not to mention, 30 euro is the cost of a flight to Barcelona (when you don't miss your flight). Kristin had said to me in Den Haag that in The Netherlands there are more bikes than people, and I think this is true. Everywhere you went there were people on bikes and piles of bikes outside of office buildings. Bikes have the right of way apparently and I had a few close calls, but luckily, I survived.

I felt that the Red Light District is a necessary pilgrimmage in Amsterdam, so we went to the main street there. I've heard all the stories, but it's just still so strange to see women standing in lingerie in shop windows like mannequins. Despite obvious issues such as human trafficking and the difficulty of determining who is working of their own will and who was coerced into prostitution, I think the laws in The Netherlands are incredibly progressive. The safety of these sex workers is so much easier to maintain if prostitution is legal and "out in the open" (literally, in this case). The Netherlands also have legalised possession for personal use for marijuana. Recently, the European Union encouraged the criminalization of marijuana for tourists and non-residents, and according to Michiel they are also attempting to clean up the Red Light District as well so that brothels aren't as accessible. The legalization of both marijuana and prostitution are laws about giving human beings the right to choose for their own bodies (the same basis for laws regarding abortion and birth control). It would be a step backward to try to remove these freedoms of choice. Also, what would happen to Amsterdam's tourism industry??? After all of this philosophical reasoning, we opted for a change of pace.

Our next stop would be the Van Gogh Museum. We stopped quickly at a store for pepernoten, small ginger biscuits the size of gum drops. This is typical Sinterklaas candy. (Sinterklaas apparently sails from Spain to The Netherlands each year to give children candy and presents.) It was tasty!

We walked to the Van Gogh Museum through the Museumplein only to find out that the museum was being rennovated and was, in fact, located all the way back at the Hermitage Museum next to the Amstel. It was already too late in the afternoon for us to make it there before closing, so we opted instead to have a hot chocolate at a nearby cafe. We also took some artsy photos:(note: as I have previously mentioned, I am not at all good at photography. If I get a nice photo it is by luck).

 

We were having such an excellent time we decided to have dinner together as well, and all the tourist restaurants appear to be steakhouses, so we had steak. Yum! Unfortunately, I talk too much with my hands and spilled a glass of red wine on Michiel....

...and I was worried he was really mad at me...

...but it appears to come off (this is water in the photo) and he didn't hate me. Spilling alcohol on someone gives you just the worst feeling. There is actually nothing you can do to make it better in the moment. We finished off the night at a wonderful live jazz bar. The lead singer/saxaphonist was incredibly intense:

But the music was so excellent that we stayed very late. I walked Michiel back to the train station and then took a quick adventure through the streets of Amsterdam by myself at 2am. I was only verbally harassed a few times. I was absolutely exhausted (I like the adjective crevé in French) and my face hurt from smiling all day. When I got the hostel, I desperately pushed the intercom button and the attendant was a bit bewildered that I was so late coming into the Christian hostel. He was really helpful though and when I got to my bed, I was out like a light.

 

November 12, 2012:

 

I woke up in time for the free breakfast and I was so excited to learn it was French toast! However, I had just about the worst culture shock I've had since I got to Europe when I realized upon receiving this plate of French toast that I would have to eat it without maple syrup. World shattered. It was actually distressing how much this affected my mood all morning. I had intended to go to the Van Gogh Museum before catching my train back to the airport, but opted not to risk it and instead spent the morning scouring the tourist shops for a magnet. Most of the magnets featured half-naked women and marijuana leafs... not exactly my style... but I found some that suited my taste and made it to the airport with plenty of time, passing part of my time on the train chatting with a really pleasant British woman whose son works as the Manager of the Nike advertising for the Western Europe division. No big deal.

 

The airport was decked out for Sinterklaas and Christmas already. I bought lunch at a grocery store in the airport thinking I was being clever. I got a chicken salad and then realized that I had no utensils. I picked up a knife and spoon from one of the fast-food restaurants in the food court, but they didn't have any forks. It was the slowest I have ever eaten a salad.

I caught my flight with plenty of time and when I arrived home, I was happy about the time I had spent travelling in The Netherlands, and at the same time, I was incredibly grateful to know that I would be sticking to Lyon until the end of exams. Travelling is wonderful, but it's hard work always being in motion and sometimes it's nice to just stay put for a while.