“Amsterdam is an exciting place, swarming with young people all over the
new homogenous Europe, a city that never sleeps. “ The Tale of the Body Thief
By Anne Rice
The world of bikes, city of freedom, marijuana, erotic museums and red
light District, windmills, tulips and funny and dancing buildings and cheese…
All these remind me of Amsterdam, Holland. Indeed it is so exciting,
specially every weekend, you can see the crowd of partying people from
different places in the world. We arrived at Hans Brinker Hostel by bus and
tram (from AmstelStation, we caught line 12 to Victorieplein then changed line
to 4 and we stopped at Keizersgracht) on the 23rd day of June. Our
accommodation is at the very central location of Kerkstraat that made us easy
to get around.
Amsterdam is really famous is for its cafés and restaurant, so we never far from a tasty brew or a glass of wine. One of the famous beers
here is the Heineken. I wouldn’t surprise our hotel offers pubs and bars.
Spending a night sobering up in a drunk-tank is the most important reason why
these young people were here. I was surprise seeing huge number of people upon
our check-in while eating our free breakfast on the table. Most of them were
from neighboring countries and wanted to spend the weekend here.
After we had few hours of rest and gained another energy after the
tiring day of traveled, we went out with our jackets. It’s really not a joke.
It’s usually cold and wet in summer here. You’ll never really know. Even it is
sunny the breeze is still cool. Better, don’t miss to bring jacket. We even
bought a winter cap to protect our head.
We’ve started our trip by roaming around the place. We reached the
flower market and kept on looking for a good tulips bulb to buy for a gift.
Then, we went along the market and we found the cheese store and enjoyed their
free taste. We were not satisfied and we went along the lane and we found along
the side of the road, a guy who was wearing blue and white suit having paint stains below his paints. He was working for Dadar’s Exchanghibition
Bank project. This project explores the value of money and art in relation to
the values of its Customers. They
were so inspired with their new project called the Transformoney Tree. They promoted it with the touch of
art. All you need to do is to
donate money as a material to create art. You can put drawing or write
something on your banknotes. That
was fun! We also drank free Champaign and beer. After that, we had an opportunity to go down the lane going
to the Museumplein. From there,
you can see the beautiful fountain swimming pool like in the middle of Vondel
Park, where you can see the famous Amsterdam logo, “ I AMSTERDAM. People were
taking their own pictures with their favorite letters in the logo.
Finally, we found the famous museum in Riksmuseum, just after sunset. In this museum, you can find Rembrandt’s paintings like the Members of the Drapers Guild. What a coincidence! I was reading this novel of Anne Rice, The Vampires Chronicles “ The Tale of Body Theif”, on how she inserted life’s and history of Rembrandt in the conversation between Lestat, the Vampire and David, where they both in Amsterdam. Lestat mentioned of some untold story about the painter, that he possessed a great secret - he made a bargain with the Devil who promised to make him famous painter of his time. I researched this if it’s true, but I was disappointed. This is only the theory made by the character, “ Lestat. He continued that Rembrandt was obsessed to find what good was. He searched, read bibles and he was amazed to find the divinity. He can paint and with each of his portraits he understood the grace and goodness. Well… very interesting enlightenment for him.
Finally, we found the famous museum in Riksmuseum, just after sunset. In this museum, you can find Rembrandt’s paintings like the Members of the Drapers Guild. What a coincidence! I was reading this novel of Anne Rice, The Vampires Chronicles “ The Tale of Body Theif”, on how she inserted life’s and history of Rembrandt in the conversation between Lestat, the Vampire and David, where they both in Amsterdam. Lestat mentioned of some untold story about the painter, that he possessed a great secret - he made a bargain with the Devil who promised to make him famous painter of his time. I researched this if it’s true, but I was disappointed. This is only the theory made by the character, “ Lestat. He continued that Rembrandt was obsessed to find what good was. He searched, read bibles and he was amazed to find the divinity. He can paint and with each of his portraits he understood the grace and goodness. Well… very interesting enlightenment for him.
Moving on… because of this novel I am reading now, I felt like I was
interacting with it when I came down here in Amsterdam.
Like the characters of the story, we also explored the famous city, specially the very
controversial red light district. We checked the map, but we were so astonished
that it wasn’t there. Tibor said, “ As soon as we see red light, that’s it.”
And he hasn’t made a mistake. As we look ahead … red light, was there. Sex
museum, erotic museum, pubs, coffee shops, sex live shows and many more. Let me
discuss these to you one by one…
It comes as no surprise that in many places in the Netherlands, you’re
allowed to buy and smoke marijuana and other soft drugs. And you also heard
that dealing hard drugs is forbidden. Actually, soft drugs here can be sold
only in the COFFEE SHOP. Hmmm not just coffee shop, there is something more to
it. I see people sniffing marijuana in plastics and some were smoking it and
others were eating it. This is really dangerous specially, if you eat it. You
should be careful then because some coffee shops were selling rubbish and not
inspected. Better not to try. Even you weren’t, you can still smell from far
away. I saw a young woman, totally dropped and got high. She had difficulty to
walk and his friends were trying to carry her. My advice is GET HIGH RESPONSIBLY.
Second, Amsterdam is also known as the erotic capital because of their legalized PROSTITUTION. It may surprise for all of us that sex worker here in Amsterdam is a profession that has helped for the country. It became legal in 2000. As it was explained to our tour guide, Angel that this is became the social problem among Dutch. The police simply turned a blind eye to practice and tolerate it. The police only rousted when these ladies, wearing bikinis on their glass windows, are becoming too aggressive in showing their body parts and tapping on the glass. One thing, don’t take any photographs and videos for humanitarian reason. We always remind ourselves as tourist to respect them because they are there to make a living. Of course for record purpose, we make videos, but not really focus on them. Others were so mad, while tapping their glasses and banging their doors.
We’ll I’ve
learned so much on the second day, when our tour guide explains all these
things. Aside from that he toured us around the city. We started at the Victory
Monument or National Monument at Dam Square, Royal Palace/Dam Palace,The Old Church, The Red Light District, The Jewish
Quarter, The Jordaan District, The Anne Frank House, The Dutch East India
Company, The Begijnhof Convent, Masterpieces of Dutch Art, and The Widest Bridge and Narrowest House.
Here are the sample videos of the 3-hour tour:
Finally, as our last trip before leaving Amsterdam, we decided to do Museum Exhibition visit. We chose the film museum, The EYE. This invites us to watch films on the four screens, explore the exhibition area, the interactive basement, the museum store, and the restaurant and café. At EYE Amsterdam, the film institute of the Netherlands, you will get to know all the facets of film and moving image.
In Stanley Kubric's Exhibition,we were in this yellow cubicle watching the movie,1939 Gone with the Wind. It is very romantic and historical. We almost forgot the time as we spent 2 hours there. We did able to catch the boat going back to the Central station. By the way, this museum is located across the Central Station in an another small island named Buiksloterweg.
"Accidents happen when someone unexpectedly steps into a bike lane they didn't see coming. And for anyone who didn't grow up surrounded by bicycle paths, that's pretty easy to do. Bike lanes are not especially standardized. Some are tinted a rosy color, some not. They all have in common is the bicycle icon embedded at intervals in the pavement — and even the icons come in about a dozen different designs. In other words, it takes a bit of getting used to." http://www.postwar.nl/amsterdam/howams_pg/hownottogethit.html
Only in Amsterdam, you can find millions of bikes all over the corner and being park everywhere. Wow. Not only that, if these people get drunk they throw their bikes into the canal.Why? They're answer is, "I was just drunk, so I threw my bikes into the canal."
That was the end of the Amsterdam trip. We explore and learn the city and now we understand what makes the city exciting. You are really free to do what you want as long as you won't hurt somebody. But so sorry if accidents happen. Young people here never sleep, they only get high. That's Amsterdam.
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