My Ampony brought me…..
tights to warm my freezing legs and feet….

Erik and Giffy morning moles

Our night’s sleep was absolutely horrible. The room was freezing, and even thought I had on jarmies and jumpers, Ants and I just were not warm enough. In the middle of the night I got up to go loo, and Ants asked me whether I was freezing. I grabbed my throw and hopped into the single bunk bed with him. Much warmer, no better sleep. So this morning we woke cold and tired, and having a bit of the flu didn’t help either.

The first thing on the agenda was breakfast curtsey of the Jordaan markets (pronounced Yor-daan). So that was the direction we headed.

It’s that way -> Erik…

Ampy, Giffy and Erik wandering down the streets of Amsterdam

House boat with greenery

There were two markets located fairly close together. We stumbled upon the smaller one first, and had a yummy bread scroll for breakfast. It had two different types of bread in it, as well as tomatoes, and herbs. It was a little expensive at ‚¬6 though.

We carried on up to the other set of markets which was set up over one long street. Of course we landed smack in the middle and had to choose which way to go. Turning left, we wandered and wandered. We came across a stall selling tights, stockings and socks, so freezing Heidi brought two pairs of tights (one black, one grey) to try make life easier. We also came across dried fruit (which Erik brought) and salty licorice (Ants and Giffy).

Ampy and Giffy choosing salty licorice

We carried on hunting and exploring the stands until we were so cold that it was time for a hot chocolate.

In the nice warm cafe/bar we warmed ourselves on hot chocolate (thanks E+G, I forgot to thank you lol) and I put on my tights. Mmmm warm.

The cafe

Once we had un-frosted, we plunged back into the cold, and wandered back down the market. Earlier Giffy had brought some Stroopwafles (syrup waffles) and we’d seen some fresh ones being made. We past that stall again, and I just had to get a fresh one. It was so so good.

Nom nom nom…

We were a bit frozed, too late to go on the free walking tour, and E&G needed to do some laundry, so we went back to our room where I got to have a snooze by stealing Giffy’s sleeping bag. Mmm warm.

Our room

Finally it was time to get wriggling, and meet at Dam Square for the Free Walking Tour.

I tell you, this was the best ‚¬0 I’ve ever spent. Actually, we ended up spending ‚¬5 each because she was pretty good, and she worked off tips.

Our Tour guide

We started in Dam Square, (panorama of Dam Square here) where our guide started with a brief overview of Amsterdam history. We also had to practise our “boo’s” because apparently the locals like to yell out “she’s lying!” and “don’t believe her” as a joke. There were only a couple of locals that stopped and listened, and we thought they were going to say something, but they didn’t.

Our first stop point was an area of the Red Light District where we talked about how sailors used to frequent here. (a bit of history here) They built a church right in the middle of it, so that sailors could come ashore, have their way with the women, then repent to God in one easy step. One-stop-shop for sinning and forgiveness.

Not far from the Old Church (Oude Kerk), somebody put this anonymous statue in the pavement, which seemed to be a part of a series of anonymous statues that were erected around Amsterdam. An anonymous prostitute women with an anonymous hand, and a lock. At first the council pulled it out, because they didn’t like somebody redesigning the streets without permission, but the locals lobbied, and they got their statue back.

Of course Ants had to join in lol

Oude Kerk

Also around town were a lot of urinals… they generally looked like this:

And here is a little write up about it

The next stories we were told were about the houses. Houses were built on wooden piles, driven into the reclaimed swamp land. Much like the Leaning tower of Piza, many of these houses too are leaning, and sometimes crashing into each other. Because of the cost of this, the government decided that they would do the foundations of the houses to ensure quality, and people were taxed on how wide their house was. So people built their houses narrow and long. They also had decorations and carvings on the front or tops of the houses. These were orginally used instead of street names, and the decorations would symbolise a significant story or event in the history of the family that lived there.

Because of the narrowness of the houses, and the staircases inside of them, it was also impossible to shift furniture. Also basements are usually out of the question for storage because that’s where the water is (and it often seeps in). So winches were put on the tops of houses so that items could be moved around the house through the windows. Originally the houses were built with a lean at the top so that when shifting furniture they wouldn’t knock into the house. Later it was realised that if you made the pole a bit longer, this wouldn’t happen. Nowadays the façade at the front of the house protected, but you can completely rebuild the house behind it.

Catholic Church

Hidden Catholic Church – Amstelkring Museum

An interesting thing that we talked about was how those cheeky Catholics practised their religion even though Kings and laws said that Catholicism was not allowed. Because Amsterdam has a history of being very tolerant of differences (e.g. prostitution, Jews, etc) the local government kinda said “Oh, well you’re not allowed to practise, but if you do be very quiet and discrete, and the houses don’t look like Churches then it’s okay. Give us no reason to arrest you and we won’t bother you”. So the guy who owned this house turned the top floors into a church. Wouldn’t know it from the outside would you?

Criers Tower was once upon a time, the tower that used to be the last thing that the sailors would see when they were off on their ships. So the wives and family of the sailors would go to this tower to see the ship off, crying as the ship went over the horizon.

The Waag or Weigh house was were the sailors would get paid. Later when the square was filled in more, the Waag was a place for guilds to meet. Notibly the Window Makers guild, were people would demostrate their ability to put in a window in one of the towers. Those that were not successful were boarded up.

The surgeons guild was also here, as were public hangings. Those bodies that were hung were taken inside to be dissected. Rembrandt also came here to see the hangings, for he lived a little way up the road.

Sorry this picture isn’t so great

This is a photo of the Jewish quarter. During the Coldest Winter that Amsterdam had seen, the Jewish quarter (which still did not have anybody living there after WWII) was torn apart by the Dutch to fuel their fires. A few decades later it was decided to rebuild the Jewish quarter, and as our tour guide said, it was rebuilt to McDonald’s standards (lots of yellow and really out there colours). Because of the modern architecture, everybody wanted to live there!

Random pretty bridge

This is a photo of the Tripp Family home (Trippenhuis). Two brothers made their wealth from making cannons. You can just make out a design of two cannons facing inwards as a testomony to where their wealth came from. You can see by the width of the house (have to pay more taxes) and large decorations that this family were incredibly wealthy. It’s rumoured they were so wealthy, that they built their coachman a house right across the canal. Apparently the coachman said “I’d be happy to have a house as wide as the Tripp’s front door” so that’s what the Tripp’s did!

The Spin House. This is where prostitutes were taken for ‘punishment’ for their crimes. They were locked in for several days, told to spin, or they were whipped. This became a weekend outing for families, where parents would take their children and tell them not to become a prostitute otherwise they’d end up in the spin house.

It’s us, cold and in Amsterdam

The top was designed by Hendrick de Keyser – a Dutch archetiect who did much work around the city.

It was around here that Anthony and I got separated from the group. Unbeknownst to us, they had gone into a mall type place called “La Place” and we had not. Grrr! Luckily we were able to text Giffy and she told us where they were. We lost out on our lunch break though, so we had to purchase something to go. I really wanted some tomato soup, but we didn’t have time for that, so I got a quiche, and was looking forward to it, when it turned out to be fish. Not impressed! Ants swapped me for his muffin that he brought, but that wasn’t what I wanted, so I couldn’t bring myself to eat it. Luckly the few bites of food that I had was enough to stop my tummy from hurting too much. Part of the reason we got lost were the crowds. I stopped to take a picture, but had Anthony in my sights. He turned around to find me, and he lost the people a head of him. Oh well, it all turned out in the end.

The men’s prison, where people were forced to work, otherwise they would die (they soon stopped that, because they felt bad).

The next stop was Begijnhof, a very spiritual place where women of faith can live (waiting list is 5 years). While this area is open to the public, they don’t approve of tour groups going through, so there was not much talking amongst the group, and our tour guide hurried through so we wouldn’t get in trouble.

The Oldest House in Amsterdam

As we carried on our tour, night fell, and so did the number of people on our tour. It was a shame really because we started out with 20-30+ people, and by the end there were only about 10-20 people. For a girl working off tips, that could be hard. The tour did run overtime by about half an hour, and it was very dark by the time we stopped at the Anne Frank house. On the way to Anne Frank house, we went through a free part of a museum, and saw a bunch of militia paintings (before Night Watch was painted). We also past the narrowest house, which is occupied by people who are 1.8m tall! They are taller than the building is wide!

The door with the wreath around it is the door to the narrowest house.

After our tour, we headed back to the room for a quick change of clothes, and then out to dinner. We were recommended this lovely restaurant named Oud Holland.

The restraunt was funny looking. It seemed like the original building was once-upon-a-time given a veranda, then there were sides added, and they thought ‘oh well, we might as well put on permanent sides and make a new entrance way’. While here we had snuggles with a kitty (I realised how much I miss Elvis) and talked to the owner about a leek dish that Anthony’s father used to make that he really enjoyed. They weren’t sure what the dish was though, so the hunt continues.

Current Mood: cold & envious & exanimate

I was an excited rush when I left work today. The children looked at me strangly as I danced around the room. I was home by 2:50pm, and Ants and I had left home by 3:15pm, right on time.

Because of Ants’s bad back, I had to carry all the luggage (well one wheely-bag, and one day bag with the laptop in it) but I didn’t mind because we were going to AMSTERDAM!

We arrived with plenty of time to check in and relax… or so we thought. Check in did not go smoothly, and we found out that our KLM flight had been cancelled. GAR!! Then we spent half an hour of waiting in line with a very very slow lady rebooking peoples tickets. Finally we were booked on a British Airways flight that had been delayed from a 4:40pm take off to 5:50pm. Great, only 20 mins wait.

So we go to checkin with British Airways. Another 20 mins and we find that there are about 10 or so people in line that are in the same prediciment as us, and had been booked on the same BA flight. We get near the front of the line, and find that the flight had left, as schedualed at 4:40pm. It was now nearing 5:00pm. Not happy at all. The American in front of us (who we overheard – how we knew that our flight was stuffed up) was told to go back to KLM ticketing and get our flights rebooked. He said “there is no way that I am waiting in that line for another half an hour”.
We chipped in and said “We’re supposed to be on that flight as well, we’re not leaving this line until something is done”.
Then we see the other 3 people who were ahead of the American guy, and a bunch of others in the line all chipped in as well. BA had a mission on their hands, and we were not leaving the line until it was solved. One of the customers started yelling at the ticketing agents, and they jumped up for security straight away. 5 mins later security wandered along with their huge massive guns. They were heavily armed, and that scared me a bit. What if one of them had a meltdown? Or an epileptic fit or something? That would be scary.

Anyway, BA took all of our tickets and re-booked them – taking about half an hour in the process, and we were booked on a flight leaving 6:45pm. Then the flight was delayed, before we even got our ticket, leaving 7:45pm. Gar. So much for having dinner in Amsterdam. Oh well, at least we were booked. And we got £10 of dinner vouchers, so we went through customs and had Nachos for dinner.

Finally our flight was called, for boarding at 8:00pm or something, then it took forever for them to get us boarded. Finally we were off, and wheels up about 8:20pm. The flight was surprisingly short – only 40mins. Was quicker than going from Wellington to Auckland. All that hassle for a 40min flight. Ants and I just don’t have luck for flying. I’m glad we’re going to be going to Paris at Christmas time by train.

The light meal on the plane was a chicken wrap. I very much enjoyed it. I also enjoyed watching the lights passing underneath me, and seeing how amazingly bright some of them were.

We landed at Schiphol aiport, and then there was a half hour taxi to the terminal. Bloody hell what a mission. I found out later that there are 6 runways at Schiphol, and they are all quite far apart from each other because of it being added to lots.

At least there were signs, and many of them in English. I had worried about how we were going to get around without knowing any Dutch. In the terminal there were also these two guys:

Catching the train to Amsterdam was easy, and only 15mins. Nice smooth ride – it reminded me of the Amtrak in USA.

Anthony happy he’s on the train to Amsterdam

And finally we were there at Amsterdam Centraal. We walked out the wrong way, and ended up near the harbour lol. Turning around, we went back through the station, and we were out in the fareezing Amsterdam air. The first thing that struck me was the bikes. Now I knew there were a lot of bikes in A’dam, but I didn’t know there were that many!! There they were, all piled up and chained to the railings. What a weird site.

We went straight to the hostel Aivengo Youth Hostel which we’d booked through hostelworld – a website well worth looking at, no matter what part of the world you’re going to.

The hostel wasn’t far from the station, but the weird thing was, our room was away from the hostel! Our room was in a little alley way about 2 mins walk from the main building. Talk about weird. But nice, because it kind of felt like we had a little apartment of our own in A’dam.

Little alleyway by our room

Erik and Giffy were waiting for us, and it was so so good to see them again.

The room was large, with 2x sets of bunk beds (which I was sad for, because I thought we got 2x double beds, but oh well). It was cold in the room too which wasn’t so nice. On the website, we were told that we would get linen and towels. The linen consisted of a bottom sheet and a throw. That I was not impressed with, because we would have scavanged up some sleeping bags if we’d known. It was 11:00pm A’dam time, by the time we got to the hostel and sorted ourselves out. It was also too cold to go out (at the moment) so chatted and went to sleep. I was disappointed that we didn’t get in at the time we were supposed to, because we missed out on a night out in A’dam. Dumb stupid flights.

~~*~~

For the interested

Netherlands

Amsterdam

Current Mood: annoyed & cold