Eurotrip #7 Amsterdam

Hi everyone!

It's well known that us Spaniards are friends of our friends and lovers of fun, which means that when a friend goes away for Erasmus, a trip is almost obligatory. Furthermore, if there is something that we Spaniards aren't, it's discrete, so we like to do everything big and make sure that our presence is noted. These two reasons meant that during the holidays between semesters (essentially it's more drinking like the Germans than anything else) 13 friends invaded my bedroom. The first group only came for 3 days, so we only went to Bremen for a brief visit to Hamburg whereas the second group (my friends from school) came for a whole week. Bremen is a very nice city, but it doesn't take much time to see it, so we decided to take advantage of their visit by spending 3 days in one of meca's of travelling for young people in Europe: Amsterdam!

My friends arrived in Bremen on Monday night, so we decided to go to Amsterdam on the first bus on Tuesday morning at 6am with the intention of taking advantage of the day. The Bremen - Amsterdam bus (coming from Berlin) costs 19€ for the journey; it's a route covered by the company Flixbus, one of the cheapest bus companies in Germany. Before getting the bus on Monday morning, we went out to eat and have a drink, but they gave us so many drinks that half of us decided not to sleep at all, whilst the rest of us went to have a siesta, so we could continue for the 5 hour bus journey to the Dutch capital.

The bus dropped us off at Amsterdam Sloterdijk station, from which you can catch a train that quickly takes you to Central Station for the cost of 2. 80€. From there, we quickly walked to our hostel (Central Station Hostel). It was situated right in the middle of Amsterdam, in between Dam square and the red light district, it was hidden in a small side-street where a door lead to a narrow and steep staircase that takes you to a tiny reception area and the rooms.

It definitely wasn't the best hostel in the world (no common area, nor a kitchen, not even a hallway where you could sit and wait), but without a doubt, it's a good option for young and thrifty travellers. Its location is about 2 minutes from Dam square, allowing you to avoid public transport and therefore saving time and money; furthermore, it offered one of the best prices for a hostel in the centre of Amsterdam. It cost us 12. 50€ per person per night even though we stayed there in the middle of the week and during the low season... So I suppose the price will go up during the more popular months. Despite the access and common areas of the hostel leaving a lot to be desired, the bedrooms and the bathrooms were fairly nice, which made it a hostel just for sleeping and not much else, which is really what we came to do in Amsterdam.

After leaving our things there, we went to go and explore the surroundings of the hostel before joining a free tour. From the first moment, the streets of Amsterdam give off a very characteristic atmosphere: the docile canals, the narrow and inclining buildings, the infinite details on the façades of buildings, the tourists crossing bridges and taking thousands of photos, the aroma coming out of the coffee shops...

Once we had finished walking around a bit, we went towards Dam square which is where we started the free tour, with the omnipresent company Sandemands New Europe, with whom I had done some tours in Lisbon and Berlin. The tours in these two cities were very interesting and fun, however, this time it was different. Personally, I like tour guides who combine a certain rigour and historical professionalism with a sense of humour and dynamism, in a way which makes the tour informative and enjoyable at the same time. I have to say that the tour guide wasn't bad, but the large number of people on the tour and the exhaustion from the journey coupled with the tour guides over exaggerated enthusiasm meant that we left halfway through the tour, something that hasn't ever happened to me since. However, before we left the tour, we went to the National Monument in Dam square, which was the meeting point for the start of the tour. From there we carried on to Warmoesstraat, one of the most important streets in the Red Light District.

Crossing some of the small side-roads dedicated to prostitution we eventually arrived at Oude Kerk (old church), whose contradictory location in the middle of the district of sin is proof of the strange agreement established in Amsterdam between the church and the prostitutes. According to what the guide told us, the priests allowed the prostitutes to continue with their profession on the condition that they reminded the sailors that they were sinning and then send them to the church, where, for a small fee, the priests would grant them a religious pardon, for their indulgences, at their own disposition. This kind of corruption and commercialisation of faith was one of the reasons for the appearance of Protestantism which transformed the "Oude Kerk" from a Catholic church to a Calvinistic church.

From there we went on to Nieuwmarkt, a square dominated by the Waag building, one of the oldest gates in the wall which leads to a weighing house, that is to say, the place where the merchants went to weigh their merchandise. This was the point at which we decided to leave the tour group and continue to wander around the city of canals by ourselves. However, the sleepless night the night before combined with the 5 hour bus journey started to take its toll on us, so we decided to go and eat at a pizzeria next to the hostel called New York pizza (Damstraat, 24), and we took a nap in our bedroom. The problem was that the hostel didn't provide us with any alarm clocks, so our siesta got a bit out of hand and we started to wake up around 8pm. Maybe taking the bus at 6 in the morning to take advantage of the day was not such a good idea.

When we woke up, we decided to go out for a stroll and see some of the things that had been recommended to us by one of Carlos' friends, so we went to the closest district to the train station where we went to a café called Lost in Amsterdam (Nieuwendijk, 19). It was styled in a sort of Arabic style. Amsterdam has a reputation of being a very expensive city, and no wonder! It's something that you can check for yourself on the receipt from the café - it had a little note at the bottom saying "sorry for the damage".

After, we went to explore the famous "night life" in the Red Light District, but not without making a strategic stop at McDonalds for dinner. At night, the red lights in the prostitutes' shop windows brings to attention how different this area is, it's very strange and a little overwhelming. The visit to the narrow street of Trompettersteeg, a side-street about a meter wide enclosed by prostitutes' shop windows, produced a certain feeling of claustrophobia. Without a doubt, the presence of prostitution in this area confirms its unique character, but it also opens up the debate about the benefits and inconveniences of the legal activity. From my point of view, treating prostitution like any other profession allows the sex-workers' situation to be standardised and improved, but it's impossible to deny that the shop windows in Amsterdam are not proof of the objectification of women, presenting themselves like goods on display. What's also a bit strange is the variety and eccentricity of the businesses present in this area, such as the "condomerie". Despite the nap we had taken, our night didn't last too long seeing as the majority of bars and coffee shops in the city close before 2.

One of the problems of travelling in such a big group (8 people) is that it makes doing everything a lot slower, as it did the following day for us. Despite one of our room mates gracefully waking us up by falling off their bunk bed, we missed nearly the whole morning because we got going so slowly. Once showered and ready, we made a stop at the nearby supermarket (just behind the Royal Palace), because we wanted to eat in the city and save some of our money. The supermarket was actually fairly reasonably priced and of fairly good quality; in fact, we bought some cheeses that were really tasty. Our first stop was the Bloemenmarkt. The flower market, despite its striking colours and the large quantity of Dutch tulips on sale, disappointed me a little bit since it wasn't that flashy.

Continuing by the canal, which is where the market, called Singel, is found, you get to the Catholic church De Krijtberg, (dedicated to Saint Francis Xavier) that stands out for its polychromy, the richness of its altar and the very dark atmosphere, in contrast to the Protestant sobriety.

After the visit to the church, it started hailing a bit, but that didn't stop us from continuing our stroll to Westerkerk, which is where we ate our sandwiches that we bought in the supermarket earlier.

Together with Westerkerk church was The Anne Frank museum and house, the young Jewish girl whose diary is one of the most personal testimonies of the Holocaust. The long line and the entry fee meant that we didn't end up going in, so we went on to the interior of Westerkerk. This church, which is Protestant, has a light atmosphere, simple and calm, where a large organ stands out above the main entrance. We had the intention to go up the church tower to see the views of the city but the climb up was not available.

There are definitely a lot of activities to do and places to visit in Amsterdam, like the boat trips on the canals, trips to the Heineken factory or interesting museums such as the Van Gough museum, the Rembrandt museum or the Rijksmuseum; but the lack of disposable income and the difficulty for us to all agree on one activity meant that for the rest of the afternoon we decided to stroll around the city, going back through all the pretty streets on the canals and enjoying the atmosphere of the bars and coffee shops, because the next morning, we were returning to Bremen in the afternoon.

In conclusion, Amsterdam seemed like a gorgeous city to me, with a very characteristic urban landscape and with certain features which are very different from other European cities. However, I have to say that I had the feeling that I was visiting a commercial product, it's a city that is very "prepared" for tourists, too "touristic" perhaps. That's not to say that I didn't like the city any less, but it's definitely this type of city that makes you wonder if people really live like that or if it's just a front they want to project for the tourists. Despite this, it's totally worth the visit, and I would add that it's a good destination to go to with a big group of friends who want to have a good time rather than do cultural and touristy things.

I'm going to leave a link to the video that my friend Dani shot. It's all about Amsterdam and the rest of their time in Bremen and Hamburg.

Until the next post!

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