Now for the weekend. Amsterdam is both one of the loveliest places I have been and one of the seediest.
I arrived very late Thursday night (almost midnight) and after much hassle with the trains etc. met up with Tim, the friend of Patty (my traveling companion) with whom we stayed. We went back to Tim´s dorm room and hung out for a while, ate stroopwafels (delicious Dutch cookies), and went to sleep.
On Friday, Patty and I walked from Tim´s place to the area near the Westerkerk and Anne Frank´s house. We first stopped and had Dutch pastries and coffee for breakfast. Patty had an apple tart and I had a raspberry tart, both of which were basically fresh-tasting, sweet fruit on top of shortbread. We also tried another variation on stroopwafel, this time toffee flavored. Still very delicious. We went to the Anne Frank huis (quite sad, as one would expect) and the Westerkerk (in English, western church). The church is supposed to have great views from the steeple but it does not open until April.
We walked to Dam square and saw the Nieuwe kerk. We met up with Tim again and got falafel. We also saw this really pretty nun's sanctuary called Begijnhof. There were lots of pretty flower. We then went to a coffee shop and chilled for a bit. I had a tosti (Dutch toasted sandwich) at the coffee shop and it was quite tasty. I definitely ate too much this weekend and will have to cut back this week as a result. After the coffee shop we went grocery shopping for dinner and ended up with a bunch of really good focaccia. I also had a strawberry yogurt smoothie.
We went back to the dorm and made a dinner of vegetables, pork, and tomato sauce over fusilli pasta, and shared a bottle of wine. That finally ended the food intake for Friday. We just hung out listening to music for a while. Patty and I practiced dancing to Ave Maria by David Bisbal and Single Ladies by Beyonce. It was a very relaxed evening.
On Saturday we got up and headed over to Museumplein. We stopped on the way for pancakes. The pancakes are halfway between a crepe and an American pancake and were delicious. We got one with strawberries, powdered sugar, and whipped cream, and one with bacon and apple and cinnamon. They were both fantastic.
After breakfast we went to the Rijksmuseum. Unfortunately we had to wait about an hour in the queue to get it and then had to pay a whopping 11 euro entrance fee. This would not be so whopping if the museum was gigantic, but they are under constructioin and the collection is incredibly limited. I did see quite a bit of Rembrandt and a few Vermeers, however.
After the museum we spent time in the park nearby, trying to take pictures with the giant I Amsterdam statue thing. We headed to the Van Gogh museum, but the queue made it so that we had an hours-long wait ahead of us. So instead we went back to the dorm to meet up with Tim. On a side note, we saw these lizards in a park on our way through this one area:
I was completely convinced that they were real. My first thought: Wow, I can't believe there are so many komodo dragons right here in this little fenced-in park. Next thought: Wait, the lizards are escaping! Oh my god, there are a bunch of them outside the fenced area, near those people! Next thought: Doesn't anyone care that these lizards are escaping? They're huge! Someone could get hurt! Finally: Wait...are they statues?
Tim, Patty and I ended up going to an Indian restaurant and had a good curry dinner.
We headed from there to the Red Light district. It was a bizarre experience. It was filthy, covered with trash and puke and who knows what else. There were these giant public urinal things overflowing with pee. This is as good a time as any to mention that the entire weekend we saw Scotsmen in kilts on every single street. The Netherlands played Scotland Saturday night, so they were all there for the game. Kilts and St. Andrew flags were everywhere! All the bars were playing either the Proclaimers or the Fratellis!
Getting back to the Red Light district, it was so strange for me and Patty to walk down these alleys with prostitutes in all the windows, being the only girls in the street not for sale. (And almost the only non-Scottish people in the street as well.) I knew what to expect, that the prostitutes would be in the windows with red lights behind them, but it was surreal experiencing it in person. The other surprising thing was how hot and young some of them were! Certain streets had very attractive, very very young girls. We also passed the big black women and older women and fatter women and all the other genres, but they fit more into my idea of what a prostitute looks like.
Anyway, Sunday morning I had the worst stomachache of my life and could hardly move, so I did not do any sightseeing in the morning. I did however try another Dutch food staple: bitterballen. These are little deep fried meat and potato balls eaten with mustard. They were very much like croquetas. I also had one more tosti before leaving the city, a mozzarella and tomato sandwich. Got back to Barcelona Sunday night.
It is Monday evening and I am still at UPF. I will leave soon to go home before having dinner with some friends of mine. This week is short because I don´t have class Thursday afternoon or Friday. Next week starts spring break, so I will be headed to Brussels and Antwerp Friday through Monday, then jet to Athens for my Greek holiday.
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