are you getting somewhere?

I have flown through Amsterdam 3 times, attempted to plan a city visit 3 times. And it finally worked! Good thing, since I was about to give up on Amsterdam entirely. Either the public transportation system is not as easy to navigate as they claim, or it is just that to be worthy to use the system you first have to endure a vigorous usage test. To be honest, I’m not sure that I passed with flying colors. I managed to get on the wrong train right off the bat (But the lady at the desk told me to get on the 9:41 am at spoor 1 or 2, which I DID.)

I met a funny girl from Glasgow in the chaos of navigating the trains. And for some reason all the people who spoke Spanish came to me for directions. That worked out REALLY well for them. Once we had managed to communicate that, yes indeed this was the train to central Amsterdam, some magic hand switched the electronic signs for the platform and all the passengers standing on one side migrated to the other. The Spanish speaking guy thought this was really funny.

Of course, I had managed to leave my raincoat in my checked bags, and the rain was coming down hard enough that I could hear it on the roof of the train station attached to the airport. No matter, Schippol international airport says, look we have an H & M full of umbrellas to purchase before you go out in that nasty weather! Funny, it was dry 30 minutes later when I walked out of the airport.

I walked through the different areas of the old town, more afraid of the millions of bicyclists than the piddly cars. I went through the old romanticized working class district- Jordaan; and the red light district. I found the Anne Frank house, but the line was around the block, so I put it on my “to do on next trip,” along with buy dutch tulips and cheese. I can’t believe how well I was able to get around for having only a map with five major street names. Granted I used the old-fashioned GPS system too; it takes about the same number of pointed index fingers to get to a place as it does steps on a new-fangled thing. I actually stumbled across the place I had planned to eat lunch because it was the most interesting building on a street. I felt like it was a bonus. Such a great old building, and inside I got to eat genuine Dutch farm cheese. MMM.

Last stop of the day: a canal tour. Learned a lot about the city while chatting with two women from Belfast. We peered into the windows of some of the city’s 2500 houseboats. We saw a diamond factory, a house that is only 1 and 1/2 meters wide, and house that were tipping and listing this way and that from their foundations sinking into the canals.

The town smells a lot like coffee, pancakes and cannabis. And everyone says hello first in Dutch, but when you respond with an ignorant “hi” they continue with you in English quite kindly. There are bikes EVERYWHERE. I didn’t see any car parking structures, but instead the two-story parking structures are for bikes. So advanced for people who give medieval brooms made of branches to their street sweepers.