Amsterdam Adventures (Day One)

I'm back! After a fabulous 4 days of traveling through Amsterdam with Evan and Helen, I returned to CPH last night shortly after 9pm. We walked miles and miles and miles (so much in fact, that I needed to get some cheap insoles to help my aching feet!). I have so many photos and stories to share, and I think the easiest way to do so will be to write one blog post for each of the four days that I was away (plus one). I will also include some info about my travel day ("day zero"). Behold, my Amsterdam Adventures!...

Day Zero: I last posted on Wednesday as I scurried about the house trying to get everything together before heading to the airport. I left right on time and had a flawless trip from my door to the gate for my flight. It was almost a little strange... not one time did anyone look at any form of ID: not my passport, not my Danish residence card, nothing. I didn't even check in anywhere. I printed a paper online before I set off and showed it to the stewardess at the gate as I boarded the plane at which point she printed me a boarding pass... weird.


The flight was also nice and easy. I sat next to a very cute boy who was also very charming, but (of course) was heading to Amsterdam to see his girlfriend. Typical.

The AWESOME airport

I had a little time to kill in the Amsterdam airport while waiting for Helen and Evan to arrive, but had no trouble finding things to do. There were plenty of shops with things at an affordable price (though I didn't buy anything, it made looking a lot more fun). I went and bought a map at the tourist info desk, which ended up being a worthy investment.

Finally, at around 8:15pm Helen arrived! She had been traveling by herself through Scotland and we exchanged stories about our earlier parts of the week. Shortly thereafter Evan joined us too and the three of us set off to find the trains to our hostel.

Getting to the hostel proved to be slightly chaotic. We needed to take a train from the airport to Amsterdam Central Station and then a tram from the station to our hostel. The names of things were even stranger than they are in Denmark and we couldn't figure out how to use the ticket machine.

Helen lets Evan try his debit card to purchase our tickets

We made it to the platform, but just missed a train by about 15 seconds. We realized that it was getting late so we decided we should probably let the hostel know we were on the way. While Helen tried to figure out how to call them, Evan heard an announcement that the next train going to central station was going to be leaving from a different platform. We ran up the stairs (dragging our suitcases), through the terminal and down to the stairs to another track (all the while poor Helen tried to give our info to the hostel) and made the train... whew!

Yeah, we couldn't figure out how to say any of the station names

This is the exact moment that Evan realized our train would be coming to a different platform in less than 1 minute

It was too dark to have any good impressions of the city that first night, and we happily settled down in our hostel to plan for the coming days.

Hard at work annotating our map of the city and making reservations online

Day One: We woke up eager to enjoy our free breakfast (included in the price for the room) and finalize plans for our first full day in Amsterdam. We went to the one tiny room that served as the kitchen, dining room, only lounge, and registration area where breakfast was held. "Breakfast" actually equalled bread. Just bread. Well, bread and jam or Nutella (which made us happy enough, especially since it meant saving money). While we ate, we checked Evan's email to see whether the Yellow Bike Tour company had written us back about our request to do the Big City Bike Tour. They had! We had a 1:30pm reservation. Amsterdam is also known to have big biking culture, so we thought it would be a cool way to get an authentic experience and to get our bearings on the first day.

We had a little time before we needed to get to the rental place, so we wandered slowly in that general direction. I will say here that Evan gets 100% of the credit for getting us everywhere we went the whole week. I know from my adventures in London last summer that I am capable of getting myself places when I need to, but armed with our map, Evan took the city by storm. We got lost only twice the whole trip and saw everything we wanted to and more.

Anyway, even though the skies we grey, the city was gorgeous. The canals the frame the city make it picture perfect. The buildings had adorable architectures and the streets were made entirely of bricks. A few photos of our morning wanderings and our break for lunch:

We took pictures on the giant I AMsterdam sign...

...and enjoyed watching an adorable group of Dutch children playing there too

Grey sky and still beautiful 

I had no idea that the Dutch are obsessed with cheese

Helen and me on one of MANY bridges between the canals

Inside one of several churches that we visited

Evan and Helen consult a map

View out from an arch

Bikes!

Here comes the sun! (temporarily)

So pretty in the sunshine 

Enjoying lunch at a cute cafe

Being silly

After eating we made it to the rental place with plenty of time to spare. At 1:20 we were fitted on big yellow bikes, and met the other two members of our group (a father and daughter from Chile) and our guide, Peter. My mother will be angry to know that we were not given helmets (just as a note, I saw literally not even one person wearing a helmet while biking the entire time we were there), and while I would like to say that it was fine because biking was easy and safe, that would definitely be a lie.

Our biking tour group!

In CPH, biking culture is very structured. In fact, my week in Amsterdam made me realize how structured everything in Denmark is. In Amsterdam being a pedestrian and/or biker was terrifying. There were no rules to the road; when you arrived at an intersection without a traffic light, you just went careening into it. There were no stop signs or yield signs and so cars and bikes just went flying at full speed, very often only missing each other by a fraction of a second. At first I tried to be polite and stop at each crossroad, but that proved to be just as dangerous to the people behind me, so I devised a new strategy: hold my breath, say a prayer, and get on full alert to have to suddenly jerk my handlebars in another direction. In other words, the experience was fun, but definitely stressful! I am currently putting together a little video of some footage I took from by bicycle seat, but for now, pictures will have to do.

View from my handlebars 

An absolutely beautiful street to live on...

...but an apartment will cost millions of dollars

Photo break

Notice that the buildings slant forward. This has several practical purposes including enabling loading things into the building through the upper windows without having them slam into the walls

The smallest building-front in Amsterdam 

Check out the building on the corner 

Total craziness (people--including young children--rode on the backs of each other's bikes like this all the time)

We took a break from our biking and had coffee/hot chocolate at a cafe in a park

View from my handlebars while going through the park

Riding between lanes of traffic 

City streets

There goes Helen and Evan!

After biking decided to walk around and eventually find our way to dinner. We knew that we wanted to end up at a restaurant called Bojo, but to get there went through some cool streets. Evan found a cheese and chocolate shop, which we went into and took the opportunity to enjoy an appetizer of 10 or so samples of fresh cheese and chocolate. :-)

The view of tunnels as a boat comes through the canal

Cheeeeese!

Free samples=free appetizers! 

We arrived before the evening rush. By the time we
were done there was a wait for a table

Dinner was absolutely delicious (this is a theme that will be constantly revisited). We ate well and left with our bellies full and warm. On our way home we discussed the days highlights, which is something that I usually make any travel companion do with me each day. I started the tradition with my Dad on our hiking trips many years ago, and we continued it in Amsterdam.

Before 

After

Highlights Day One:

Helen: The park on the bike tour; seeing the Red Light District; the lights on the canals at nights

Evan: The random cheese tasting, getting to see the many different parts of the city so that we knew where we wanted to go back to see more, (and we couldn't remember his third one the next day when I wrote them down... oops)

Sara: Noticing the differences between CPH and Amsterdam; The food (Bojo for dinner and yummy lunch); tons of photo opps