Canals, cycling, coffeeshops, cannabis, crooked buildings.. oh my! Amsterdam is most definitely the place to be if you like any of the above. (Although, I must say that the coffee shops in Amsterdam are much different than anywhere else I’ve seen.) Emmi and I arrived to Amsterdam on Monday afternoon and knew we were in for an adventure, being in the city where prostitution is legal and cannabis is the main item sold at coffeeshops!
After about a 2 hour plane ride from Helsinki, we arrived to Amsterdam!
We hopped on a train to take us to our hostel for the next three nights.
The next few days consisted of exploring Amsterdam’s must see places:
CANALS
Amsterdam has a very elaborate canal system, with over 30 miles of canals and more than 1200 bridges. Such beautiful sites to see!
One day, we took a canal cruise tour. A great way to see the city, that’s for sure!
Prior to this, I didn’t realize that there where so many house boats located on the canals. I believe our tour guide mentioned that there were over 2,000! Some of them are even Airbnb’s.
Our tour guide also mentioned that the canal water is clean and safe to drink. She even dipped her glass in the water and drank it right in front of us! I don’t think she would have done that while in the Red Light District.. yuck, who knows what’s in that water!
The canals were probably one of my favorite things about the city!
BICYCLES
I felt as if I saw 5 times as many bicycles as I saw humans while in Amsterdam. I mean, everywhere you looked there would be a bicycle! Most of my pictures in this blog post probably have a bicycle in it. On a wall in our hostel, there was a statistic saying that there are over 820,000 bicycles in Amsterdam. Dam, that’s a lot! Especially for the population being similar to that number!
At one point, I felt as if the bicycles were just a part of the infrastructure in Amsterdam. Many of the bikes appeared to be rusted, outdated or not ridden in years. Ever heard of putting locks on bridges? Well, here they lock their bikes on bridges!
Unfortunately, we didn’t get the chance to ride bikes while in Amsterdam. When we had the time, the weather didn’t agree. It worked out anyways, as we were both nervous to drive there. The bicyclists there have extreme road rage! Luckily, the public transportation system was quite convenient, we used the trams and buses very frequently.
COFFEESHOPS
Luckily, before going to Amsterdam, we knew what the Coffeeshops were all about. I cannot imagine walking into a Coffeeshop there and having no idea about them mainly selling weed instead of coffee. What a crazy surprise that would be! I’m glad that we were prepared for what was about to happen before walking in. In Amsterdam, the advertisement of selling marijuana is illegal so I guess they decided to name their marijuana shops coffeeshops instead!
There were hundreds of coffeeshops around the city so you can use your imagination on what it smelled like in Amsterdam.
CROOKED BUILDINGS
No, it wasn’t because we spent too much time in coffeeshops to notice, but many buildings in Amsterdam were very lopsided. Our canal tour guide tried explaining to us that the buildings are like this because of the soil in which they are built on. Their crookedness adds interesting, nice character to the buildings (or can make you feel as if you’ve been in one too many coffeeshops).
RED LIGHT DISTRICT
Did you even visit Amsterdam if you didn’t stroll the streets of the Red Light District??
Soon, we were about to experience something like never before. Prior to this, the only hookers I’ve seen were the ones on the PlayStation game Grand Theft Auto. As much as my mind couldn’t believe it, the prostitutes in Amsterdam where much more realistic.
The streets of the Red light district were jam packed on a Monday night, so it’s hard to imagine what the weekends would look like there! We discovered that this might be the best place on earth to people watch. As I mentioned in a different blog, Emmi is working on obtaining her PhD in conversation analysis. We witnessed multiple encounters in the Red light district in which analyzing various conversations could very well be a whole study topic in itself!
The pedestrians walking in the area were so distracted by the live prostitutes to the point of almost being hit by bicyclists or walking off of the edge of the sidewalk and into the canal!
From watching people “window shop” to observing the amount of weed in the air, the red light district was most definitely worth visiting.
OTHER SITES
Other must see places in Amsterdam include the Anne Frank House, the Van Gogh Museum, the A’DAM lookout and much more.
We attempted to get tickets for the Anne Frank Museum but turns out we were about two months late. So book your tickets early if you plan on going!
Near the Anne Frank Museum happened to be a cheese museum. So when we found out we couldn’t get in to the Anne Frank House, we lifted our spirits by sampling free cheese!
If you want to see amazing panorama views of Amsterdam, you best go to A’DAM Lookout. They even have a swing that goes over the edge of the building for those adventure/ thrill seekers!
In case you are wondering, yes there is a small safety belt on the swing! Amazing views from up there!
We also visited Dam Square which is located in the heart of Amsterdam. There, the Royal Palace and National Monument are located.
We wondered past the Rijksmuseum and watched tourists as they climbed all over the I amsterdam sign.
We also visited the Van Gogh museum which was right near this area.
While here, I found myself extremely inspired by the artist himself. Van Gogh battled mental illness but continued working steadily and courageously to become a better artist. Although his career as an artist was short (about 10 years), his influence on art has proved to be enduring.
After the Van Gogh museum, we wandered around Rembrandtplein. He was also a famous Dutch artist.
Unfortunately, our last day in Amsterdam was rainy so we thought maybe we could see some indoor things such as the botanical gardens or more museums. We arrived to the botanical gardens, but then came to the conclusion that we could visit a botanical garden almost anywhere else in the world that we visit.
So then, we remembered that we had walked past a museum of prostitution while in the red light district. I feel like Amsterdam might be the only place on earth where we would chose the museum of prostitution over the botanical gardens! We both agreed that it was well worth visiting to learn about how the system worked.
After learning about prostitutes, we went to another place worth visiting while in Amsterdam. We were able to kill two birds with one stone at this place called Brouwerij ‘t IJ, since it was a brewery right next to a Dutch windmill. The beer was delicious and cheap!
While in Amsterdam, we also tried Bitterballen (like a Dutch styled fried meatball), stroopwafels, lots of Heineken and Amstel beer.
Besides missing the Anne Frank museum, we also missed Keukenhof, which is the worlds largest tulip garden located outside of Amsterdam. It is only open from mid March to mid May, so we missed it by a couple of weeks!
Overall, I think Emmi and I both agreed that Amsterdam was probably one of the most unique and interesting cities that we have been to. From exploring the canals to exploring the coffeeshops and red light district, Amsterdam is like nothing we have ever seen or experienced before. I am so thankful for this continued opportunity to travel and explore. And being able to travel with my Cali roomie has made the time even better, what a dam good 4 days it has been!
The Aud Blog 