Living next door to Amsterdam, it was top most on the list to visit places in Holland. But, as confessed earlier, I have very less international experiences and am quite shy and more than that very psycho about losing my way around in a new country due to lack of spatial intelligence.
CK was a good moral support, as she is as less traveled internationally as I am. So, after looking up the map for basics (where basics = which tram station to get on the tram and where in Amsterdam to get down), we made the following plan…
8:30 am – wake up
9:30 am– cook and have breakfast
10:30 am – get ready and leave so that we are there in sufficient time to do the following:
- Stroll around the city centre
- See the Van Gogh Museum and Rijks Museum.
- Find a good Indian restaurant and have lunch
- Go on a canal cruise (as advised by a Dutch colleague)
This is what actually happened:
9:30 am – grudgingly got out of bed
10:00 am – still thinking what to cook for breakfast
10:30 am- cooked some thing and had a lazy breakfast
11:00 am - gossiping about random things
12:00 am- rushed to get ready
12:30 am – at the tram station
This was the first time we were heading in the Amsterdam direction of Holland so everything about the scenery was new and before we realized we were in the middle of the town. Still not sure where we were getting down was really the centre of the town, we got down at Dam. Walked a few paces ahead and reached the sex shop area and were quite taken aback and wide-eyed (for the hundredth time!) to see real women in bikinis ‘selling sex’ in the windows of shops in bikinis and lingerie. It was probably as natural to them as hawkers selling watches in Sarojini Nagar, pestering passersby to ‘sishter, have a look at least’.
But it was surprisingly quiet for a Saturday, and our main aim to get away from Amstelveen was to get away from the eerie silence and get into some hustle bustle and NOISE. So, we moved around in search of some more hustly-bustly places and walked backwards from Dam along the tram track (to be safe). At every few paces, the street names changed. We wanted to get to Liedesplein. So, for the first time in my life I looked at a map carefully (which to some extent explains my lack of spatial intelligence). Asking for directions is quite hopeless because by the time you learn the correct pronunciation, you can go from Amstelveen to Amsterdam 3 times.
So, again for the first time, we explored the place on our own, only with the map (I know u are thinking, ‘which is how it should be’ yeah..yeah!)
So, although we can strike off the first item on the list about ‘strolling around the city centre’, we quite forgot about the Museums in all the glamour and glitz and amazing buildings of the place. CK was going nuts clicking pictures, and I was blissfully just looking around and taking it all in. The people, the neat looking bill boards, the ‘green coffee shops’, the smells…more than often of the weed/pot/grass wafting at short intervals, stoned gazes, the canal, the jaw-droppingly amazing designer shops for shoes and clothes, the trams weaving in and out of the crowd, the beautiful and old brick buildings and some magnificent new ones!
About the Indian restaurants…we found quite a few, one almost immediately as we reached Dam and a few more, some hidden, some sitting proud on the streets with Indian flag etc…all had one thing in common…ridiculously expensive! Only a firangi can be duped into having ‘bhindi fry’ for 7.5 Euros? R-I-D-I-C-U-L-O-U-S
So, we decided to make do with some good falafel. Thanks to CK’s prayers, we found a ‘vegetarian only’ falafel joint….she must have prayed real hard 'coz as it turned out it was run by a sardar. So, after a hearty pita bread and falafel meal, we headed for a scoop of Ben and Jerry! I can only tell you that Belgian Waffle Sundae is quite heavenly! Also, we were extremely proud that we managed a filling meal with dessert in less than 15 Euros (for both of us!!)
It was 4 already and we were quite content with our own expeditions, till we saw the canal cruise board and realized ‘Oh..we had to do THAT too!’, so we found the nearest Tourist Information centre and got on to a 1 hour cruise.
(This was not as easy as it sounds, we often have to go round and round asking for directions and then CK and I nudge each other to go ask for directions because the accent is sometimes difficult to understand…here too we went round and round to know we didn’t have to go anywhere and the boat would come right there!)
Anyhow, I think the canal cruise was the highlight of the day. It was a fancy looking thing. Quite unimaginatively it was called the ‘The Blue Boat Company’ as all the boats were blue. I think we made the right choice to sit at the back of the boat with no fancy seats and in open air. Although, it was a wrong time for my bladder to feel full, I enjoyed every bit of it. It went through the city and on the way were the important landmarks of Amsterdam, the names of which I don’t remember but there were important looking buildings all around and also some beautiful and brightly painted house boats. CK, I think, saw everything through the digital screen of her canon camera, as she was again on the picture clicking spree. I think it was the shortest one hour of my life. There was SO much to see.
I think it was amazing how nature (canals) and technology (tram tracks) old and new, trees and buildings, blend into each other, none making the other look ugly or out-of-place.
It was 6 and the shops began to shut down….yeah, I don’t know what is with the Dutch and closing down most of the things by 6! Only on Thursdays Amsterdam is open till 9 PM. Morons, Aakhir Thursday kyun??
All-in-all it was quite a fulfilling visit. But next time we plan not to ignore the Museums and will plan a special trip for the Museums…or maybe that’s just an excuse to go back.
No comments:
Post a Comment