A is for Amsterdam

I have decided that an A-Z blogging challenge will help me get back in the rhythm of writing. And so, let’s begin with Amsterdam. 

From our chalk board at home =)

It was on C’s wish list for a while and I was looking forward to it for the windmills and tulips. A plan for the extended Easter weekend (the UK’s only real festival apart from Christmas) meant I could see tulips for real. Spring, after all!

Yellow flowers and sunshine can do this

Over time we have become Airbnb pros and just find it more convenient to stay by ourselves, especially because finding vegetarian food can be a challenge in most part of Europe. Having our own kitchen means we can fix meals for ourselves if we need to and a private apartment/house also means we get to stay away from the sterile, standard world of hotels and get a better feel of local lifestyle. So we booked one for this trip too. It was a cosy studio with a garden by one of the hundreds of canals in the city. 

We left on the afternoon of Friday, 25th from London Heathrow with a lot of time at hand for security given the Brussels attacks the same week and all airports in the city being on alert that travel weekend.

It was a sunny, warm day – the first of its kind in a long time - and I felt funny leaving the city on such a day. Particularly because Amsterdam had rain forecasts. 

It was a short flight to the enormous Schiphol airport in Amsterdam. E-N-O-R-M-O-U-S. With the irony of four immigration counters for those entering the country. Even though C tried to reason it by saying that the airport is largely for transits I could not understand how it could be so random. Hordes of people were literally sweating it out in the unorganised queues to get a stamp on their passports. I have to note at this point how much I feel for India and the criticisms we are used to making every time I see such inefficiencies in other parts of the world (which has been often in my rather short period of travelling in Europe and the Middle East). Some episodes worse than others, but shit happens everywhere and all the time. India is not unique even though its challenges are often more unique than others’. 

Anyway. We took a train from the airport to the city and walked around 20 minutes through the by-lanes before reaching our apartment in Zeeburgerdijk. The hosts had kindly provided information about the surrounding area along with recommendations on places to eat. It was around 2130 then and we decided to go out for a short walk. To our delight, we found an old windmill close to the house (we could literally see it from our backyard) which had a brewery in its yard, along with a warm, hip bar & restaurant next door. We settled there after a short stroll to get some food and drinks. C noticed cute women around (apparently Europe does better than the UK) and I appreciated a cute dog around. Our priorities are pretty clear. 

The next day, the only one with clear skies, was dedicated to Keukenhof. But before heading back to Schiphol to get our bus to Keukenhof, we went to the highly recommended, Netherlands’ first omelettery (I didn’t know that was a thing), Omelegg. We waited about 30 minutes to get in but it was worth the wait. The place had a great menu, warm ambience and the food was good! From there we walked to the Amsterdam Centraal station and took a train to Schiphol. 

It is a busy city. Its roads look very busy because of trams, cycles, buses, cars and people – everyone fighting for a pie of their own. And I feel like the Easter weekend saw many tourists like us as well. 

Schiphol’s parking lot gave a clear sense of the number of visitors. It had hundreds of people queueing up for a bus to Keukenhof. I wasn’t too excited about it but could not be bothered. They had buses leaving every five minutes so the wait wasn’t too long. The 30 minute bus ride also brought more windmill views. :D 

The park was packed – with people and bulbs. A little too commercial for my liking but I was happy to see the colours and click my pictures. We were a few weeks too early to see the fields blooming and missed that sight. Maybe for next time. Maybe for Kashmir.

Blurry happiness!

We came back home to freshen up and go out for Indonesian food which somehow is popular in Amsterdam. But we didn’t have the greatest experience, i.e., I was still hungry after that and ended up eating at McDonald’s. We randomly strolled around the centre of the city. I bought a few souvenirs. A drunk man pushed C. We went to buy a brownie but returned with a muffin which was neither tasty nor had the effect it was meant to have. 

Over the next couple of days we rode trams, we ate waffles (Metropolitan!), we didn’t ride bikes because it was too cold and windy and a bit on the dangerous side. We ate more desserts and the speciality fries which are sold all around the city, looked for more specific souvenirs and walked so much that my pedometer crossed all previous records.

Chocolate madness!

I couldn't resist this one!

That Sunday we started the day with an open boat canal tour of the city. We had a lesson in finding an open top boat for such tours which otherwise can be boring. We found a perfect, small boat with no headsets for standard commentary. Instead we had a local old lady talking us through Amsterdam’s history – how the wealthy came to Amsterdam from all around the world, how places got their names, how they have over 150 nationalities living there, and so on. Most fascinating for me was how the houses in the city had tree trunk foundations which lasted over a hundred years but many are now getting weak and several houses have a tilt. I mean move over leaning tower of Pisa. These houses are serious business. 

TILTED

One other tradition we now have (it started with Kronotrop in Istanbul) is of visiting authentic artisan coffee shops whenever we visit a new city. Amsterdam’s Screaming Beans was on our list of recommendations from friends and it did not let down. Well, I didn’t have coffee. C did. It’s his thing. 

We also found a different brownie shop and made sure we found something that had more power. I had a bit of the brownie and had a short fit of laughter. While it was funny it was also scary because it felt like it took over all my brain cells and drove me into complete hysteria. It was mighty scary. C was unaffected. He claims he slept well because of it.

That same evening we also did a tour of the red light district. C still manages to surprise me at times - this time with a map he managed to find online with 12-13 landmarks of the district. Before we knew it I was navigating and leading our tour group of two. But this is ideally a night time activity (duh). I was very fascinated by the windows which I knew were occupied by women at night and made sure to take C back there after dinner. It was obviously nothing like anything I had ever seen before. And in the spirit of being there I even bought myself a conservative souvenir from a shop. 

This is how it's done

Our final day in the city was relaxed. The weather was confused – extreme winds and some rain were followed by a surprisingly pleasant sunny spell. We did not have much of an agenda except to get a good, filling meal – it happens towards the end of every trip. So we found an Indian restaurant with Pakistani staff and really good food! Koh-i-Noor restaurant was a good find after landing at several closed places across the city. But before that we chanced upon the Coster Diamonds factory for a free tour and a walk through their collection of some fine stones. The other (original) Kohinoor story of theirs wasn’t fun. It never is. But pestering C for diamonds (which I’m not even particularly crazy about) was super fun. *grins*

Central to this trip was Spui, the station we invariantly landed at to access anything we wanted to see. So this post was originally going to be titled, “Chalo Spui”. But then I got more creative. 

The one-hour flight back was delayed by an hour. It reinforced my hatred for airports but then it gave us a chance to discuss our next trip.