Hey you guys, travellers, my friends, strangers, ladies or men, anyone,
I've been missing you lately, therefore, I have finally decided to sum up all 3 of my trips to my beloved Amsterdam in the past three months. Of course, as always, I am about to give you some (hopefully) valuable tips and share the most amazing pictures and stories, so you can all be even more tempted to visit this incredible city (don't thank me)!
As you all know (those who don't can read all about it HERE) I spent my second semester of my second year at the University abroad. I went for an Erasmus Exchange to Leuven, Belgium (aww, I am getting emotional even when typing that, ok, more on Erasmus is coming soon!) which allowed me to easily travel to Belgium's neighboring countries. One of these is Netherlands, where I only have visited Amsterdam so far (shame on you, Michaela). However, I have managed to visit the aforementioned beauty three times already, so not that bad, right? Hence, I kinda feel like I am privileged to call myself an "Amsterdam expert", but frankly I am just an incurable Amsterdam enthusiast...
For those, that have not been to Amsterdam yet- be aware of the high possibility of easily falling in love with this city.
Ok, maybe it's about time I stopped praising the beauty of this city and being all emotional. There is no need for me to exaggerate, since you will soon find out the reason for all of the above! I also do apologize in advance, since you are most likely to be ending up buying yourself a ticket to Amsterdam after reading this article. So please forgive me for putting you into this difficult situation.
In order for me to clarify those three visits mentioned earlier, I went to Amsterdam first with my roommate and friend back from Worcester- Tyryza and Dominika, which was on 1st of April and we just stayed for the weekend. Then, me and Tyryza spontaneously decided to go see Macklemore and Ryan Lewis on their tour, also in Amsterdam, 7 days later. Lastly, I visited with my parents on our way back from Belgium, which was made easier and less sorrowful with this Eurotrip my dad had planned (Thank you dad, it really helped me to get over the Good Bye). So in overall, I have visited 3 times already, every time with someone else and with a different goal of each visit.
I don't really know where to start, since there is so much I want to show you and tell you! Anyways, let me start chronically..
P.S. it is a long one, so grab a snack, glass of wine or beer and dive into it :)
AMSTERDAM IN THE SPRING
There is no better time of the year to plan a visit to the country of the tulips than spring. We had been planning this trip long in advance, since we knew that this visit just had to work out! And it did. Luckily, our best friend when it comes to traveling- Megabus did not let us down this time either. The connections from Brussels (Leuven, where we studied and lived was situated about 20 mins from the capital) were often and very cheap! I think we paid around 20 euros for the roundtrip. The journey also lasted for only few hours, which was ideal since we had to go to lectures right after our arrival back (well, haha, we missed the classes anyway cause our bus was late, AND it truly was late haha, this is not just an made up excuse).
One of my tasks was to find an accommodation beforehand. As usually, I first tried to message some potential hosts on Couchsurfing, which was proven successful. Very kind and friendly Couchsurfer Koen provided us amazing accommodation. I would like to thank him this way once again for being very kind, being wonderful host and also introducing us some of the city.
On the first day we only stayed at Koen's, who made us a dinner- hamburgers and mashed potatoes with lettuce in it, which me and Tyryza both inspired by that recipe then made many times at home (Dank u Koen for the inspiration). We basically chatted the whole night, got to know our host, Dutch society, Amsterdam, Netherlands, shared some opinions and went to sleep. This is what I enjoy about Couchsurfing the most, it is not the free accommodation (students-on-budget alert!) but getting to know locals, local stories, local places, the community, interior of the houses, the way of living, the city from another perspective and the people. I definitely recommend everyone to try Couchsurfing at least once in their life since it brings an unforgettable and valuable experience.
On our second day in Amsterdam we decided to see all the highlights the city provides, wander around the cozy streets of the centre and the canals and basically just to absorb the atmosphere. Since we stayed near the city centre (I'd say it took us about 30 mins tops to get there) we decided to first go to see the Vondelpark. As for the size, this park is huge! Beware of the bikers (fyi- you will hear this many more times from me haha) when you go there, apart from that, the park is really green (Thank you Michaela for sharing this astonishing information) and has a friendly and sporty atmosphere. You may find a spot there for a BBQ, chill with your friends on the grass or go for a run/walk. If you come out of the park (in the direction of city centre) and turn right you soon will arrive to Museumplein, where another but way smaller park is situated along with the museums- Van Gogh Museum, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam or Moco Museum, which we did not visit. However, the main reason all the tourist head to this park and in front of the Rijksmuseum is the I AMSTERDAM sign, where everyone (including us of course) has to have a picture!! I would like to just quickly warn you- take a deep breath, feed your dad before deciding to go there and try to ignore other's people existence for the time spent there. You will definitely wait at least 10 minutes (if you are not one of the people (very lovely people) that just make their own way to the sign and ruin all other people's pictures) just to take one mainstream picture haha :---))) I bravely/cleverly took my Polaroid camera with me to have a physical/tangible memory and the guy who took our picture completely ruined it, and we only asked him cause he was handsome, soo... I should probably move on already from this unfortunate moment..Lesson- being handsome doesn't mean he can take pictures.
We had a quick lunch from Albert Heijn (the best supermarket ever- just saying). We went for salads and smoothie, which both are very affordable and DELICIOUS! Honestly, if you have a chance to grab those salads from Albert and eat them outside in a park, go for it! Luckily we found this supermarket in Leuven too, which definitely saved our lives there haha! (I bet Tyryza is craving one of them salads while reading this, sorry mate!)
Moving on, after taking loads of pictures in front of/ on/ under/ next to/ wherever the sign and first letters of our first names (M,T,D) we headed into the very centre of Amsterdam to find one specific café, which was recommended to me by my Twitter follower (thank you so much for this tip) that has a panoramic view over the whole city! This secret beauty's name is Blue Amsterdam and can be found on one of the canal streets in the centre. The day was pretty hot (which obviously me and Tereza weren't used from Belgium any more) so we decided to quench the thirst with some homemade beverages (do recommend the lemonade and ginger lemonade).
After using the wifi and finishing our drinks we wandered around the canals and city centre. Visited few souvenir shops and chilled. After it started to get darker we decided to pay a visit to the Red Light District. There is where all the fun started. Ok, so we knew it was forbidden to take pics of the ladies (google it if you are not aware of Red Light District), however, by not even intending to and rather focusing on taking a snap of the whole street Tyryza got caught by one of the ladies in the windows. She ran out of her "office" towards us (AND YES, WE WERE ACROSS THE CANAL) and started screaming at us (Tyryza almost dropped her phone, that is how terrified she got haha) "STOP IT, FUCK YOUUU, STOP IT BITCH OR I WILL FOKIN KILL YA!" (oh yes, this became our very own rap song then). So Tyryza's bad karma managed to catch us up again and in a big way! We then quietly disappeared from the crime scene.
- So just to brief you, taking pictures in the Red Light District is forbidden and you can get told off, or like in our case get your life can be in threat. Honestly, rather don't make the ladies angry, or their manager can get to you and force you to delete the picture or leave..
Being all terrified to death we rather escaped the crime scene as already said before and headed home to shake this trauma off haha. However, the crazy lady at least gave us theme for an original rap song from Amsterdam composed by us. I won't be sharing much, because nobody would get that and I bet you would immediately stop reading my post and started thinking we are crazy (if not already thinking so) haha (read: actually because of copyright since the song is such a hit). We then headed back home all ready for sleep and rest.
Ok, I think you could have gathered how the "M" letter looks by now haha
Our third day was all about the BIKES! Amsterdam and bikes just go together so we couldn't miss riding them for one day. Even though the bikes and bikers can get on your nerves when you are being a tourist and walking in Amsterdam, because we all got almost hit (well, actually hit) by them at least 4028 times per day. So we were indeed desperate to switch the roles and for once be the ones angry belling at everyone every 9 minutes while riding the bike. Don't ask me where we rented the bikes, since I don't even remember the name and would definitely not recommend you the one we went to. The owners were very rude, not paying attention to us at all, therefore we waited to be served for almost 30 minutes and it was all very weird and random. However, the only reason we did not leave was the dog they had there, cause we just kept petting him and would completely forget about the grumpy owners, haha classic us- give us an animal to pet and we are all yours (well ok, this sounds weird haha).
After we FINALLY found our way out of the city centre we decided to ride to the port of Amsterdam and use a transport boat that got us to the other side: Amsterdam-Noord across the river (or sea if you prefer). We did not expect much, however, I believe we could have done something more interesting than choosing to visit the industrial/other side. Well.. at least we could ride them bikes properly and fool around for a bit. We then got back to that small ferry and were back on the cool side of Amsterdam B-).
It was about lunch time when we found one of the fresh food markets that take place regularly during the weekends. We were supposed to meet Koen (our Couchsurfer) at one of these markets, however, the messages were not sent and received (read iPhone and iMessage, if you know what I mean) and, therefore, we had no place and time set to meet. Despite the failure of communication and mobile devices we randomly bumped into Koen at one of the markets, which was really random and such a coincidence. Koen then recommended us to try typical dutch meal- herrings (which is a type of a fish). Well... I love fish, but this one though? No thank you haha, it was very slimy, pickled and served with onions and gherkin. We chose a sandwich with herring and I can proudly say I am never having this fish again, sorry Amsterdam, this is the only thing I have to rebuke you for...
The rest of the day was very bike-related. We just biked around the city, around the park, used the bike bell at least 14238633051 times, got lost at least 824932529 times, bumped into (ok, hit, I admit) tourists at least 124364043 times and enjoyed it loads! I would definitely recommend you to spare 1 or at least half of your day in Amsterdam to rent a bike and just ride around the canals, parks and streets. You will immediately fall in love with biking and trust me, the following day walking will become extremely annoying haha.
When we arrived home, we decided to thank our host by cooking a dinner for him (we had no idea it would turn out that tragic). Ok, let me set the record straight- we can all cook very well, specially Tyryza, who we also call Jamie Oliver, however that night, the Universe just was not on our side. Our meal- chicken, spinach & potatoes took 4 hours to prepare, YES FOUR WHOLE HOURS instead of 1 hour. We felt so embarrassed since we kept our host waiting and the least was to cook him a dinner to thank him for having us at his. So embarrassing. We just wanted to disappear from that place and buy him some Maccies instead. Sorry Koen, we really can cook. Next time we promise it will be better haha!
Last day in Amsterdam we decided to spoil ourselves and went for breakfast goals. We went to Pancakes! Amsterdam and had the ultimate queen of pancakes- American pancakes with maple syrup and bacon (oh yaas).
Later on, we walked around the canals and visited a market on the Herengracht street, where we were all tempted to buy those black tulips. Later on we found our way back to Koen's place, packed our luggages and left Amsterdam (sadly). The sun was shining back then and we keep reminiscing this amazing weekend till now.
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis aka night spent in Amsterdam
Ok, as I briefly mentioned before, me and Tereza went to see Macklemore and Ryan Lewis on their Tour in Amsterdam on 10th of April (yes, we really went back after just 7 days). You may ask, why didn't you go to see them while they were in Belgium? Well, the answer to that is that we first- searched for the tickets after he already performed there, second- another reason to come back to Amsterdam (it was mainly the latter, you know it). So, we went to Amsterdam again to see them on Sunday. (Yes, mom and dad, I admit, I missed Monday's classes).
We decided not to book any accommodation (very, very good idea, way to go) in order to save some money and be pointlessly adventurous.
When we arrived to the concert, we were surprised how actually small the venue was. However, it only was an advantage since it all was more personal and had this intimate atmosphere. The tickets were honestly really cheap, I think we paid about 40 euros each. I mean having previously listened to their album about 343253 times it was a definite YES for us. We enjoyed the concert to the maximum, sang along with Macklemore, danced, and reflected with his speeches and comments. These guys for sure are humble and love their fans. That's it, end of the story, if you are thinking about going for their concert, definitely go for it!
The night, however, was not as awesome and easy as we had thought. The concert finished quite early, around 10pm and our bus was ought to leave at 7am the following morning. So, we first went to Maccies (classic), where we tried to survive in the air-conned room till they closed (2am). It was bloody cold outside, so with a cup of tea we decided to walk back to the train station and warm ourselves up with the walking. Ok, this was a suffer, we then had to stay in an elevator at the train station, which kept opening itself and just to clarify- it was like -30 degrees outside! Insane idea, I think we both lost our kidneys that night, but it was still worth it haha. To top it all off, the bus came about 2 hours late, so we had to wait for another extra 2 hours outside. That day couldn't possibly get any worse hahaha. But we survived! No surprise here, bad karma stroke again.
Amsterdam in June with my parents
Last but not least I visited Amsterdam with my dad and Blanka on our way home from my Erasmus. These two were kind enough to provide me with a lift from Leuven home. However, this was not just any kind of a lift. We first spent some time in Belgium, then continued to Amsterdam and last stopped in Berlin, from where we then headed back home to Czech (read legit euro trip).
I have just noticed how INSANELY LONG this post already is, which is me being all classic because I always tend to get "a bit" carried away, however, I will take the things more generally from here (I bet you've heard this one from me before as well), otherwise this post can easily turn into a novel. So, if you are still with me, thank you for being patient and curious as always, I appreciate it soo so much! xx
First day in Amsterdam was relaxed, we only managed to arrive in the afternoon because we were packing My and Tereza's studio and basically my whole life in Leuven (crying emoji). I wasn't really in the mood for travelling, but still, the idea of seeing Amsterdam helped me to get through the emotional goodbye..
Anyways, before leaving I just had to take some beers from Belgium with me at home, and I also got my parents hooked up on them (don't thank me folks), so we paid a quick (read bought 1341394103 beers) visit to Albert Heijn. After successfully buying 10 years worth of supplies of beers (just in case there was the end of the world, an apocalypse or just thirst and we needed some beers haha) we finally arrived to Amsterdam! Yay! This time we stayed in an apartment via Airbnb (my dad is a huge fan of this concept btw). Therefore, as I said, first day we only had a walk around the city, chilled, tried to uplift grumpy and sad Michaela (ice cream proved successful) and went back to bed early to gain some energy for the upcoming day.
Second/last day in Amsterdam was much more productive than the previous one. (by the way, this is almost the end of this post, hold on, you can do it haha, you can make it till the end, the pictures will be worth it, I promise).
First thing in the morning we wanted to see Anne Frank's House, HOWEVER, you apparently need to register online to visit in the morning (which is impossible because it's sold out months in advance!). Hence, the only chance to visit it is to start queuing in front of the entrance from 3:30 pm onwards. So, we decided to come back later in order to visit the House. After this unsuccessful attempt it also started raining (2:0 Amsterdam:us) and we had to find a café (any roof) to hide. Well, the timing was actually good cause I wanted to take my parents to Blue Amsterdam Café (which became my fave) with an overview of the whole city. All soaking wet we finally arrived and had some refreshments there, enjoyed the rainy view over Amsterdam and waited till it was no longer raining cats and dogs.
A fuel in the form of food was needed, so as to we had (surprise, surprise) fries. This time, we went for the well-known and probably the best fries in Amsterdam- Vlaams Friteshuis Vleminckx. Just beware of the sizes, don't ever go for large because you will get a portion like for Shrek and you will struggle for hours to finish the fries (been there, done that). Few minutes after, I mentioned herring (yes that tasty fish :))) to my dad, and he all enthusiastic had to try it. This time I decided to skip ahahaha, but my dad loved it! So I think you should definitely try herring, since it's a Dutch classic!
Picture in front of I AMSTERDAM sign was next on our agenda, however, it did not go quite as planned. We tried to take a picture in front, but due to 12593130000 people intending to do the exact same, we had to wait for a bit (read 10 mins). This was not my dad's cup of tea and we then left, no proper picture from June in front of my "M" letter, but well, whatever (read I had a tiny argument with my dad but beer then put things back in order with him). Instead, we decided to visit Moco Museum, where Banksy and Andy Warhol had an exhibition. This exhibition was greatly educating and interesting. After finishing this we sent my dad to have a pint in a pub (The Euro was on and he would have been grumpy queuing with us for Anne Frank's House).
And as you have already read, me and Blanka went queuing for Anne Frank's House. The queue was ABSURD. It led all the way around the street and we waited there for 1,5 hours (yes, really), but at least we finally caught up on our lives and chatted the whole time. FINALLY we made it to the entrance and went in. The tour itself was beautiful, the house was bare, but you could see presentation of what it looked like. The story is incredible itself, therefore this was such an emotional and strong experience. I think it's definitely worth the wait, the museum and the actual diary is there, if you have an afternoon or 3 hours to spare, do not hesitate and pay Anne Frank's Huise a visit!
Last night in Amsterdam couldn't have been complete without having a beer and dinner near the red-light's district, right? So being all tired and feeling like amputating our legs after having walked the whole day we went for one (or two, ok, three) drinks and enjoyed the lively atmosphere of this amazing city. The next stop the following day was Berlin. This is how our Amsterdam adventures were ended.
That is it! Yassssss! Finally, you made it to the end of this article of a novel's length (my apologies, but I had to tell and show you everything!)
Just to conclude, I love this city, it does not have the atmosphere of a capital, yet is very beautiful, relaxed, natural, optimistic (not because of the weed of course), diverse and hustling! You can never get bored in there, plus there is always a new canal or hidden street to find in Amsterdam. I hope you have enjoyed reading this article and are all motivated to pack your luggage, buy a ticket and go to Amsterdam right now! I really enjoyed all three visits and will always be reminiscing the wonderful and exciting time spent there. I for sure know this was not my last stay in Amsterdam, because you can't just get enough with this beauty!
So....till next time, Amsterdam.
Thank you for being here and sharing my adventures with me.
Michaela xx