22.08.2007

Our last full day in Europe. The 3 of us took the train into central Amsterdam. We all had umbrellas because today had 80% chance of rain.

Our first view of Amsterdam straight out of the train station is the canal, and a 3 storey bicycle parking building, the stock exchange and a lot of shops. Straight ahead was the busy main square where the rarely used royal palace is.

Amsterdam is pretty. It has many canals and crooked houses. All of the buildings are built on poles because the ground is too soft, but most of them seem to be leaning on each other, or to the side or even looming over the sidewalk below. We saw the outside of the Anne Frank Museum and the 100m line up to get in, that was enough for us. We spent most of the day strolling through the ‘9 streets’, a section of Amsterdam where nine parallel streets cross canals (Is it 7? Not sure). This area is very trendy, and most shops here are quite expensive as well but very cool. We had a quick look inside a typical house-boat, some people live on boats on the canals.

We saw some flower markets, selling bulbs of just about any variety of Tulip that you could want (as well as marijuana starter kits). Tulips aren’t in season now so we could only admire the pictures.

We walked through the red light district (while it was still light). It is an interesting place, but I wouldn’t call it pleasant. There are the famous ‘coffee shops’, not as prominent as I had imagined. There were also the buildings with full length window booths in which the prostitutes stand and pose on display waiting for their next customer. It was either not their regular working hours or they were all with customers as most of the windows had curtains drawn. We left the red light district for the railway station area where we hopped on a canal tour of the city. It was good to see Amsterdam from a different angle. While waiting for our train, we bought some Dutch junk food, a cone of chips with mayonnaise, and a couple of deep fried treats called kipcorn (nothing to do with corn) and Krocket. These are crumbed and deep fried parcels filled with pureed meats, not sure which ones. Not a health food but a must for connoisseurs of fried foods.