Amsterdam by the Scenic Route

Making last minute, international flights is not the easiest thing to do.  Or the cheapest.  But that’s the price you pay for not being more organized from the start.

Thanks to an urban planning YouTube channel called Not Just Bikes, I’ve wanted to visit the Netherlands for months now.  With all the bikes, public transit, and the extreme walkability of the place, it’s exactly where my head has been for a while now.  Only one problem though; it is not cheap.   The cheapest flight I could find would route me through Istanbul before reaching the Netherlands.  That is nuts.  I kept rejecting that flight and looking for another, but that was the best I could find.  A non-stop flight would have cost me an additional $900.  So.  I guess I’m going to Turkey.

The flight through Turkish Airlines was packed to the gills.  And way too many of those people were children.  Screaming, crying, jumping up and down, reaching through the seat to touch me.  There were two kids in front of me whose mom only occasionally sat with them.  They played movies all night long and refused to sleep.  And because they didn’t, I barely did.  Some baby up front was constantly fussy.  The dad kept walking him up and down the aisles to try to calm him down.  The best thing I can say about the 10.5-hour flight is that the food was decent and they give you a little care package. Oh, and the legroom wasn’t too bad.

Finally arriving in Istanbul, I settled in for a 5-hour layover.  That airport is huge!  It makes Atlanta look tiny.  There’s an entire shopping mall in the place.  I completely understand why all Turkish Airlines flights give you such long layovers here.  Not only is this their hub, but they’re trying to drum up business for the airport and the country as a whole.  After wandering aimlessly for a while, I trudged the eight miles to my gate and boarded my 3.5-hour flight to the Netherlands.

Even after an insanely long day, I was still impressed with Schiphol.  I knew from YouTube that it was also a central train station hub as well as the main airport.  The place is set up to be a social gathering spot as well.  It has a bunch of cafes and shops as well as a grocery store for maximum convenience.  Since my hotel was near the airport, they provided a shuttle to and from for a small fee.  I went outside and didn’t have long to wait before the Moxy shuttle arrived.

I have never been to a Moxy hotel before.  I booked it because I’ve recently become a Marriot Rewards member and this was one of their hotels.  It’s … different.  Lots of neon, funky decorations (the Do Not Disturb sign has a picture of a shirtless guy on a bed with the words written on his chest in red lipstick), and the reception area is also the bar.  Ooh.  Edgy.

Too tired to explore, I took a shower and went straight to bed.  There is a motion detecting light beneath the bed that activates as soon as you put your feet over the edge.  Makes it easier to get to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

You know it’s a bad sign when it’s my first day in a new city and I can feel a temper tantrum coming on upon leaving it.

Translation: I love Amsterdam.

I knew from the first morning when I got off the Moxy shuttle at Schiphol.  I can’t describe it.  I was just very happy to be there.  It could have just been a giddy form of jet lag, but there it was anyway.  It was a too-cold-for-May day and very gray outside, yet I still loved walking around the airport.  Like I mentioned earlier, it was really designed to be a gathering place, so there were plenty of people just hanging out.  At the airport.  Since when would you ever voluntarily do that at any other airport?

I bought a 3-day train pass then headed to the Amsterdam Centraal station.  As soon as you exit the building, the whole city is laid out in front of you.   I loved seeing the old buildings by the canals with all the bikes everywhere.  I loved that everything is so accessible and there is a lot to see. 

The only real problem I have with this city is the weather.  While it was sunny most of the time, the temperature only got cooler as the day went on.  And the wind.  I’d only be outside for a few minutes before the wind was bringing tears to my eyes and making everything blurry.  Portugal was warmer in March than Amsterdam is in May.  Come on!  It’s nearly summer already!  The weather and the exorbitant price of housing is why I could never live in that city.  But I already knew that before arrived.

I met this absolutely lovely couple named Jerry and Donna who sat next to me on a bench by a canal.  We sat for 20 minutes talking about everything, our hotels, where we’ve been, and where we’re going.  They are from North Carolina and mentioned that they’d already met multiple people like me who’d arrived the day before and were from the east coast of the U.S.  They were in Amsterdam with a group of ten people and planned to head to Switzerland to go kite jumping.  The group is called the Chipmunks, named after a member who used to catch the animals in their neighborhood and release them miles away.  On one of these trips, he had a car accident, went to the ER and found out he had stage 4 pancreatic cancer.  In case you don’t know, that is a death sentence.  He decided to spend what time he has left travelling.  His group of friends decided to join him and this is their 4^th European trip.  It’s been 4 years since his diagnosis and the doctor (Dr. Martini – I’m never forgetting that name) only recently discovered some new issues with him.  New treatment has also been discovered so his outlook isn’t so grim.  The fact that he’s survived for so long is already amazing and I wish him the best.

Amsterdam has a lot of museums and points of interest.  The famous Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh Museum are a little farther from the train station, but what is right up front?  The Sex Museum.  It’s right there on the main strip near the souvenir shops and the restaurants.  I passed by it a couple of times before deciding to dive in.  Yeah.  It’s not for the prudish.  There is nudity everywhere including a life size animatronic of a flasher right at the beginning, huge statues of erect penises, photos and artwork from around the world, interactive displays – you name it and it was in there.  Everything except a live sex show.  Maybe that was closed for the day.

Since I was on a roll, I made a detour to the infamous Red-Light District.  At first, I only saw a few rooms with lights on, but no one inside.  And then – oh.  There are the half-naked women for hire. The city’s openness about sexuality and prostitution is one of the things that makes Amsterdam famous but, again, I run into the tourist problem.  These ladies are just trying to earn a living and then all these gawking tourists (myself included) walk by with no interest in spending any money.  They are just another sight to see – so much so that I’d seen a tips video on YouTube claiming it best to visit in the daytime and not to take pictures of the ladies.  I do hope they make a good living on all the tourists.

Took my obligatory trip to the Hard Rock.  I’m glad I used my phone because there is no way I would have stumbled on the place in my usual wanderings.  The young guy at the counter asked me where I was from.  When I said Georgia, he asked what I thought about Louisiana.  Uh.  He happened to be an Italian student who had gotten scholarships to schools in California, Texas, and Louisiana.  I told him truthfully that the state has a lot of poverty and violence, that America as a whole is not the best place for anyone to live.  From the choices he had, though, I said that Austin was probably the best in a bad lot.  I wished him luck, whatever he decided.