Amsterdam was absolutely incredible. Sitting in our Berlin hostel the day after leaving I already miss it. The city is old but being used and lived in to its fullest and everywhere you look is beautiful. I loved the canals, the small houses, and the large buildings. We went on tours, walked the streets, stopping occasionally at small cafes for lunch or dinner. At night we made friends, played beer pong, and partied in the city.
On our first night in Amsterdam we took a few hours to rest, I wrote my previous blog post and then we went out for dinner with our new roommate. Returning to the hostel, we met the rest of our roommates then went down to the bar. We met a group of people playing beer pong who we would spend every night in Amsterdam partying with. It seems like the only beer in Amsterdam in Heineken, our hostel had two or three taps for it, one for Strongbow, and nothing else. I have never been a fan of the beer but I started to appreciate it after a couple days. They serve it cheap in tall 0.5 litre glasses, very satisfying after a long day touring the city.
On our first full day in Amsterdam we went on a free walking tour of the city. Our tour guide Lisa was very good. I appreciated how straight forward she was with some of the more controversial aspects of the city. Our tour took us past many of the significant buildings. We saw old churches, the Jewish district, a building built by the Dutch East India Company, the red light district and more.
After the tour we stopped by a cafe for lunch, got ice cream, and walked back to the hostel. The walk was long but we were both happy to see the city.
Later that day we went to The Heineken Experience, I sort of museum/tour/general tourist attraction run by Heineken. It shows visitors the history of the company and how they make their beer and provides some other activities. A personal highlight was getting to pour a pint of Heineken myself from a tap (I made two perfect pours). We went through the attraction with a friend we had met in the Hostel that day.
The next day we did the Rijksmuseum, the Dutch national museum. The museum held mostly paintings from the last 600 years, along with many artifacts. The museum building itself was impressive, a massive, beautiful old building. I was stunned by some of the works of art inside. I never realized how large some of the paintings are. The largest ones are easily 6 ft tall by 10 or 12 ft long. The level of detail in some of them was also a surprise. I saw one painting of a naval battle where, despite the large size and complexity of the scene, individual sailors could be seen on each ship. We spent hours in the museum and after leaving felt like we could have spent hours more. My photos of the museum are pretty bad, even by my standards, but I will still put a few up here.
That afternoon we went on a canal tour of the city. The tour presented a different view of the city and took us out into a harbour area. An audio tour was available through earbuds but we quickly gave up on it and stood at the back of the boat, soaking in the view, and enjoying the wind. At 75 minutes it was a little long but generally a worth while experience.
On our last day we had a relaxed morning, Morgan did some shopping, and we had our last meal in the city. We went to an ATM and got some money out, a slightly worrying experience. We took the tram to Amsterdam Centraal then boarded the train to Germany. The train was comfortable but unfortunately had no Wifi, preventing me from writing this post on the train as I had planned. The trip took around 6.5 hours and was a very straight forward experience. We will definitely continue taking trains around Europe.
We have been in Berlin for nearly two days now. We took a walking tour today which was great. The city is packed full of history. We saw buildings from the Prussian Empire, the Nazi Regime, Communist rule, and the modern all within blocks from one another. Many buildings have history relating to every era of the city’s past. I will talk more about Berlin in a few days after we have finished our stay here.
Declan Easton 