Jun 01, 2014: Amsterdam, Netherlands

Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands
5. It never hurts to do some planning.

6. Explore more than you would think to explore.

7. Enjoy it anyway.

            I would like to begin by saying that I have nothing against Amsterdam.  I’m sure that overall, it is a great city and that many of its inhabitants love it.  I’m also sure that many travelers and tourists love it for reasons other than the fact that many things that are illegal in other parts of the world are legal here.  It holds The Rembrandt museum, the Ann Frank House, and many other museums and buildings of cultural and historical significance.  However, it is not a city that I have ever had any real desire to visit.

            I’m sure that if I had more time to explore, I would find and love all those wonderful places.  But, as it is, I only had one day, and I was quite uncomfortable.

            I left the hotel this morning around 10 and headed into Amsterdam with a group of other IREU participants.  We began by just walking around aimlessly looking for a place to eat.  While this is all well and good (and has lead me to some wonderful eateries in the past), today it made me uncomfortable.  We passed many vibrator stores, sex shops, coffee shop (which, while it’s entirely possible also sell coffee, are known for selling weed), and scantily-clad women sitting in windows as “advertisement” for the prostitution front. 

Here I am in Amsterdam.

            We did go on a nice little canal tour at one point.  It wasn’t too expensive (€9,00), but I would have enjoyed it much more if it would have been more informative.  The audio was in four languages and it played throughout the entire boat.  So, everyone heard one language, then another, then another, then another.  Because of this, and the fact that the boat was constantly moving (as expected on a boat tour of this type), there was only time for roughly two sentences about each site.  It was frustratingly uninformative.  I have been on multilingual tours like this in the past (i.e. my night, bus tour in Paris last summer), and everyone received an individual headset that was set for his or her language of choice.  It allowed for a lot more time to discuss each sight because each sentence did not need to be repeated in four languages. I’m sure there were other boat tours today that operated that way; we just did not choose the correct one.

I'm about to begin the Canal tour.

            Overall, though, the boat tour left me in a good mood.  But, then we went into a sex museum near Amsterdam Central train and bus station.  I paid €4,00 to look at sculptures of penises, vaginas, and sex; pictures of the same thing as well as a very strange grouping of photos of women peeing; and paintings and such.  It was not an activity that I would have chosen, but I figured that I would go along with it and keep an open mind.  Surprisingly, it was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be, and I did laugh along with the jokes people in my group made, but it did make me uncomfortable again.

            After the sex museum, we walked around for a while.  I enjoyed looking at the architecture (and this time we were in a slightly different part of the city, so there were not nearly as many of the… certain things… that we found on our first walk.  It was a nice day, and it was nice to be outside.

            So, the day could have been a lot worse.  All said and done, I really didn’t mind it.  However, if I had it to do over again, I would have done a bit more planning (for example, with some quick research, I could have found out that the Ann Frank house often draws LONG lines, and that it is best to go right when the museum opens).  I did do a minimal amount of research; but, since I didn’t know what I wanted to do, I figured I’d just go along with what everyone else wanted to do.  It never hurts to do some planning.  I probably would have enjoyed my day a lot more if I would have actually gotten some useful information about the sites (i.e. hours of operation, prices, reviews by other tourists, etc.). 

            Explore more than you think to explore.  I did get to see some of Amsterdam by simply walking around aimlessly (even though I never would have chosen to do that on my own).  Also, when I got back to the hotel (I left Amsterdam much earlier than everyone else), I decided to go for a little walk.  It turned out to be a very nice stroll through greenery and a little town area. 

            Enjoy it anyway.  I didn’t think that I would have enjoyed Amsterdam at all, but I decided to go into the day with an open mind, and I came out of the day with a contented feeling.  While I was a bit uncomfortable at times, I focused on enjoying the architecture and the beautiful canals, and I enjoyed Amsterdam anyway.

This is most of the IREU participants for Summer 2014 in front of Amsterdam's main train station  (We're missing one because he didn't wake up in time).