Amsterdam: XXX, Friends and Shipping Containers

I was in Amsterdam for 20 minutes when I decided it was the greatest city on earth. (Not that I’ve been to all the cities on earth or anything.) I’ve never been to a city that has such a distinct feeling to it. Amsterdam was harsh, welcoming and delicious.

I started off my first day in getting very lost in the small canal streets. Of course. Despite this, walking through the canals and trying to find my hostel was still more beautiful than any walk I’ve ever been lost on before.

After checking into my very conservative Christian hostel (not sure how I ended up here, but it had its perks), I decided to just wander around the small side streets and get a feel for the city. Well, as I turned the corner out of my hostel I was in the red light district, and all I can say is woah.

    

Luckily, I had an inside source in Amsterdam, Fé. She lived in my flat in Brighton and now she’s back in Amsterdam and could be my tour guide of all things non-touristy.

She took me across the water on a ferry to the north part of the city, which was basically uninhabited by anyone but Dutch people. It was kind of refreshing not to be surrounded by hostel conversations about hometowns.

In this part of the city there are all of these creative markets set up in old warehouses and shipping containers. We headed for a cafe in a container and it was incredible! I had a delicious pumpkin soup.

  

We wandered around the warehouses and ended up at another cafe made out of all recycled material – these people are so much cooler and resourceful than I will ever hope to be. Appearently apple pie is a Dutch speciality, who knew.

The next day, while Fé worked, I went on a walking tour of Amsterdam and saw some pretty cool things. There’s a house that’s only a meter wide (what!), the original coffee shop, a castle made into a cafe, Napoleon Bonaparte getting the keys to the city and a strange street name, amongst many other treasures of this city.

  
    

Fé ended up spending the evening at another creative cafe restaurant place and it had equally delicious soup. We spent the night laughing at me attempting to not let the waitress know that I didn’t speak Dutch by letting Fé do all the communicating. This only got awkward when someone would ask me a question and I would just smile back at them. Oops.

We finished the night at some cool Dutch bar, inventing drinks made of chocolate milk and kahlua. Why not. We also had a good time with my fish eye lens and candles.

   

Amsterdam was great. Old friends, weird culture and good food. I’d probably live there for a while, quite happily.

Time spent averting my eyes 12/10

Fries with mayo 4/10 (strange.)

Christian hostel 7/10 (incredible free breakfast, too many rules.)

Weird British groups of stag parties 1/10 (yelling, so much yelling.)

Kilometres walked: 127 km

Kilometres Train-ed: 3,339 km