Saturday March 15 - Amsterdam

Got to Amsterdam without much incident. We really didn’t even go through any kind of customs or security checkpoint. Ok then.

Getting from the airport was more of an ordeal than planned, because the ticket machine is in Dutch and only accepts credit cards, but only if your name is Heidi or Beth. Otherwise you better be friends with Heidi or Beth. Then we had to locate Allie (who came to travel with us; she’s currently studying abroad in Vienna), which was fairly difficult given that her cell phone either wasn’t on or wasn’t working or something. But we found her and eventually got all the way to Centraal Station (yes, with two A’s; Dutch is awesome). We made our way to the hostel (decided to take a cab due to the rain, cold, darkness, and fact that we didn’t know which way to go. Amsterdam, for the record, does in fact have the most expensive cab fares in the known world), and went to dinner at a Greek place (naturally, right?) and went to a pub afterwards. Don’t remember what time anyone went to bed that night, but we needed sleeeeeeeep.

Saturday we went on Amsterdam’s official Free Tour. It was AMAZING. A guy named Basilio led ours, and it took over three hours, and we got to see truly just about everything the city has to offer. We almost got run over by the bajillions of bikes there, we saw the gorgeous canals (there are over 100 canals there, if I remember what Basilio said), cobblestone streets, awesome old-fashioned Dutch houses lining the canals, “Coffee Shops” (where you can buy pot, not coffee), prostitutes posing in windows trying to get customers, copies of Rembrandt’s most famous works, the national church and right next to it, the national government building (which is way bigger and prettier and nicer than the church, which really bugs the clergy), cool old name plaques hung on walls, and generally lots of really cool quaint-looking buildings and what not. We also learned that Amsterdam is pretty much the most diverse city in the world: it has over 740,000 habitants and over 172 nationalities are represented in that group.

Saturday we also met up with Lauren and Michael, giving the Vienna contingent a total of three (Allie, Lauren and Michael are all studying there). That brought our grand total to 8: the Vienna Contingent plus Beth S., Beth K., Sarah, Maggie and myself. That's a LOT of people to travel with...

That night Maggie, Beth, Lauren and I went to Ann Frank House, which was really interesting. The upstairs of that house was a very small space for so many people to live for such a long time in complete silence. Later we met up with everybody else for dinner.

Here's a cool old house along the canal (truly almost every house looks like this one. They all have big hooks at the top that were used to haul things (especially furniture) up to the top floor, because they're all narrow and super tall so it's hard to get things up their stair cases).

Here's a photo of a stone placard that used to decorate the outside of a home or business. They had symbols of either the family name or the profession of the person who worked there. Lots of these were clustered together on the sides of some buildings, because when the city has to tear down an old house (most are preserved; few are torn down), they save its placard and put it with other old ones. This one was for a family, I assume, since it has the name and picture of a mermaid on it. Unless the owner of this placard used to make mermaids, which doesn't seem very practical.This is an old arch that is known for the three X's that appear on the shield held by the goddess in the middle. The three X's are the symbol of Amsterdam, although there is some debate as to why. Some say it is because if you couldn't sign your name, you could just write three X's, but others say they stand for fire, famine and disease, the three biggest threats for residents of the city.
Here's the Canal Watch Tower, with a canal running by it. There are SO many canals in Amsterdam - during the 17th century 4 huge concentric half-circles in all, with over one hundred bridges to connect it all together. The canals are considered the outcome of exceptional early city planning.
Another canal view. Note all the cool-looking houses along its banks.
Really cool old building that was once used for a window-making guild, if I remember right.