A Trip to Amsterdam

We arrived in Amsterdam after having a few problems with the trains.  We were supposed to make a reservation for our seats on the high speed train, we didn't know this before. If you don't make a reservation, and are found on the train, they will yell at you, make you sit in the bathroom and luggage cabin, and kick you off at the next station!

 When we finally arrived, we took a cab straight to the Owl Hotel. For our first day in the city, we took a bike tour. Amsterdam is really flat, and you can ride a bike from one side of the city to the other in about 20 minutes. Driving a car is discouraged in Amsterdam (it costs 400 euros a month to have a parking space) so most people ride bikes.  Below is a picture of us on a bridge above the Amstel River, which was the first river to be dammed up in the area, thus the name of the city, Amsterdam.

(After making a sweet cross street move on the bike, I was told by the biking guide that I was a natural Amsterdamian).

The tour guide informed us that the city is basically resting above swamplands. The city foundation was built by driving huge wooden poles into the bog until it hit firmer ground and then building their houses on top of this wooden foundation. The poles can last hundreds of years, but if they are exposed to air, they begin to rot, along with the foundation of the buildings. Many houses along the canals have rotting foundations, which is why some of the houses lean towards one side.

She also informed us that the buildings are built narrow and tall to avoid paying high property taxes. The more land your house sits on, the higher the taxes, but it doesnt matter how high the houses are built. Some houses also tilt towadrs the street at an angle so that its easier to raise furniture in through the windows. People use a pully attached to a beam at the top of the building to raise furniture into thier houses. Swaying furniture was a big contributor to broken windows, so people began to build thier houses with an angle tilting out over the street.  You can kind of tell in the picture below with the house on the right of the canal.

The tour guide was very pro Amsterdam and all of it's perks. She told us that the new government is very conservative, and actually wants to get rid of the legalization of marijuana and many other perks in the city. She led us to believe that in 10 years, most of these "perks" would be gone. On the bike tour she took us past the famous Red Light District. Hilary got a good view of the "blue light district", which the tour guide informed us is the transvestite part. We were told not to take pictures, because the women (or shemales) are very aggresive and will run after you and throw your camera in the canal if they see you.

The tour guide seemed to have a lot of respect for the girls that work in the red light district. She said that the area developed when men from trading ships who would stop in Amsterdam began to roam around on thier free time. After being away at sea for a long time with only men around, they would pay a hefty amount to be with a woman. Now-a-days the women have to rent out a window (for as much as 800 euros a week) and advertise themselves in it to get business. They pay taxes and help to contribute to the economy in the city. They are heavily protected,  and if a man gets too aggresive, the women only have to push a button and the police will be outside the door in less than a minute.

After we saw the red light district we went past the Anne Frank House. When the Nazi's invaded the Netherlands in the 1940's, the Frank family hid in the back of the building. We came back the next day and took a tour of the house. The family couldnt make much noise, and couldnt open the windows or go outside for fear of being caught and taken to a concentration camp. After all this, they were discovered (by a tip-off from someone) in 1944 and the family was seperated and sent off to concentration camps, all because they were Jewish. The father, Otto Frank, was the only family member to survive the conditions of the concentration camp. Below is a picture of Hil in front of the house (house in the middle).

And a picture of the church next to the house, where Anne Frank wrote that she could see the church tower from the attic window of the house.

We had a chance to go see the Van Gogh Museum, he was an awesome painter! The paintings showed the progression of his work, from dark and deppressing, to happy and sunflowery, to dark and depressing again. He was known to have a mental illness (cutting off his ear) and other problems probably due to his isolation from people and excessive driking of absinthe. He painted many paintings that allow you to see a little inside the state of his mind in his final days, before he shot himself in a field and died. Below is a picture of one of his last paintings before he died.....

We liked Amsterdam a lot, it is a big city, (and was the most wealthy city in the world in the 17th century......interesting fact i read), but it seemed compact enough to enjoy the city in 2 or 3 days. It snowed a lot............

Next we were off to.....Heidelburg, Germany!

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