Ah, yes, I did in fact feel a little somber when I realized it was the end of Lads on Tour,™ but luckily my leg of solo traveling had a soft adjustment because I actually stayed the first night with my pal Yuki in Utrecht, the fourth largest city in the Netherlands. If you are confusion over the terms Holland & Netherlands, don't worry because most people are, but the latter is more correct.
Utrecht was really magical. In ways, the canals might even be considered more charming than those in Amsterdam because they are smaller and more walkable. Yuki picked me up from the station and we hopped on the bus to her apartment, did some catching up, then joined with Britt to explore Utrecht. I was honestly really excited and taken aback by the sheer beauty of the Netherlands, everything was pristine and clean, everything had Christmas lights, and it was like if everywhere you went was intentionally made to be as cute as possible.
I was starving so I got a filling hummus sandwich and for the first time the prices actually rivaled the Bay Area pricing I am accustomed to. We walked past the university where they are both studying in exchange and got these fat wedged fries, part of the culture there. We then walked over to Belgisch Biercafé Olivier Utrecht which is an amazing place inside a super old church! I got a fruit beer which was absolutely delicious. If alcohol always tasted like that, we would all be drunkards.
After saying bye to Britt it got dark so we kind of just chilled out and headed to the market to grab some stroopwafel and offbrand NUTELLA which is like avocado to Californians: it is everywhere and it comes in all forms.
Since the sun rises at like 8:30 AM, I waited until a little later the next morning to bid farewell and catch the train to Amsterdam. You actually feel really tired despite waking up at normal hours because the sun is not up so getting up just feels wrong, tbh, like it's 5 AM or something. Circadian rhythms exist for a reason people.
After doing a little research, I felt ready to tackle Amsterdam. Most importantly, I wanted to the see the Anne Frank Huis, but I learned that it is 80% sold out and 20% of tickets go on sale at 9 AM the day of. Well I have many experiences on getting classes and concert tickets the second they go live, and I did the same with my Anne Frank ticket. I think I was 17th in the online queue and got it quickly.
I stored my luggage for about 11 euros in the station so I could walk freely throughout the day. I am going to skim over parts of my day but just know I did a lot of walking-- 20 miles total-- to the point where I actually knew my way around the city and the general direction I was walking by the end of the day!
I saw Dam Square which was completely uneventful in the morning, and walked through the 9 Streets, a cutesy little shopping district. Upon the first stereotypical Amsterdam canal I encountered I absolutely fell in love with the city. I munched on a stroopwafel and avocado for breakfast as I enjoyed the canal and then ventured through Jordaan, the classic Amsterdam neighborhood and surprised myself by stumbling upon Nordmarket. I am a sucker for markets, lads. There was a mix of produce, clothing (vintage and fast fashion), and most notably, fabrics and trims. I was so into it I bought a few ribbons for myself. The square has a market set up but it also runs along the street for a good half mile of endless vendors. The coolest part is markets run everyday, not just once a month!
I then headed over to the Red Lights District which is world famous but didn't really see much around (not that I really wanted to), enjoyed some more canals and saw the Bloemenmarkt, the Tulip Market! Even if you don't want to buy flowers, they have wooden tulips so you can take it home with you.
Alright, alright, now why was I most excited for Amsterdam? TFIOS, The Fault in Our Stars, one of my favorite books and my favorite movie. Ansel Elgort as Augustus Waters, heck, the very poster that I've hung in my room for years is pictured at this one iconic bench, so naturally I went there and sat. The bench is full of movie quotes and locks and I was so happy, it was my favorite story coming to life!
I soon ended up at Anne Frank Huis but not before a quick coffee and storing my luggage at the coffee shop which is a nice service they provide for visitors to the museum. The museum is tiny but gets 1.3 MILLION visitors a year I could barely imagine that-- what it means is you have tickets for a 15 minute slot. You get an audio device to walk you through the museum, mostly history on the family, their friends, and Nazi Germany. And then you walk into Anne's hiding spot for 2 years, The Secret Annex. It is truly humbling.
My favorite quote, translated into English, says, "How wonderful it is that no one need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." Anne wrote that at age 13/14 in the very room I stood, in the circumstances she was in, and the story did not end well. Walking through the rooms is a humanizing experience, even if not just for this one girl and her loved ones, but to think of Jews all over who were persecuted in a time that was much too recent to even comprehend the cruelties that occurred. I really appreciated the air of respect, no photos, and no loud voices, in the museum. I do not like museums but this is one of the best things I've ever done on my travels and should be on everybody's bucket list.
I then met up with my friend Kevin whom I met on my own campus a few years ago and gave a tour to, but we've stayed in touch on social media and he is local to Amsterdam. This was again really nice as a soft adjustment to solo travel, I was getting lonely and it was nice to link up. We basically walked through most of the places I had been that day, and also saw Vondelpark which is their absolutely huge green space, we barely touched the surface!
We got traditional Dutch pancakes (they are crepes though I don't understand why they insist they are pancakes) and then walked back through the Red Lights District which was popping this time and made me uncomfortable so we promptly left. We grabbed some hot chocolate to warm up and as it turns out from my short time in Amsterdam I knew my way around even better than Kevin! I was absolutely exhausted so we parted ways and I worked my way over to the Flix Bus stop, ready to take an overnight bus.
Still so shook by the fact that I fell asleep in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and woke up in Paris, France!
Overall, Amsterdam was one of the most charming places I've ever been, and I could see myself living there. I somehow forgot to mention BIKES! If you've heard of the bike culture there, it's more prominent then you can ever imagine. Bikes have taken the place of cars, so much that there are stop lights for bikes where they cross pedestrian routes, and bike storage facilities are multi-story, hundreds of meters long. It's not fast biking though, because most people have cruisers and such. A lot of people spoke English, I imagine because of tourism and because Dutch is not the most international language. It was very white compared to other places I've been, which is expected but still something I'm not used to. Also, so far in Europe at this point I had seen virtually no homeless people. I'm not sure where they all are but you do have to pay to use public restrooms so perhaps that is why, unfortunately :(
