Amsterdam

Amsterdam. When I was 21, it might as well have been Narnia. It was that city teenagers spoke of as some kind of mythical utopia. While I was studying abroad in Northern Ireland, I knew I had to go for the novelty and bragging rights if nothing else, so my friend Jenni and I booked flights out of Belfast and went for three nights.

Day 1

Lucky Lake Hostel & Coffee Shop Culture

We arrived on a Tuesday evening into the Amsterdam airport which still remains one of my favorites I've been through. It was just so aesthetically interesting. We missed our first train by forgetting that Amsterdam is an hour ahead of Belfast, but we easily caught the next one, bought metro passes at the transfer station, and then were picked up by our hostel shuttle at the Holdendrecht station.

Our hostel was just outside the city in an area called Vinkeveen, but it was one of the highlights of the trip! To this day and a million hostel stays later, I still consider it one of the all-time best. It was called Lucky Lake Hostel, and it was right next to an authentic Dutch village in a grassy outdoor setting. There was a little reception lodge with computers, outdoor foosball and ping pong tables, a lounge cabin in the middle of the yard with games and books where you could hang out and smoke (anything) inside, an outdoor kitchen with a gigantic anchor on the roof, and campers and cabins holding the dorms.

Best of all, there were fake dinosaurs and animals scattered all over the grounds. We decided we were going to have to arrange a scavenger hunt to find them all.

We were staying in the Green Dorm in a small cabin with two other girls. It was situated right next to trees and a little creek. We woke up on the first morning to find a momma duck and her babies right outside our front door. It was just perfect.

Although it was late by the time we settled in, we caught the first shuttle back to the city to do a little night exploration. We took the metro to the Niewmarkt station which was in a very nice area.

Also some of the metro stations were super cool!

The only unfortunate thing about our visit was that the garbage collectors just happened to be striking, so there were piles and piles of trash bags outside shops and businesses. I assume it is usually a very clean city otherwise.

So, I will neither confirm nor deny any personal activities we engaged in on this trip, but everyone knows that one of Amsterdam's draws is the legality of marijuana. Checking out our first coffee shop (the establishments you go to for this kind of thing) was a ridiculously surreal experience. They have full menus at the bar listing weed by the bag or available as a pre-rolled joint. You can sit right at the table there and smoke. In public! It was just so strange. It felt like you should be huddled in a corner hiding, but it's totally legal inside the coffee shop.

We did go to a normal bar as well, and I'm pretty sure that was where I tried my first Hoegaarden.

One final ridiculous moment from our first night was when we arrived back at the metro station and were waiting for the last shuttle back to the hostel which stops near an underpass. Now, just to set the context here, Jenni and I were both wearing long pants and dark hoodies (zipped, hoods up). We were standing slightly away from the underpass in the shadows smoking a cigarette when a car drove up, pulled over under the bridge, opened his door for a minute and just waited before realizing we weren't getting in, then slammed it shut and took off. OH MY GOD. HE THOUGHT WE WERE PROSTITUTES. I don't know what kind of low-rent prostitutes he thought we were in head to toe black on the side of an underpass, but just go to the red light district, man. So as a special memory, Jenni and I will always share the moment when we were literally mistaken for hookers in Amsterdam.

Day 2

Marijuana Museums & Red Light District

After having breakfast and a coffee outside in the tranquility of our pretty hostel, we headed into town to do some souvenir shopping and then hit the sights.

Chill morning outside our cabin!

We started at the Hash Marijuana and Hemp Museum (seriously couldn't get over the fact that this was all out in the open). They had centuries old hookahs and smoking devices on display and info on smuggling methods and the drug war. In the back they had their own plants growing, plus a vaporizer that was free to use with entry! I'm still struggling to think of a better word than surreal.

We also had access to the gallery down the street which had more smoking devices, pictures, and all sorts of cool things made out of hemp up to and including a hemp-bodied guitar.

There are even shops that sell truffles (mushrooms) labeled by the kind of trip you'll have (happy and philosophical, heavy psychedelic visuals, etc), "herbal" versions of drugs like ecstasy, and samples on the counter with straws to try a line (this is not a thing I did, for the record).

Of course then we came across the "Cannabis College" which we had to explore. They had a lot of information on marijuana and charged a few extra euro to go down and see their garden. Wow. They had gigantic marijuana plants as well as smaller plants like cacti. They were even growing peyote.

We were now in the heart of the red light district, so we took a wander down the street. My favorite quote of the trip came from the first guy we ran into outside a live sex show trying to bring people in. He called out to us, "Hey ladies, would you like to experience filth and sleaze in a nice environment?" and I felt like that pretty much summed up Amsterdam.

I was NOT a fan of the red light district. Small poles in the ground with red lights designate where it begins and ends, so you can easily avoid it and still enjoy the city, but we were absolutely curious. There were live sex theaters all over, guys calling out to us to come watch, and of course the girls in the windows. It's creepy. You're walking past glass-paned showcases like you're shopping, only these are real live women in lingerie waiting for someone to pay for them. Seeing the girls advertising themselves and watching guys walk in and out knowing exactly what they were there for just gave me awful chills. It was only 3 or 4 in the afternoon when we took a walk down, and I felt so unsafe.

We got out of there quickly and went down to Centraal Station. The only other notable thing we did that night was go to my favorite coffee shop of the trip, The Doors Cafe. It was extremely dim with Doors memorabilia all over the walls and trippy lights slowly spinning around. Watch out for those space cakes.

Day 3

Anne Frank House & City Sights

We did a lot on our last full day, like actual wholesome tourism and everything.

First of all, I was fairly uncultured at this point in my life, and I had no idea until I arrived in Amsterdam that the Anne Frank house was located there. Jenni and I headed there first thing after getting into the city, but the line was ridiculous. It curved down the road and along the building.

We figured we'd come back and see if it went down, so we headed across the street to the "tulip museum". One thing I had really wanted to see in the Netherlands was one of those vast fields covered in tulips with windmills dotting the skyline, but of course, we had no car and limited time, and that would be miles out of the city.

So, we went into this tiny tulip museum which was a euro or two to go downstairs and see a couple random tulips in vases with info on the walls. It was pretty much a waste of money.

We went back to the Anne Frank house afterwards, and the line was actually longer now, but we waited. It was so worth it. It was the highlight of the city really. It probably helps that I've read the diary, so I was blown away seeing the actual location in real life where it was written and they hid for years.

The entire house was open for the tour, but sadly, there were no photographs allowed. We walked through the offices, looked out the window where they would check the street to see if anyone was coming, saw the hidden passage behind the bookcase, and climbed the very steep stairs up to the annex. It was all unfurnished, but some artifacts were in cases, and they left Anne's old magazine cutouts up on her bedroom wall. I thought seeing such an impactful place of history was unbelievable.

We spent the rest of the day exploring the city. Amsterdam is pretty beautiful with its river, bridges, and bicycles. There's the National Monument, the outdoor street-long bio-market selling all sorts of flowers and plants, and of course, the large IAMSTERDAM sign.

National Monument

Bio Market

The area with the sign was one of my favorites. There was a long, stone-lined pool in front of it with sand on either side, some cool trees, and a playground.

We went back to the hostel afterwards to take a trip around the grounds and find all the fake animals as well as the lake (we'd been at "Lucky Lake" hostel for two nights already without any sighting of said lake). Well, the animals were easy to find. They were everywhere! There was a monkey hanging out outside the smoking lounge, a zebra coming out of the wall in the lobby, a crocodile in the grass eating a small dinosaur, another small dinosaur attacking a hippo, a tall giraffe, a toucan in the rafters of the lounge, a crab, and best of all, down the path towards the village, there were two t-rexes behind the fences and bushes of people's gardens.

We ventured back through the village, and it was straight out of a fantasy. There were all these cottages right on the canal with perfect gardens, paths lined with bushes, and bridges. We may have accidentally crashed through a few people's gardens on the journey, but we eventually found the lake, and in the dark it looked like the water was swirling over the surface like liquid glass.

We attempted a game of chess after that but it did not go well, and we went back to the room soon after.

Day 4

Kayaking through the Dutch Village

One of the greatest perks of this hostel, along with the location, was that they offered kayak rental at something like 5 euro an hour including life jackets, a waterproof canister with first aid kit, and paddles. We had some time to kill before heading to the airport, so we spent our morning renting a boat and venturing out along the canal.

This is my favorite memory of the Netherlands. This Dutch village was so absolutely beautiful . It was like being in a storybook. These houses were just right on the water, and everyone had boats. We even made it out to the lake where we saw some larger boats and witnessed a fight between two large gangs of ducks (we quickly paddled away from that). I can't believe people actually live there. It's all too perfect.

I wouldn't mind heading back to Amsterdam one day since we did a bit of an express tour through the city. It's definitely a different kind of place, but I think there's something for everyone, and I'm sure the Dutch countryside would be gorgeous to see with more time. And as for all the teenagers who made it sound like a hippie paradise... they definitely wouldn't be disappointed either.