Scenic Amsterdam

Or: The Edinburgh Exchange – Part 1

I was told many times before I left the States what a beautiful city Amsterdam was. “Such wonderful architecture!” people said, or “it’s so pretty with all the canals!” Perhaps it was due to these high expectations, or maybe just some bad luck when I arrived, but I wasn’t overly impressed with anything I saw for the first few weeks. Amsterdam is a wonderful city, to be sure, and I love quite a lot about it, but during my first few weeks here I became convinced that it wasn’t much to look at.

Part of the problem is that I live in an area that has been built up only very recently, and the path I travel most frequently (to and from class or the train station) is a mash of different structures and is often under construction. You could probably tell from my pictures of Funen that the architecture near my apartment is either of the cutting edge or functional variety, and the road I take to and from my classroom buildings is mostly nondescript. So when Tarra – who is studying abroad in Edinburgh – came to visit and asked to see the “pretty, old neighborhoods” I had to think for awhile before I figured out the path that I would show her.

Fortunately for Tarra, the weather was gorgeous. It’s been strangely not-rainy since I’ve been here. She arrived in Amsterdam on a Thursday night, and on Friday morning we set out under the brisk fall sunshine to see the town. I took her first past our windmill and down the street near the local zoo. This zoo/aquarium/botanical gardens/planetarium, Artis, is the oldest zoo in the Netherlands, and one of the oldest zoos in Europe. If you couldn’t sometimes see the animals through the fences, you’d hardly know it was zoo at all - the building façade is unapologetically 19th Century.

As we wandered past Artis and down Plantage Middenlaan, I realized I do know some pretty parts of town – they’re just not the parts I see every day. So with my map, my memory, and a little bit of luck, I led Tarra through the scenic side of Amsterdam. We strolled the rest of the way down Plantage Middenlaan and stopped to browse through some of the street market stalls near Waterlooplein. Then we walked for awhile along the Amstel river (whence both the city and the beer derive their names), where Tarra took pictures of all the famous wonderful architecture and lovely canals. By that point we were ready for some lunch, so we stopped at a falafel place near Kalverstraat (a large and busy shopping street) and enjoyed our meal in the sunlight along the side of a canal.

After lunch I took Tarra down a street called Bloemenmarkt, where a line full of vendors sell all sorts of flowers (or “bloemen” in Dutch) including many of Holland’s famous tulips.

We took lots of pictures of all the pretty blooms, and then made our way down Leidsestraat, a big street full of fun (albeit touristy) shops. Along the way we passed a tantalizing bakery where we were compelled to buy some delicious peach-raspberry muffins. Then we headed further down toward Vondelpark, where we reveled in the pretty greenery.

After that it was off to a cursory spin around Museumplein, and then we took the tram back over to Funen.

We ate dinner back in my room and rested for awhile before our only planned event of the day – a late night improv show of Boom Chicago. Boom Chicago is an American comedy group that decided to make Amsterdam its permanent home. It was raucous and loud and crazy and funny, and some of the audience was decidedly drunk. It was actually almost refreshingly American. After the show let out, however, it was so late that the trams and buses had stopped running. Fortunately, Tarra and I had known this might happen, and had mapped out the quickest way home ahead of time. It rained lightly for the first few minutes of our walk, but fortunately it stopped for the better part of our journey home.

After our very late and busy Friday, we slept in a little on Saturday morning. We ate breakfast and then headed out to see more pretty things – with a plan this time. I needed to see an exhibition at the Hermitage Amsterdam museum, so I took Tarra along with me. We were trying to get to the museum before it got too crowded, but there were so many fun and pretty little things along our way that we took longer than expected.

There was a massive line of elderly visitors trying to get into the museum when we got there, but it moved pretty quickly and went through the exhibition (a collection of decadently opulent artifacts from the Russian Court in the 19th century) in a couple of hours. We only saw half of the show, but there was plenty to see in that half. We spent a little while looking at the fancy things in the gift shop (and I found a cute cookbook of Dutch recipes – in English!) then headed back along the Amstel to have lunch and go shopping with Conny.

We had sandwiches for lunch at a cute café, and poffertjes for dessert. This brings my tally of Friends from Home Hooked on Mini Dutch Pancakes to 2. We followed our meal with a walk down Kalverstraat and a detour through one of the many H&Ms. When we were done with that store it was almost closing time, so we headed back to Funen for some dinner and a night spent resting and catching up on things.

Tarra’s flight left early the next morning, and I was pretty exhausted by the time I got back from dropping her off at the train to the airport. It was a nice, contented kind of tired, though. Before that weekend, I hadn’t seen Tarra since we left Williams back in May, and it was exciting and rejuvenating to see a close friend after all that time (not to mention in Europe!). But just like Kristin’s visit a couple weeks ago gave me license to be a tourist and appreciate all the fun main attractions in Amsterdam, Tarra’s visit made me remember and appreciate just how beautiful the city really is.

It would have been easy to spend another day finding more to see and spending more time catching up, but when Tarra left, it wasn’t hard to say goodbye – because I was planning to visit her in Edinburgh the following weekend.