Amsterdam

From Nijmegen I took a short train ride north to Amsterdam. After getting into the central station I mulled around the area waiting for a friend of mine, Anders, who had been coming from Morocco and Spain. Anders is another student from Madison and he is doing the same course as me in Vienna.

Central Station

Anders

From there we traveled the the southern side of the city center and found a hostel to stay in. After moving in our stuff and trying some krokets, the two of us set off once again back to the central station to meet up with another one of AJ's friends, Ruta. Originally from Lithuania, she knew AJ from the university in Zwolle and lives and works in Amsterdam. Ruta was nice enough to meet with us and show us around a bit, especially since she was leaving for Istanbul the next day. She brought us to a restaurant which made delicious Dutch food like that which would be eaten at home.

Ruta, Anders, and myself at the Dutch restaurant

Outside the Rijksmuseum at night

These giant letters were outside the Rijksmuseum and apparently move around the city. Anders and I are sitting in our letters.

The next two days Anders and I spent touring the city and its attractions as well as getting to know the area. In the afternoon we spent five hours visiting each room of the newly renovated Rijksmuseum alone. The first two days in Amsterdam were unusually clear and hot, but on Friday it was back to the more normal overcast weather of Amsterdam.

A really cool chess set in the Rijksmuseum

Celestial globe

Terrestrial globe

Coat of arms

Nazi chess set

This room had really cool models of ships - had we known about it at the beginning we would have saved more time for it!

Rijksmuseum also has an extensive gun collection

Later we also took a canal tour of the city for an hour.

All buildings along the canal have little shafts with a pulley on the room which people can use to hoist furniture up from ships.

Some canals were lined with boat houses - and they are not cheap. We were told by a tour guide that one modest looking boat house probably costed around 300,000 Euro alone!

That evening we also checked out the Ice Bar. Basically, you pay to go into a bar for half an hour in which the temperature is -17 Celcius, everything is made out of ice, and you drink out of an ice mug. It wasn't terrible but I wouldn't recommend it.

On the last day Anders was brave enough to accept a challenge from me in chess.

I liked Amsterdam overall; it has the laid-back atmosphere of Brussels while some of the architectural & historical charm of Paris and Strasbourg. But, two and a half days was enough for this city; on to Cologne!