DAmsterdam

Amsterdam is an interesting city. Sitting below sea level, the people there have been using dams, locks, and canals to keep the water at bay for centuries. The canals lend a sense of calm to an otherwise frenzied city. Marijuana is legal in Amsterdam and the heady scent is pervasive. Many teens were walking around bleary eyed, and I was reminded of my trip to Canada at 19. The main purpose of the trip was to drink legally, and the kids visiting Amsterdam were probably there to smoke legally.

A Lovely Canal
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

And of course there were the whores. According to our guide, this was the preferable term for these women; there isn’t a Dutch word for prostitute. Around the area were young men scared and eager to pay for sex with the girl in the window—quite literally. In the Red Light District, scantily clad women wait behind glass, some beckoning you, others doing mundane tasks like eating lunch or checking email on their phone. It was like going to the zoo and realizing you have a lot in common with the animals. Some people find the experience humorous and awkward, I just felt pity, and a slew of questions came to mind. What led these girls to this occupation, and will they ever be able to leave it with dignity? Do they have health care, or are they susceptible to whatever diseases their current sex partner is carrying? At the very least, I hope they can choose to leave.

So what does one do in Amsterdam if smoking and whoring are off the table? And believe me, they are off the table. Two friends joined Joe and I, and the four of us spent our time wandering around the city and eating regional treats. J + A found some delicious cookies called stroopwafles, a sandwich cookie consisting of two layers of thin waffles on either side of a caramel filling. They also discovered speckuloos butter. This is butter made from spicy (laden with spices, not hot) cookies that are common at Christmas time. They are available year round in the United States in the form of windmill cookies, a treat I grew up with. This butter is phenomenal! I imagine on pretzels it would be delicious, but we also just spread it on the stroopwafels, creating a terribly delicious snack. A quick google search has told me that Trader Joe’s may carry the butter. Pick some up and pretend you are eating it while strolling along the canals in a wind tunnel, and you’ll have an approximation of our vacation, as it was VERY windy in Amsterdam during our visit.

We also enjoyed a regional specialty—pancakes! We visited the pancake bakery, a restaurant in one of the old warehouses of the East India Trading Company. With our order, we received a free cup of hard cider courtesy of our Holland passes. The options for pancakes were fanciful and numerous. You can check out the menu here. The boys opted for savory pancakes with meat and cheeses, while we girls got sweet pancakes with fruits and nuts. Our hubcap sized pancakes were thin, like crepes, but they were still very filling, and more than any of us could eat.

Our wandering took us through bustling markets and busy streets, along the canals, and to the temporary home of the Van Gogh museum, the Hermitage. The exhibition, Vincent, was a small collection of his works as well as some three dimensional objects that influenced him. I began to understand Van Gogh as a whole person through some of his lesser works, the focus of the exhibit.

Wandering through the museum I was astonished at the range displayed in his pieces. I was familiar with some of his more abstract pieces, but there were finely detailed sketches and a room full of paintings done in the Japanese style that I had never seen before.

I enjoyed seeing Sunflowers in person; the layering of paint to create texture was easy to see and appreciate at such a close distance. I considered buying a reproduction but none of them used enough paint to reproduce that effect. We also enjoyed seeing a painting, and then seeing the exact object in real life. Seeing a vase, and then seeing that exact vase in painting humanized Van Gogh for me. He became less a name in a book, and more a man who lived.

Useful Links!

Pictures from Our Trip

Stroopwafel Information

Windmill Cookies

Trader Joes Speckuloos Butter

All About the Pancake Bakery
Pancake Bakery Menu
Van Gogh at the Hermitage