I went to Amsterdam in November. From the fact that it’s taken until January to start writing about it, you might not be surprised that Amsterdam and I didn’t get on all that well.
If you’re into getting drunk and stoned and sampling the delights of the Red Light District, then this city is for you. Amsterdam is such a party town. But if you’re into high art and culture, then this city is also for you. So many world class museums. But I’m not into either and so Amsterdam is not for me.
It did make me wonder what is for me. What do I do? What do I like? I don’t know. But whatever it is, I didn’t find it in Amsterdam.
The first 24 hours was fine. I mean, we messed up the trams big time. And when I say “we”, I really mean “I”. I knew what trams we needed. We successfully caught the 1 from Centraal Station and successfully disembarked at Leidseplein. Successfully got on the 7 in the direction of “place beginning with A”. It was only when the tram emptied out and then reached the terminus at Azertplein that I realised we’d gone in the wrong direction. Don’t know where I got the idea that the endstation began with A. Technically I got on the wrong tram but I believed I was on the right one according to what I thought I knew. We got the bus back to Centraal and then found a direct bus to the hotel.
But it wasn’t over yet! My sister looked up at the hotel and said it didn’t look like the one she’d been looking at online. Yeah, she was right. I’d brought us to the right chain but the wrong specific hotel. Looked it up so carefully, used Google Maps to figure out how to get from the tram stop to the front door and it was the wrong place. Fortunately the correct hotel was only another few stops on the tram or bus, only another five or ten minutes further on.
It was nice to get a hotel for half the usual price, since I was sharing a room. On the other hand, we were told that we were upgraded to a larger room as we were staying four nights. I dread to think what we should have had because this room really was the absolute minimum size for two people. Plenty of room for one but a squeeze for two.
I admit, part of my problem with Amsterdam stems from it being a lot colder than I expected – a lot colder than was reasonable. We never really got warm the whole five days, despite thermals, warm layers and ski jackets.
But the major problem was that 24 hours later, we were standing by a canal going “Well, we’ve seen and done everything. What do we do for the next three and a half days?”
The only thing we had left was the Anne Frank Museum and as that had to be pre-booked some time in advance, it couldn’t be altered or brought forward.
I asked Twitter for advice and while I got plenty of ideas, they were mostly “look at the canals” (done and nearly frozen in the process), “eat all the things” (already done), “enjoy the architecture” (trying but it’s cold) and things like that, which weren’t very helpful. 30 Unusual Things to Do in Amsterdam lists and similar (24 Odd Things, 35 Weird Things etc) were similarly unhelpful, being all exactly the same but in a different order.
So that was the problem with Amsterdam. We got lost, we got cold and we got bored. As for what we did and what we enjoyed, that will be coming over the course of January.
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