Amsterdam satellite summary

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Full Amsterdam & Utrecht photosets: Andy’s (flickr) | Nick’s (SimpleViewer)

Since Day 4 was the big sight-seeing and exploring day in Amsterdam, I posted the two Holland days (mmmmm hollandaise…) out of sequence so you’d see Amsterdam first. Click ahead to go back to Day 3’s barbecue & bike ride adventure in Utrecht.

Arrival by train at Amsterdam Centraal

The Big Leap Off-boarding from the Utrecht train into Amsterdam, with no one to meet or guide us, was our first deep dive into verbal Babylon. It was also the first test of the Lonely Planet pocket guide as an actual means of planning and navigation rather than a theory based in page-turning speculation. This along with the realization that losing track of each other in the crowd would likely throw an unrecoverable wrinkle in our (vague) day plan made our initial quest feel like a critical leap of faith: follow Lonely Planet’s instructions to the bike rental place. Holland Rent A Bike As we walked we were immediately challenged to unlearn Irish left-side traffic flow, while factoring in new mini-lanes flanking the streets reserved entirely for bikes. Fast-moving, no mercy, flatten-your-ignorant-American-ass-on-the-cobblestone bikes claimed the right of way in just about any auto or pedestrian match-up. Which is exactly how we interpreted our privileges as we upgraded from Adidas- to Schwinn-based-transit and started weaving a path back and forth along the canal rings, pushing outward from Centrum into Jordaan and the Western and Southern Canal Belts (see the map above for our route, which I had a ton of fun retracing – yay google maps!)

Canal-side bike ride

First pit stop along the Amstel River Canal Envy sinks in at Cafe Marcella It didn’t take us long to realize that, as fun and free-wheeling as the biking was, the folks who really had it figured out were afloat, drifting thru the channels, sipping wine, lying out, playing cards, asking each other for grey poupon, and generally making a mockery of landlubbers. Amsterdam’s charm sunk in quickly and actually stung a little bit – with its compact, strollable scenery and culture, all the amenities of modern urban living… but interlaced in the carefree wanderings of mini-parties adrift in a canal maze. It seemed cruelly perfect. Double-fisting my first of many espresso/beer combos canal-side at Cafe Marcella, I posed my first “how can I make this *my* city?” query of the trip. Café De Twee Zwaantjes, across from Westerkerk We changed things up a bit at our second canal-side bike-ride pit-stop, pairing the espresso with wine instead of beer. The sun poked out even further, Westerkerk loomed majestically overhead, and our canal-side seats were totally VIP… but a quick glimpse at the mobile fiestas drifting by reminded us that the real backstage-passes party was afloat.

Centrum sights

Dame Square The Royal Palace and Nieuwe Kerk (“New Church”) put an impressive architectural backdrop around Dame Square. This star-studded window next door to Nieuwe Kerk caught my eye. Het Schuim The bikes had to be back by 6 pm, so we zipped back to the rental shop in Centrum and checked out the Lonely Planet-inspired Het Schuim to rehydrate, sip espressos, and soak up some ambiance. Rendezvous at Nationaal Monument We linked up with our Utrecht host Nick Milne at the Nationaal Monument before kicking off an evening of Belgian brews, Indonesian cuisine, and Amsterdam “coffee”.

Belgians at Gollem

After rendezvousing at the Nationaal Monument, we wound through a few Centrum sidestreets to a pub called Gollem. Pints of Belgians were the specialty. We got into a chat about harmony, music theory, math, and ethnomusicology that I really enjoyed, making a note-to-self to resurrect the old collegiate interest after the trip and maybe even take a fresh look at software development in that area (update: hasn’t happened) My worsening congestion also motivated a dedicated effort to find a pharmacy that was open, since every one we’d seen all day had been closed because it was Sunday. Hrm.

Pharma-charades

Like it or not, pharmacy interactions were to be some of my purest cross-cultural challenges of the trip. I knew exactly what I wanted in US FDA terms: Dayquil, aka Dextramethorphan HBr (decongestant/cough suppressant) + Pseudoephedrine or Phenylephrine (nasal decongestant) + Acetaminophen (pain reliever). If a cough picks up, Mucinex aka Guanifesin (expectorant). I get sinus infections waaayyy too often and have this cocktail pretty well memorized. But I also knew that brand names (Dayquil) weren’t going to get me anywhere, and as it turned out chemical names (Dextromorphan HBr) wouldn’t either because in just about every city we visited (and especially in Holland) the mappings between “symptom” and “approved medication” were wired differently from the states. Add to that the actual, y’know, *language* barrier and I was basically playing charades using the periodic table while clutching various parts of my face and throat. The pharmacy we went to didn’t have Pseudoephedrine or Phenylephrine, in fact the whole “nasal decongestant” idea didn’t seem to get much coverage. I finally came away with an Alka-Selterish “Apotherkers” box featuring “Acetylcysteine” (basically a mucus-thinner) which I’d never heard of, but was encouraged by the picture of a person coughing on the package. I also scored some “Daro” hoestprikkeldempend pills containing dextromethorfan, or as the subtext proclaimed—and the Nicks were quick to point out—”Retard capsules.” An assortment of packaging I collected throughout my tour of the continent.

Bojo Indonesian in De Pijp

We hopped on a mini-tram out toward a neighborhood called De Pijp (sounds like “pipe”), met up with Georgia again, and the four of us scouted an Indonesian joint called Bojo that featured such delicacies as "Cumi Cumi." The "Retard Capsules" I’d picked up at the pharmacy to soothe my worsening congestion began to kick in, and before I knew it my mind was spinning, trying its best to keep up with the whirlwind of fast-paced hilarious Irish banter.

The food was pretty good, my shredded beef dish was a little dry but definitely hit the spot. My IQ, on the other hand, continued its descent into single digits as the meds tightened their grip, the rapier Irish wit zipping in circles around me, dozily adrift in a sea of possible responses always occurring to me 10 seconds late. Clearly I needed a strategy to even the playing field of chatty cleverness and get myself back into the game: Coffeeshop! So as not to implicate myself or anyone else in any sort of entirely-legal but generally-frowned-upon activities, I'll just say this: I don't remember a thing!* * But if I did remember, it may have been this place called Dampkring…

De Dampkring

On the return trip back from our Indonesian adventure in De Pijp we hit my first and only Amsterdam Coffeeshop. Backlit amoeba-cellular-gel designs carved above the bar, low-decibel psytrance beats pulsing in the background, laminated menus spelling out the effects of various indicas and sativas in plain English (yes English – up till then nearly everything had been in Dutch). Apparently, it was also the location of a scene in Oceans Twelve (never seen it). The nearest variation I could think of in terms of ambiance, decor, and vibe was… wait for it… a low key Burning Man audio theme camp. Okay, no big surprises there, but it got me wondering whether that was a fairly standard feel for Amsterdam coffeeshops or whether myriad varieties of stonerism were represented across town – Bob Marley rasta-reggae spots, Grateful Dead folkadelic hippie spots, Cypress Hill hip-hop-hits-from-the-bong spots, etc, or whether the psytrance DJ burner beats were the de facto standard. More to explore next trip I guess! Nick took this sweet canal-side shot on the stroll back to the train station.

Hasty train exodus by way of bike parking vortex

Consistent with what to become the status quo for all of our Eurotrek connections, our arrival at the platform to catch the train back to Utrecht was barely in the nick of time. I did manage to get a couple photos of the piles and piles of parked bikes outside the station, frothing over and up and out in every direction STILL at 1 in the morning. How does anyone find their actual bike? Maybe it’s a runaway phenomenon, people just stopped looking for their own bike in the middle of the pile years ago, and as time passes the density of the metal core of the bike racks has warped gravity. At their core these bike racks are unstable gnarls of twisted metal and only a few scattered bikes around the periphery are actually being actively parked and ridden by anyone. No one ever speaks of it… but everybody knows.

Full Amsterdam & Utrecht photosets: Andy’s (flickr) | Nick’s (SimpleViewer)

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