Saturday morning I dropped the dogs off at the kennel, drove back home, and Shanna & I hopped on the train. The nice thing about living near a train stop is it's easy to get around, including to the airport. With Airport parking costing around 50 euros a day, this saved us big time. Once we got to Stuttgart Airport, check in was a breeze. What a nice change from Dulles and National airports in DC. Total time from when we walked off the train at the airport to when we were at our gate was 15 minutes. Jenny, Chris, and Katia had already gotten there, so we met them behind the security checkpoint and grabbed breakfast. The plane took off at 11:20am and we were in Amsterdam by 12:30pm. Once we gathered our bags, we hopped on the train and went to the hotel.
The hotel wasn't bad, and for the price we paid, we weren't complaining. In looking at the weather, we saw that it was going to be overcast Saturday, nice & sunny on Sunday and a light rain on Monday, so we decided tonight we'd just walk around exploring the town. There were two places on our "to visit" for the first night. The IJ Brewery, because it's built into a windmill, and the Beer Temple. There's a store in Amsterdam called the Cracked Kettle that I've been in contact with before because I've ordered beer from them. They sell beer from all over the world, including American Micro Brew, which is impossible to get where we live. I had asked them if they knew of any bars that sold that kind of beer in the Amsterdam area, and they recommended the Beer Temple.
First up was the brewery built in the windmill. We had arranged to meet one of Shanna's friends from her college days here based on his recommendation. Sjoerd (pronounced "shord") lived in Rotterdam, about an hour & a half away, so he'd taken the train down to meet us. Beer straight from a brewery is always great, and this place was no exception. It was so fresh you could taste the Wort right in the beer. Wort is basically "young beer". It's what beer starts out as before anything else is done to it. The taste is hard to describe, but very distinct...once you've tasted or smelled it, you never forget it. Below is a list of their beers...as you can see, it was dirt cheap.
The percentages you see next to each name was their alcohol percentage. So not only were they cheap, they were potent. Sjoerd eventually showed up, so we headed next door to grab some dinner. After dinner, while waiting for our check, two little boys were having fun running around near us, and eventually started climbing under our table. The father came over to profusely apologize, but we didn't mind, we were having fun grabbing at them as they ran under us, and of course the boys were having a blast. Once we paid and walked out the door, they ran outside to say good bye to us.
Next up was the Beer Temple. This was place was everything I'd imagined and more. It was like going to some of our favorite bars back home. Of course the prices were significantly higher, but for one night, we thoroughly enjoyed it. Eventually we called it a night and headed back to the hotel.
The next day we got to experience what days are like in the winter when you're that far north. In Stuttgart we're pretty far north with our latitude being equal to that of Canada, just north of North Dakota. Amsterdam is a 6 hour drive further north. The sun didn't rise until 9am, and by 10am it looked like a typical day in DC at 7am, in terms of the sunlight out. By the 3pm the sun had started to set, and it was dark out by 4pm. So all told, only about 6 or 7 hours of sunlight in the day. Another thing you couldn't help but notice were the bicycles. EVERYWHERE. I've never seen so many bikes in my life. They were chained up all over the city. There was a bicycle parking garage near the Central Train Station that held, on average, almost 3,000 bikes. On Monday, a normal work day, I'd estimate about half the city was commuting to work on bikes. They have dedicated bike lines and bike traffic lights all over the city. When you see our picture gallery you'll see a picture Shanna took of a bike traffic light.
Since Sunday was going to be the nice day, we did our outdoor things then. We started the day by taking a canal tour of the city. That's always neat because you see the city from a different perspective then when you walk around. It took about an hour and we got to see a lot of the major areas of the city. The rest of the day was spent mostly walking around the city, stopping in stores and seeing what they city had to offer. We even stopped in a cheese store where they made cheese right there!
Towards the end of the day we made our last shopping stop at The Cracked Kettle. This store was amazing, but I'm sort of glad we don't have one near our place in Stuttgart...it'd be financially detrimental. They even carried a beer they technically aren't supposed to. Westvleteren is a Belgian beer that is only supposed to be sold at the brewery itself in Belgium. They require you make a reservation, promise not to resell it, and you're limited to one case per license plate per month. But this store had a case. We picked up some bottles for ourselves, as well as friends back home who had asked for some. We also picked up a bunch of other beer that I can't wait to try. As we walked out of the store, we heard music coming from the nearby canal. When we walked over to investigate, we saw this guy in a boat puttering around. He was propelling the boat by turning a hand crank and using his other hand to hold a trumpet as he played it.
When you go to the pictures section you'll also see a video I took of it. After that we walked back to our hotel, unloaded, and went to dinner. I'm usually in favor of finding local restaurants and not eating American food when we're travelling, but I don't mind making an exception for the Hard Rock Cafe, which is what we did for dinner that night. The Hard Rock Amsterdam was a 5 minute walk from the hotel, so we went there for dinner. We couldn't believe it when they offered something we took for granted in the U.S....unlimited refills on soda. That's unheard of over here. When we got back to the hotel, we started to pack up since we'd be checking out early the next day. As we started to pack, I realized we'd bought more beer then we had clothes. When we buy beer, or anything fragile, we always wrap them in clothes if we are flying home to keep them protected. Since we didn't have enough clothes, I walked to the local grocery store to see if they had bubble wrap, or anything to protect the bottles. I couldn't find bubble wrap, but did think of something I thought was rather ingenious...diapers.
The first one gave me trouble until I got the hang of it. By the end, I was wrapping them like a pro. When kids come along, I'll be ready to put diapers on! Assuming the kids are only 12 ounces, of course. :)
At 6am Monday we got up and started with showers, and were walking out the door by 8:30am. The Anne Frank house opened at 9am, and there's ALWAYS a line, so we wanted to get there early. We ended up getting there 15 minutes before it opened, and while there was a line, it wasn't long, and we were able to walk right in when the doors opened. One of the neat things about living over here is we get to see in person all the things we read about in history class growing up. This was one of those things. Everyone knows the Anne Frank story, so to actually be in the house was surreal. We walked around the normal part of the house, then through the hidden door behind the book case, into the attic area where they hid for almost 2 years. Towards the end of the tour they had a low-lit area where the actual diaries were on display. Finally, at the very end of the tour, they had some memorabilia, including a letter dated 1977 to Otto Frank. The person describes how they had just visited and how moving it was. As you get to the bottom, you see who it was written by...a very young (at the time) Bill Gates.
After we left there, we headed over to Central Train station and bought our tickets for the bus tour. Shanna & I had done the tour the last time we visited back in 2008, and the difference between a summer tourist season tour, and the winter off-season tour, was like night & day. When we toured 3 years ago, we had a personal guide who walked us all around the city explaining every detail. For this tour, it was on a bus, there was only an audio guide, and it just lasted an hour. The tour was billed as an hour & 45 minutes, but 45 minutes of it was them dropping us off at a diamond factory in town where they gave us a tour. That was actually interesting, though. Under heavy security they showed us 3 different diamonds that are examples of what they sell. They ranged in price from 85,000 Euros up to 150,000 Euros. It was neat to see the process for how they take a rough diamond and get it down to the kind you see in stores.
Once the tour was over, we headed over to the Dutch Resistance museum. This was actually really interesting. The size of the museum was not large, but there was a LOT of information, so it took some time to go through it all. They talked about the guy who was the "banker" for the resistance and how he moved money all around through shell accounts, and kept each account separate, so if one was compromised, it wouldn't compromise all of them. It talked about the illegal newspapers, the way the Nazis tried to act friendly to the local population, and in later years of the war, turned brutal. It talked about what happened to collaborators as well as the women who dated the Nazi soldiers after the war.
Once we left the museum we were just about done for the day, but hadn't eaten lunch yet. Across from the Heineken brewery was a restaurant recommended by someone at the tourist office, so we went there. We got to enjoy a traditional Dutch treat, Poffertjes. They are basically a mix between funnel cake and pancakes and are DELICIOUS.
Once we finished we walked back to the hotel where we had a cab waiting, and went to the airport. So over all, this weekend was a lot of fun. It's nice to be able to take impromptu trips to European cities for the weekend and not pay through the nose for it. Oh, and for all those wondering, every single beer made it back safely as you can see from the picture below.
I'm now a believer in diapers for packing material. :)
To see the pictures, click on any picture above or here.
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