Netherlands: Day 4 - 8

22 - 26 May 2013

Day 4: Doing SFA
This was a lazy day and my achievement for the day was sewing some patches on my bag. I also went for a walk around Haarlem just so I didn't feel like I was wasting away by sitting inside all day.

Day 5: De 9 Straatjes
Freshly recovered from a day off, I decided to head back into Amsterdam. I had the Anne Frank House recommended to me so I headed that way but first I had a wander through an area called De 9 Straatjes or The 9 Streets. It's another area of shops that I thought would have something different but it's really just more of the same.

Anne Frank House
I walked up to the line for the Anne Frank House, saw that it was about 200 people long and not really moving so I kept moving.

Rijks Museum
Next stop, Rijks Museum! The line situation wasn't much better here but at least it was moving. It was bloody freezing, so much so that I got hailed on at one point, but after 45 minutes I finally got in. One wanker I heard in there said, rather loudly, "I didn't come here to read" when his girlfriend told him he had to read the information blurb thingy to know what things were.

The museum is split into separate eras and I started in one of the older ones that was mostly painting of (ugly) 15th century people, statues and other religious stuff. I was having second thoughts about coming because it was kind of boring (I don't appreciate art, so hate me) but then I came across the weapons and boat section, a much more enjoyable area. There were a lot of pistols and rifles from different ages, models of boats and lots of other important inventions that you would've found on these boats, basically all the stuff I love. Diaphanormas were another cool thing I found. They're a framed picture that's made from 3 pieces of painted glass with a back light so the picture has a depth to it. In the end, I'm glad I went because there were a lot of interesting things and I did spend just over 3 hours there so I must've enjoyed it.

Boat Ride
As part of the Heineken Experience, you get a free boat ride from the brewery but I missed out on the day I did the Hieneken thing. So why not be lazy and get my free ride back across the city now, plus I get my "free gift" from the Heineken Merchandise store. The cruise took about 15 minutes and went past the Amstel Hotel (super ritzy one) and a bunch of house boats (apparently worth 400k each) plus they served cheap beer. Turns out my free gift was a smiling 'e' (from the Heineken logo) bottle opener; useful seeing as all European beers seem to be flip tops.

Dam Square (main town square)
I watched a busker doing his magic show where he picked a girl from the audience and had her throw a flaming torch, a sword and an apple to (at) him as he started to juggle them all.

Day 6: Being Pov
Embracing the povo, backpacker attitude I decided to go op-shopping for a new(ish) jacket because it's freezing here and I'm not really prepared. I walked most of the way around Haarlem and eventually found something for the bargain of 10 euros.

Day 7: Amsterdam by Bike
Everyone rides bikes in this place and I'm antsy that I can't so I hired a bike for 4 hours and did hot laps of the city. It's as much fun as riding scooters in Bali,except that you have to pedal, because you can ride down all the alley ways, on the foot paths, the wrong way down streets but on a lot of roads you get dedicated bike lanes so it's easily the fastest way around town. I rode past the Anne Frank House two more times and I reckon the line was getting longer each time, guess I'm not gonna see that one.

The Pub
Saturday night in Amsterdam is crazy, I lost count of how many bucks and hens nights I saw and it seems like most of Europe comes here because the city is absolutely packed. I met a bunch of English chicks who were in town for a friend's birthday and joined them for a few (or a lot of) beers and finally found some restaurant to get late night pizza.

Day 8: Geocaching
Well, it wasn't actually geo-caching because I was only going with Adam to check his cache and make sure it was ok. It wasn't, the last spaz didn't put the lid back on. The national park that it was in was really nice, it felt a lot like the Adelaide hills... actually most of Holland does with everything being so green and slightly covered in moss.

I'm getting a better idea of the sorts of things I want to see and do when I'm in a place; basically, things that are unique to the city I'm in. Shopping centres are one thing I'm avoiding because they're the same everywhere plus I can't fit any more crap in my bag. I'm also feeling pretty lucky living in Australia because it seems you can have food from pretty much any culture you like. Still, I'm trying to sample the local food whenever I can.

Thoughts on Amsterdam/Netherlands
-Amsterdam has lots of tiny casinos, which is a bit of a change from the Melbourne Casino or even the Adelaide one
-no one wear sunnies, I swear I'm the only one in the country that even owns a pair. It's fair enough though because there isn't really a sun
-all cars are manual (economy win)
-driving in town is a super dumb move. Most roads are only one car wide and I've seen so many trucks unloading or people who just stop their car and there's nothing the people behind can do except wait (bikes ftw).
-most of the cars are crap. Initially I was going to say all but I've seen the occasional one that isn't but it's definitely not a place for someone who likes quick cars
-obviously there's lots of pushies
-the weather is crazy; definitely a four seasons in one day place.
-safety isn't a big concern; no one wears helmets (bikes or scooters), no one indicates and the trams almost run everyone over all the time because there's no barriers
-the highways are the absolute minimum width; no breakdown lanes
-no one has curtains, which wouldn't be so much of a problem if they had front yards but they don't, the houses front onto the footpath. Some people have frosted stickers but you can still look right into people's houses (although it's rude to do so)
-they still have seagulls and flies

What's Next
-I'm going to Paris on Tues 28th for 6 nights (via the high speed Thalys train)
-I come back to Netherlands after Paris to help the guys move to London (we're taking the ferry from Rotterdam)
-I'm considering doing a 2 week Contiki tour just after getting to London
-I'm hoping to get to the 24hr Le Mans. I should probably organise that, eh?

Pictures:
-decorating my bag with patches
-the local national park
-some thingy that the Dutch love; it's mash potato base with cheese, carrots and an egg on top. It was very rich
-Krul or Krullen: street side urinals. They stink of piss but it beats paying 50 cents for the toilet
-a vagina couch in the Rijks Museum (seriously)
-a pair of portable canons
-one of the diaphanoramas of a village under siege
-a bad ass, old school minigun
-the Netherlands does actually have a sun!
-an example of a crap car; pretty sure they run farm quad running gear (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waaijenberg)
-a 3 metre rifle for goose hunting
-the first submarine prototype
-sexy old school lobster backs
-me trying to look cool on a cruiser bike