:: Thursday, September 02, 2004 ::

Amsterdam, Day 2

After collapsing from exhaustion Thursday night, I woke up refreshed and completely un-jet-lagged Friday morning. After joining my fellow guests in the Hotel Prinsenhof's breakfast room for breakfast, I was ready to hit the city.

My first planned stop was the Anne Frank house, coincidentally located on the same canal as the hotel (the Prinsengracht), but on the other side of the city. I decided to follow the canal rather than try to decipher the tram system at this point, but after a bit of walking and quite a bit of rain, I bit the bullet and used the trams.

Unfortunately, where I was at the time didn't have a direct tram to the Anne Frank house, so I had to go into the center and change trams there. This, coupled with my walking, and somewhat of a late start, got me there later than I had planned, which meant waiting in line. Luckily, the rain held off the entire time I was in line outside, and the wait was definitely worth it.

I am so glad I read Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl before coming, and since I just read it a month or so ago, it was still fresh in my memory. I wasn't originally going to go there, with only one day in Amsterdam, but now I'm so glad I did. They say it's Amsterdam's most popular tourist attraction, and I can definitely recommend that anyone who goes to Amsterdam should visit here. Though all of the furnishings have been removed from the "Secret Annex," there is still a very palpable sense of what went on there, knowing that 8 people lived in hiding here for years until they were betrayed. You can't help but feel something when you pass through the hidden door behind the bookcase, or when you see Anne's room, with her pictures of movie stars taken from magazines still pasted on the walls. At the end, of course, you are confronted with the facts about what happened to everyone there. Only Anne's father, Otto Frank, survived the concentration camps, and it is because of him that we have her diary. Tragically, Anne herself died of typhus and deprivation in the Bergen-Belsen camp, only two weeks before it was liberated by the British Army.

After I left the Anne Frank house, I headed to the nearby Westerkerk ("West Church"), the bells of which Anne mentioned in her diary. A small statue of Anne sits outside. The Westerkerk is one of only two churches built in Amsterdam specifically for Protestants, and was completed in 1631. I wanted to go up the church's tower, but their tours were already booked for the next hour or so, and it was already afternoon, so I decided to miss it this time around.

Instead, I headed to Dam Square, the center of the Old City, home to both the Nieuwe Kerk ("New Church") and Koninklijk Paleis ("Royal Palace"). Dam Square is also home to the city's war memorial, as well as Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, and when I was there at least, a carnival of some sort.

Whereas the Westerkerk was built specifically for Protestants, the Nieuwe Kerk was Amsterdam's second parish church, built some time in the 14th century. Later, the Calvinists stripped it of all its adornments, but all Dutch monarchs since 1814 have been crowned here. For some reason I didn't go in - maybe there wasn't enough time, or admission was too high or something. I don't remember.

I do remember stopping for lunch nearby at a little Indonesian place called Sie Joe, where I had some delicious satay. Then I wasted more time as I went to change some traveler's checks. I had already signed them before I realized that I had left my passport at the hotel, and the exchange place wouldn't accept my Virginia driver's license as valid ID. And since I had already signed the checks, I couldn't cash them anywhere else. So I used up an hour or so taking the tram back to the hotel, getting my passport, and then back to the exchange place. As it turned out, it was a good thing I returned early to the hotel, however, for reasons I'll explain later.

Finally back at Dam Square, I went to the Koninklijk Paleis, the other big thing I wanted to see in Amsterdam. Originally built as the city's Stadhuis (town hall) in the 17th century, it was appropriated as the Royal Palace of Louis Napoleon in 1808, after he was appointed King of Holland by his brother Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France and recent occupier of the Netherlands. Though Louis abdicated and fled in 1810, the building remained a royal palace, though not really used by the monarchs of Holland. More information can be found in the pictures I posted, but suffice to say that the interior of the Koninklijk Paleis is quite ornate and beautiful, and was well worth the time spent there.

By the time I finished in the Royal Palace, closing times were fast approaching for a lot of the museums. I wanted to stop by the Oude Kerk ("Old Church"), Amsterdam's oldest church, built in the 14th century (although an earlier wooden church was built on the site in the early 13th century), but I also wanted to see the Amstelkring. Both closed at 5, so I headed for the Amstelkring, rationalizing that I've seen churches before and will again.

Of course, the Amstelkring itself is a church, though not the type of church you would expect. In 1578, Amsterdam rejected Catholicism and the Protestant rebels proclaimed the Alteration. Basically, all Catholic churches were recycled for Protestant use and Catholics were prohibited from openly worshipping. The solution: clandestine churches hidden inside normal buildings, of which the Amstelkring is the only surviving example.

Located in the attic of an unassuming merchant's house on Oudezijds Voorburgwal, the Amstelkring, properly known as Ons Lieve Heer Op Solder ("Our Dear Lord in the Attic"), is now a museum. The current exhibition was on the Seven Sacraments, but the church itself was pretty impressive, stuffed into a narrow Amsterdam canal house, but with an organ and mock-marble altar, even carved balconies over the nave. Tiny confessionals hidden under stairways and secret rooms for the priests completed the museum. No pictures were allowed unfortunately, and I was a bit rushed to get through it before closing time, but it was still pretty cool, and definitely recommended.

Of course, no visit to Amsterdam would be complete without a visit to the famed Red Light District. And since the Oude Kerk and Amstelkring are right on the edge of the RLD, I took this opportunity to wander through. Nothing really exciting - I've seen worse (or better?) in other big cities of the world, but it was still something to experience. Sorry, no pictures allowed there, either, fellas. Maybe the rain was keeping people away, or maybe I was just there too early. No great loss, it seems. I did go into a store/museum of prostitution looking for souvenirs, however. Rather than pay to see the museum I bought a souvenir shot glass (as I try to do for all the places I visit). I decided to forego the tacky RED LIGHT DISTRICT shot glasses complete with bare-breasted ladies in favor of a much more classy and simple "Amsterdam" shot glass. I also stopped for a glass of Heineken in Teasers, basically Amsterdam's answer to Hooters, but bar-dancing waitresses excluded, I think Hooters has it better. At least they have wings.

On the other side of the Red Light District, I came upon Nieuwmarkt and the Waag, a former fortified city gate built in the 1480s. Once the city expanded past its walls, the Waag became a municipal weighing-house, quarters for the surgeons' guild, as well as serving as a furniture store and firehouse. Today, however, it is home to In de Waag, a Belgian restaurant-cafe where I had quite a nice dinner of some kind of soup, Oriental-style mussels, and ice cream and chocolate cake for dessert.

As I mentioned earlier, I had to go back to the hotel earlier in the day, which turned out to be a good thing. When I went into my safety deposit box in the hotel for my passport, I enquired about check-out the next day. Good thing I did, as I had to leave early, and I was told that after 5 pm Friday there wouldn't be anyone there, nor would there be anyone there that early in the morning when I had to leave. So Friday afternoon I ended up emptying my safety deposit box and paying for my room. Since I would be leaving before breakfast was served, they offered to prepare a breakfast tray for me the night before. Check-out would consist of leaving my key on the tray.

So when I got home Friday night after a long day in the 'Dam, I had a tray already prepared for the next morning, complete with a one cup coffee maker. After packing up and taking a shower, I hit the bed, waking up bright and early Saturday morning at about 6 am. I got to enjoy my breakfast in my room, looking out on a sunny day of all things, and was out waiting for the tram on Utrechtsestraat by about 7:30. The tram took me to Centraal Station, where I already had my ticket for the train to the airport, and my day and a half in Amsterdam was over.

Almost over, actually. As I went to do the self check-in for my flight to Stockholm via Prague on Czech Airlines, I was informed that my bags were too heavy, and I had to go through regular check-in, which meant waiting in line. Though I had had no troubles with my bags on SAS from Dulles to Amsterdam, apparently my Czech Air ticket gave me a weight limit of only 23 kg, and together my bags weighed 47 kg. I was helpfully informed that I could remove items to make my bags lighter (because after all, I was only moving to Sweden for a year and I could surely afford to leave 24 kilos of my life in Amsterdam). What could I do? I had to take my bags with me, so after waiting in line to check in, I had to go wait in another line to pay for the extra weight. How much was it, you may ask? At 11.04 Euros per kilo, my charge was 265 Euros. More than the cost of my entire flight from Amsterdam to Stockholm. Grrrrrrrrr. But like I said, what could I do? Well, waiting in line to get through security is what. Fortunately, even with all the extra time it took, I still made my plane in plenty of time, and I was finally on my way to Sweden! Stockholm, here I come!

You may have noticed some links to photos in my photoblog in the above report. If you haven't already checked them out, please do so! The captions on the photos contain a lot more info about some of the places I mentioned, if you're interested.

Coming Soon: Stockholm, Venice of the North

:: posted by Rob 5:45 PM [+] ::

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