I thought it might be fun/interesting this time around to chronicle the experiences of my European adventure... you know, for any of you out there who enjoy my descriptive side-tangents about the mood and vibe of a place rather than the actual nuts and bolts of the food reviews. Sign up now! Don't worry, there are a lot of random restaurants I tried and there will be thoughts on those as I go. Everybody wins!
Unfortunately the very first experience worth noting is the truly dreadful flight I took that got me across the ocean in the first place.
It's not as though I typically find traveling by airplane an especially comfortable time (definitely a scenario wherein being considerably taller than the average human carries severe disadvantages)... but this particular trip must've check-marked every single "bad flight" cliche on the list. Screaming baby behind you? I'll take two orders please. Somebody constantly kicking the back of your seat? Chef's speciality. Seats crammed so tight in the aisles that even without luggage it's difficult to get in or out? Smells great. No space in the overhead? Have to try that, just shove a bunch of toilet paper out of the way and wiggle it in awkwardly.
You get the idea. Being so tightly squished in and barely able to move, resulting in your legs twitching and spasming... it's a great way to make a six hour flight feel like sixty (and you can obviously forget about trying to sleep in such circumstances). I didn't even mention how gassy the in-flight meal made me (sorry not-sorry to the passengers around me). By the time we landed in Amsterdam I got off the plane and just sat in the airport for half an hour, my brain too burnt out and my body too fried to process any other way to proceed.
The only positive being this bronze medal I secured among the trivia-inclined passengers aboard the plane. Or perhaps all-time? I tried a few hours later, my second effort much more pathetic (jet-lag exhaustion I swear) yet the standings were unchanged. Hey... I'll take anything good out of this awful draining flight that made me wonder if taking the Titanic to across the Atlantic Ocean might've been a more relaxing choice.
Not a great start! Fortunately that tiny rest was able to recharge the batteries somewhat (like recharging a dead cell phone briefly to like 5 percent) and I navigated my way out of Schiphol towards the central part of Amsterdam where I'd booked my stay.
(don't understand why the central Amsterdam train station insists upon this to the point of having a sign... must've been those secret balloon massacres we never heard about here in North America)
So I have to describe the unique sensation I have now felt twice upon seeing Amsterdam, both times while exiting the central train station. Some cities take their time to reveal themselves when you visit, gradually showing certain cards if you're willing to go deeper into the hand. Others (London for instance, or New York) are immediately all in as far as being this big, awesome behemoth that is simultaneously charming and infinitely intimidating.
For me anyway, Amsterdam has been an instant love-at-first-sight every time (which is only twice) I've left the train station and I think it's just a beautiful old simplicity. Here are some aged buildings along lots of water, bike lanes flooding your senses (which certainly appeals to me), every sidewalk looks a century old and yet the city itself has a constant vibrancy to it. A youthful energy continuously refreshing the air to make these lovely old bricks breathe new again.
It's a strange city to describe and also completely different from what I remember... my 20 hour cameo last year is a worthy tale to be told but a suburban one that doesn't at all capture what the centre of the city is like.
I mean... staying so close to that central hub train station... this is a city very much designed for tourists. Hey, like downtown Toronto or New York or insert your hometown here isn't... this is the nature of the game. To describe it, this particular area in Canadian terms... it's like a less pretentious Yorkville but a much more refined Niagara Falls... with way way more cyclists. Like if cyclists had the right of way, city streets were old and yet designed with them in mind, and thus every bike or vehicle never went faster than like 30km per hour. Hell, right? What the fuck! We have places to go and fast fast fast! How dare this gentle and safe flow of traffic exist! I even noted that like one out of every 70 cyclist wore a helmet, almost like they're less afraid of drivers veering into their space dangerously? My word! The Dutch are clueless dopes out of their minds...
Amsterdam is a wonderful city. The blatant pandering to tourism in this particular central zone of the city has to be its only weakness. I arrived on a Saturday (with a marathon the next afternoon I later learned) and the international tourists (myself one of them of course) filled up every crevice of any charming walkway remotely close to the central hub of Amsterdam. Wandering more away from the train station, the crowds would thin and the amount of (apologizes) pandering food places diminished significantly. There would be people, but you could actually stretch your arms out a little bit.
I've never been one for tourist traps, unless they're really good ones. An advantage of being a solo traveller is going off by yourself, getting somewhat lost in a city you barely know... then the process of finding your way back teaches you about the city itself. A place reveals itself most to you when you have the littlest idea what it is.
Also sometimes the phone can't pick up internet right away in a new country, so you're navigating where you need to go via a map in your head. The lesson is! Always have a map in your head.
I have a pretty good sense of direction even within internet-seperartion (born in the 80s yo) thus I managed to navigate, with some directional luck, where my hostel was. I'm so good at this that I still had two hours to kill before I could check into said hostel! So I found a little cafe* on the corner of Joe Nieuwendyk** lane and drank in the atmosphere.
*cafes in the Nederlands are actually bars, like coffeeshops are actually... magic dragons
**obviously not named after him and the spelling is off... but come on how could I turn down a Joe Nieuwendyk reference?.
Drank some variations of Grolsch: a Rose (interesting though a bit too sweet) and an unfiltered Wit (which was very citrusy and refreshing) while taking in the busy atmosphere both inside the cafe and outside along the laneway... I even met a Red Sox fan! Sure didn't expect that. Finally 2pm came along. Into the hostel, got the internet working.... away we go into the next adventure!
Well, after a much deserved and needed nap at least.
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