My posts are completely out of order at this point. Here are the places I’ve visited in order: Reykjavik, Oslo, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Istanbul, Athens, Barcelona, Vienna, Salzburg, Munich, Interlaken, Bern, Milan, Venice, Florence, Siena, Rome, Privas, Paris, London, Edinburgh, Amsterdam and Dublin.
I wasn’t even going to go to Amsterdam. On the hostel circuit, you mainly hear about Amsterdam for one activity, and it’s not the bike riding. It’s just not my thing. But I met enough people who convince me that Amsterdam is beautiful, and you don’t have to smoke to enjoy it.
When hostel living, breakfast is a clutch time to make new friends and find people to hang out with. Breakfast always has a similar conversation consisting of several standard questions:
- Where are you from?
- How long have you been here?
- What have you seen so far?
- What are you going to do today?
In Amsterdam, the questions remain the same. But the answers are a wee bit different.
“So what are you going to do today?,” the adorable-but-scruffy Australian asks.
“I’m going to the Van Gogh museum, the Anne Frank house and maybe for a bike ride if there is time!” I respond in my excited “Let’s Go Elaine” tourist voice. “What are you doing?”
“Well we’re thinking of hitting up the Marijuana Museum today. I hear you can take a hit off a giant bong!”
“ummm…Oh, well…UMMMM…that sounds lovely!”
“Have you been to the Sex Museum yet?”
“Ummmm…no, not yet! But it’s on the list!” (It wasn’t, but I had no idea how to hold my end of this conversation.)
“It was awful. We paid 7 Euros, and there was nothing to see! Total rip-off.”
“That’s because the Erotica Museum is the better museum, and it’s only 3 Euros,” an English girl jumps in.
Yes, that really was the exact conversation. They debate the merits of the Sex Museum versus the Erotica Museum while I finish my toast quietly. Frankly, I bet the Marijuana Museum would be hilarious with friends. But at this point at the trip, I just didn’t want to try and pretend to muster the enthusiasm up for a museum I didn’t have any aching desire to see. I wrote Amsterdam off for meeting new people.
Which is why meeting Sid made the Heineken “experience” actually worth experiencing. One of the highlights of backpacking is that you can meet people in happenstance situations and then choose to spend the rest of the day with them. Sid, short for Sidhartha, is an expat from Amsterdam currently working out of the Hague. Traveling brings the most fascinating people into your life. Back home, I’m fairly introverted. Meeting so many new people in 2009 pushed me so far out of my comfort zone it was exhausting. By the end of the year, I wasn’t open to meeting to new people. Traveling by yourself, you make the effort to meet new people or perish from loneliness. And thank God for that, because I’ve met people from countless countries and all walks of life. One of my biggest desires from traveling is to work hard in 2010 at meeting new people, especially people who don’t live/work in the social media bubble.
Sid and I finished the Heineken brewery tour (which was lame-o) and went for steaks, frites and beer at a nearby restaurant. When you walk into a restaurant, you aim to see more natives and less of the fannypack brigade. This restaurant was spot on. My super bloody steak and frites coupled with great conversation was a much better experience than Heineken.
I wrapped up my stay in Amsterdam with a bike ride, which is the best way to see the canals of Amsterdam. On my earlier Amsterdam tour, the guide cited a fact were there was approximately two bikes for every citizen of Amsterdam. Yet, for every citizen of Amsterdam that owns 1.72 bikes, I didn’t see a single one wearing a helmet. Not one. Despite my map and several of the sites I read declaring how dangerous and crazy bike riding in Amsterdam is, the Amsterdamians haven’t gotten the memo. Is Amsterdamians a word? It is now. Go with it. It’s a cross between a dalmatian and someone who lives in Amsterdam. Pronounce it Am-ster-dame-e-an, and file it away in the Elainguage dictionary.
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