Amsterdam

 

 

Aromas of marijuana, French fries, tobacco, coffee, simmering dinners and beer mix on the crowded alleyways.

 

Almost everyone on this cobblestone street, whether smoking as they casually stroll past or sipping beer at bistro tables, seems to be 18 to 40 years old and dressed for an open-air rock festival.

 

Techno, metal and folk music tangle for supremacy of the airwaves.

 

Store fronts make no mystery of what they're offering, whether souvenir tee shirts and windmills of assorted varieties, Green Fairy Absinthe, paperback novels in multiple languages, specially blended drugs, plump or skinny prostitutes, or dark chocolate and brownies. 

Compared to other cities and villages we visited, Amsterdam is quite young, both demographically and in terms of the city's age.

 

Less than 900 years ago, in the 1170's, villagers responded to floods by building a dam with bridge at the Amstel River. 

 

The village became known as Aemstelredamme, which translates to "Amstel Dam."  That eventually morphed into the current name.

Then again, perhaps that is still Amsterdam's name, because it is really hard to understand what anyone says in Dutch.  Fortunately, almost everyone in the Netherlands seems to also speak English.

In fact, at this point in history, more than half the residents of Amsterdam are children of non-Dutch natives, so I would guess more people speak English than Dutch.  Many recent arrivals hail from the Dutch Antilles, Morocco, Suriname, and Turkey.

As in France, many immigrants are Muslims who come to a tolerant country for greater economic opportunities that such personal freedoms afford, only to isolate themselves into Islamic enclaves where Sharia Law is given as much credence as the official laws in their new countries, or so news stories say.

However, my personal observation revealed a bustling city of diverse residents hustling for a buck by exploiting relaxed social mores.

Young Turks seemed too busy hawking ghanja and day trips (travel excursions) to think about stoning (with rocks) harlots, who would certainly be easy enough for Muslims to find in the storefronts of the famed Redlight District, if they were so inclined. 

Back in the 1970's when I matriculated at Golden West College, some of my friends rented a tract house in Huntington Beach where they held epic parties.  They called their house the Amsterdam Hilton, partly because they lived on Amsterdam Drive but mostly because even forty years ago Amsterdam was considered to be a libertine haven where anything goes.

With coffee houses that double as pot shops, marijuana shops that have branched into psychedelic mushrooms, bars prominently featuring Absinthe, and window displays featuring suggestively dressed hookers, Amsterdam today eclipses the reality of that college party house implication long ago.

On larger boulevards, there was more automobile traffic than I had expected in this city built on canals and renowned for the number of bicycles per capita. 

Indeed, lots of people rode bikes, and I've never seen so many parked bicycles anywhere.

Multi-level parking garages seem to be overflowing with bikes.

Our ship's excursion in Amsterdam began with a canal boat ride, but this boat experience paled by comparison to every other tour arranged by Uniworld.

 

Our canal boat was well-worn and didn't show the same pride of ownership to which we became accustomed throughout our trip.

Amsterdam itself, both viewed from the canal boat and later from the sidewalks, seemed to share that same carelessness of maintenance.

Permanently parked river boats line the canals, and while some are lovely, many are shabby, showing little pride of ownership on the exterior.  Perhaps they are beautiful inside and the owners just want to keep a low profile in this city of neo-gypsies.

Floating through canals definitely beats riding a bus, which would be our form of transportation to return to the River Queen.  Bussing in Amsterdam turned out to be pleasant enough, with no real traffic snarls.

We had been given a choice between the Van Gogh Museum or the Rijksmuseum. While our son Jay has been to the Van Gogh and strongly recommended it, we went for the Rijksmuseum, which had recently re-opened after a ten year renovation.

I don't think you could go wrong with either choice.  Uniworld provided a knowledgeable English-fluent guide to lead us through the masterpieces by Dutch Masters including Vermeer and Rembrandt.

While paintings of all sizes are on display, it was large works, like "Banquet at the Crossbowmen's Guild" (8 feet by 12 feet) by Bartholomeus van der Helst and "The Night Watch" (12 feet by 14 feet) by Rembrandt van Rijn, that really stopped us in our tracks. 

By the way, appropriate to our Legendary Rhine and Moselle cruise, "van Rijn" translates as "of Rhine."

Dutch style is primarily realist, in both paintings and sculpture, and I'd say reproductions from most of the collection would fit nicely into any home with an empty wall or shelf.

I was surprised to see 17th Century Brazilian tropical landscapes among the expected windmills and Dutch seascapes, but the Dutch were, after all, great explorers and world traders.

We thoroughly enjoyed our museum visit. I should note that at the museum we found a much different crowd than on the city streets, including over-40 adults, families and school children.

Some of our shipmates paid to visit the Van Gogh, which is within walking distance of the Rijksmuseum, after this tour, but Julie and I found our art hunger sated by the end of our museum visit.  Having a guide direct us to and inform us about the art made the most of our time.

 

 

The Rijksmuseum is housed in a stately, palace-like structure designed by Dutch architect Pierre Cuypers. The gorgeous structure opened in 1885. From 2003 to 2013, it underwent a $375 million renovation, so it is absolutely pristine.

Founded in the Hague in 1800, the museum collection moved to Amsterdam in 1808, where it was temporarily housed in a couple of former palaces before construction of its permanent home.

 

 

There are many other beautiful historic buildings in Amsterdam, including the Central Train Station and assorted churches. 

Anne Frank House is a major attraction, but a long line discouraged us from giving further consideration to visiting it.  For those unfamiliar with Anne Frank's name, I'll give a quick overview of her story.

Nazis invaded the Netherlands in 1940, brought it under their strict rule and began registering Jews, including Anne's family, as a preliminary step to what we now know to have been a despicable end.

On June 12, 1942, Anne received a diary as a present on her 13th birthday and began keeping a journal.  Three weeks later, her older sister received orders to report to a Nazi work camp in Germany.  Anne's family went into hiding in the attic of her father's business, joined by his business partner's family and their dentist.

These eight people remained holed up in that tiny space for two years and one month, until they were betrayed and sent to a concentration camp in August of 1944. 

Anne Frank died of typhus at the age of fifteen before the war ended in 1945.  Of the eight people who hid in that attic, only Anne's father Otto survived.

It's a heart-wrenching story.  "The Diary of A Young Girl" was at one time required reading in schools, but I don't believe it has been for many years now.  It helped convey to post-WWII children why Western Civilization cannot simply co-exist with evil.  

While we didn't visit the interior, just thinking about Anne Frank's tragic life makes me thank God for being allowed to raise my children in the home of the brave and the free.

 

Our Uniworld itinerary finished with an overnight stay on the ship in Amsterdam, and we felt one day to be enough time in the city scene, so we booked a day trip for the next day to Volendam, Marken and Windmills through one of the many tourist shops along the boulevard before returning to the ship.

Since we had an extra hotel night booked, we spent our last evening on board appreciating the amazing meals and services of our ship rather than returning to the city after sundown.  As strange as it seems, we had already grown quite close to many of our fellow sojourners and our hosts.

Here are a few more photos from our time in Amsterdam: