Our Amsterdam Adventure: Day One

Usually when we go somewhere in Europe, we take the first or second train/plane of the day, since those are always the cheapest on Eurostar and the various budget airlines. Today our plane didn't leave until 11:45 A.M., and with KLM's wonderfully user-friendly online check-in system, we didn't have to be at Heathrow until an hour before our flight's departure, so we enjoyed a normal wake-up time and left home in daylight instead of early-morning darkness. Of course, this meant that we missed our usual travel-day sighting of a neighbourhood fox scurrying across the road, but a much smaller (and easier to photograph) member of the animal kingdom ensured that we didn't leave London without at least one encounter with nature:

One quick peek at our pilot, and we were off!

Another advantage of our later-than-usual departure was that we arrived in Amsterdam mid-afternoon (instead of mid-morning) and were able to check into our hotel right away--not having to leave our bag and come back closer to check-in time was a real treat. Since we booked this trip pretty last-minute (after a KLM sale that beat out Easyjet beckoned our way), a quick scan of hotels proved to be disappointing in terms of price, with many budget options either booked up or with only their most expensive rooms (no longer "budget"!) still available. With dreams of a characterful room overlooking a quiet canal now out of our € reach, we decided to try our Priceline luck yet again, and ended up getting one of our nicest rooms yet, and for only about 30% of the rate offered on the hotel website--an amount for which I couldn't find any non-scary, conventionally bookable budget accommodation. Great bed,

great view,

and "the pillow of your dreams"!

Add in free wireless internet in the room, the fact that the entire hotel was non-smoking (what are the odds in Amsterdam?), thoughtful touches like complimentary bottled water, an empty minibar perfect for stowing our own grocery-store-priced munchies (you could order the fridge to be stocked with alcoholic or non-alcoholic contents, if you wished), and bathroom speakers connected to the TV/radio, and we were pretty pleased. (The fact that we were in a European hotel room which could comfortably fit a large sofa would have been bonus enough.) With all of these creature comforts, it was a bit difficult to leave the room, but we managed to tear ourselves away to start wandering through the city. Close to the hotel, we waited with several cyclists for this swing bridge to, well, swing back to the path so we could continue on our way.

Although the temporary location of the Stedelijk Museum (until it reopens in its original south Amsterdam location at the end of 2009 after more than five years of renovations) is in two floors of the building directly across from us,

we waited until tomorrow to have a peek at their current exhibits. For now, we just passed by, admiring some of the images that graced the construction site.

The nearby Renzo-Piano-designed NEMO Science Centre has a large, sloping roof which becomes a patio in the warmer months.

Ah, but here's the building I was excited to see:

Amsterdam's almost-year-old Central Library is the largest library in Europe and is an amazing space with an airy feel, plenty of private nooks, and an enviable selection of magazines, music CDs, and DVDs. They had albums we'd never heard of by some of our favourite artists (and at least one album by every great band we could think of), all the films I looked for were sitting on the stuffed DVD shelves, and I could have spent our entire trip here, gorging myself on design magazines from around the world. Open until 10:00 P.M. every night, the Amsterdam library is a library-lover's dream.

I was intrigued by these space-age pods

and found out that they're the cutest study carrels ever!

From the glorious, glorious library, we passed het scheepvaarthuis ("the shipping building"), a striking 1917 building that has recently been converted into a luxury hotel.

Having reached the canals, we started wandering wherever looked nicest--most of the time it was difficult to decide which way to go, because every turn looked equally picturesque.

A rather scary crack runs all the way up the side of the Armenian Church, built in 1714 (you can just see the beginning of the jagged split on the left side of the plaque).

My favourite strolling activity here quickly became spotting the numerous wonderful decorative tablets that adorn many of the houses. Popular as address markers before numbers were used for that purpose, each unique plaque gives some clue as to the history of the house in question. Some of the original (pre-1795, when house numbers came into use) plaques have been restored and feature the date of their refurbishment along with the original date, while others remain as faded and chipped as you would expect after more than 200 years of natural and human abuse. Yet other tablets bear no date at all:

With many of the tablets on canalside houses, I tried to walk on the sidewalk-free side of these streets, next to the canal, so I could gaze up at the buildings and pick out charming details. Amsterdam may indeed be a cyclist's city, but as far as taking in the tantalizing details of the tall, narrow houses, nothing beats being on foot. We passed a few tempting stores filled with knick knacks,

but since it was now after 6:00 P.M., most of the shops were closed. When we walked past one of the ubiquitous Albert Heijn grocery stores (AH appears to be the supermarket chain in Amsterdam), we went in to buy picnic ingredients and ate our delicious purchases by a canal.

Today was an oddly hot day in Amsterdam--while the successive days of our trip hovered around 17-21'C as a high, today's muggy temperature reached around 28'C, and as we sat on our bench, enjoying our food and the views, the evening sun was still quite strong, making it seem much earlier than it was. We walked around a bit more

before arriving at Anne Frank House, where we had booked tickets for entry between 6:30 and 7:30 P.M. Photos aren't allowed in the house, so all I have to show you is the exterior:

Walking through the small warren of rooms in which two families hid for more than two years under such unimaginable circumstances was quite an experience. Knowing that Anne's father, Otto, would be the only occupant to survive the concentration camps the families were sent to after they were discovered made the thoughtful displays and video testimonies even more poignant. As strange as it sounds though, the event that most brought the house to life for me occurred as we were heading up an incredibly steep set of tiny steps within the secret annex that Anne described as "leg-breaking." Moments after I read this description at the bottom of the stairs, I bashed my shin against the uppermost step (a dramatic green bruise would show up a week later)--suddenly, in the most mundane of ways, Anne became even more real. While the annex rooms are unfurnished, as per Otto Frank's wishes, many small original elements remain. The decorations that Anne glued on the walls of her room (mostly cutouts of movie stars) underscored the fact that she was, of course, just a typical teenager in so many ways. I almost missed the faint pencil markings on one wall that kept track of the increasing heights of the teenagers in the annex, but when I noticed them, I found it difficult to look away. One unexpected sight in the house is in a glass case by the café: the 1959 "Best Actress in a Supporting Role" Academy Award, won by Shelley Winters for her performance in the film version of Anne's diary. The caption on the side of the case mentions how Winters met Otto Frank and promised that if she won the Academy Award, she would give it to him to display in the Amsterdam house in which the story took place. After we left the house, we sat for a few minutes behind Westerkerk listening to the church bells chime their quarter-hourly song (the bells chime all through the night as well). Along with the appearance of its bells in Anne Frank's diary, Westerkerk (completed in 1631) is also known for having Amsterdam's tallest spire and for being the final resting place of Rembrandt (although the exact location of his tomb is unknown). Nearby, the matter-of-factly named "Homomonument" stands as a memorial to the persecution certain men and women experienced under Nazi rule. This particular triangle (representative of the triangle that homosexuals had to wear as a symbol of their "deviance") is one of three behind Westerkerk that make up the monument:

This next sight struck us as odd

and it became even more curious when we spotted more of these climbing cat sculptures in other neighbourhoods--always quite high up on houses, in rather precarious poses. I've never been in a city with so many cats--cats on the street, cats visible in houses, and even cats in street art! (If you're a cat-lover, then Amsterdam is definitely your city.) With no particular destination in mind, except maybe a coffee break, we continued our evening stroll along canals and streets, gazing into windows and up at buildings, trying to get our bearings--not so easy in a place with so many gently turning canals! All in all, it was a lovely night.

We wished we were sitting at this secluded table across the canal!

Bob thought that this building was a school, but we weren't sure. In any case, the mushrooms (?) growing out of the side of the building were quite unusual.

Amongst all the cats, this was the only dog we saw tonight:

I love the fact that moose are the animals in this mural--they don't seem to make it into murals quite often enough, don't you think?

This creature sat in a gallery window, waiting to be patted,

and this next plaque of a man holding a tobacco leaf shows what an unrestored house tablet looks like:

This next tablet is quite beautiful, although it depicts a rather horrible scene--Saturn eating one of his children (he was told that one of his children would take away his power, so his plan was to eat each of them upon birth).

On a much more appetizing note, we soon spotted just the place for a coffee break across the canal. Would one of the tables still be empty by the time we made our way over the canal?

Ahhhhhh . . . this is the life.

Our after-coffee walking revealed more canals,

another climbing kitty,

creatures on a bridge,

more of the striking former canalside warehouses (now fancy apartments, of course) with their distinctive doors,

a wall of graffiti (we didn't see much graffiti in Amsterdam),

and another great plaque. I found a bit about this particular plaque on a Dutch webpage, and even with the often comical incompleteness of Google Translate, I think I got the gist of this particular stone's history. Although it used to stand in another location, it was removed and privately held until the owner decided it should be shown again in a suitable location (the original location having been destroyed). Since the tablet (one of the few in Amsterdam to depict women's professions, the webpage informed me) shows a woman inspecting peat before it's taken to market,

the tablet was restored and placed on a street (Turfdraagsterpad) that bears the name of the peat market (the street also happens to be where many women employed as peat-inspectors lived).

We continued walking as the sun went down, passing an odd, swaddled baby

and more of Amsterdam's almost impossibly picturesque buildings and canals.

Dam Square is when Amsterdam got its name when the River Amstel was dammed in the 13th century, giving the resulting village the name "Amstelredam." Today it's the location of the city's war memorial

and Koninklijk Palace, the former town hall turned royal residence, whose interior is considered a must-see. Unfortunately, the palace is currently closed for extenstive renovation.

One more beautiful and odd house tablet just off the square caught my attention,

and we slowly made our way back to the River IJ, where we were treated to a great view of our hotel behind the glowing waterfront Muziekgebouw (concert hall).

Bimhuis (a jazz venue) is part of the Muziekgebouw complex, and we saw tonight's performers playing quite frantically in the window, creating a strange sight without any accompanying sound:

Although today was only a half-day, we were pretty tired from the heat and all our walking, and after watching the musicans for a few minutes, we returned to our comfy room, looking forward to the next three days of explorations in this gorgeous city.