Oktoberfest! Part One.

Amsterdam:

Dag Een–Drie (That’s days 1-3 in Dutch):

Oxford does not have an airport.  This is the city’s least desirable characteristic.  The nearest airports are those servicing London (Heathrow and Gatwick) There are ample bus services available to both airports but you have to factor in about 2-3 hours extra to any flight plans. Dave and I wanted to maximize our vacation time, so we opted to take the earliest flight to Amsterdam that we could find. The flight was from Gatwick airport  and departed at 6:00 AM. To catch our flight we had to take to 2:00 AM bus out of Oxford arriving at Gatwick around 4:45. So, at 1:15 we arose from our beds and began our adventure.

We arrived at Shippol airport and headed for the train into Amsterdam.  After some trial and error with the ticketing machine (in Dutch) we grabbed our freshly printed tickets and boarded a train.  I say “a” train and not “the” train because about 20 minutes in, we started to notice more cows and sheep then is appropriate for a city center and realized that we were headed in the wrong direction. A nice conductor man set us straight and we were Amsterdam bound once more.

The city was striking on first impression (even with all the recent construction) There are canals everywhere and the old architecture butts right up against the new creating a very eclectic look. It was green, and very bicycle friendly. Bike lanes were built into every major road and many of the smaller ones.

Our first order of business was to check into the hostel, The Meeting Point, lock up our bags and find the third member of our party. The infamous “pirate” Ben Butler had arrived the day before and we were not quite sure where we would find him.  Luckily we didn’t have to go very far. After dropping off our things in our 12 bed mixed dorm we walked down the stairs to find Ben sitting at one of the tables fiddling with his phone. We had just walked though the room and I could have sworn that he hadn’t been there before.  That Ben is a mysterious fellow.

By your powers combined...

Here’s what we did during our three days in Amsterdam:

The Heineken factory: It was nearly 1100 when we went to the Heineken brewery…beer is the brunch of champions after all! The tour included an opportunity to taste the Heineken wort (what beer is before the fermentation), be in your own dutch music video, and sit in a clubesque room with a beer bottle ceiling and watch Heineken ads…but by far, the best part of the factory was the tasting room and not just for the free beer. Here, we were given a tutorial on how to take the perfect sip of Heineken.  We were told to inhale the rich scent of the beer and examine the foam head of the beer. Then we were told to take a drink and “hold it in your mouth for 5 seconds”…this was promptly followed by the exclamation of “it’s a Heine explosion in your mouth!” Beer nearly shot out our nose, we laughed so hard! I was given and extra beer for being the foam leveling helper.

The Van Gogh Museum: The museum had a fairly large collection of works by Van Gogh but lacked some of the more famous pieces like “Sunflowers” and “Starry Night.”  The museum also had a few works by Van Gogh’s contemporaries and those who influenced him. The most interesting thing that we learned was that Van Gogh only painted for about 7-8 years before his death in 1890.

The Red Light District:  This is of course the part of town that most people think of when they hear Amsterdam, but nestled among the sex shops, tawdry shows and prostitutes is something that you wouldn’t expect….Fashion boutiques.  In an effort to reduce crime in the area, several brothels in the red light district were purchased by the city and rezoned for other uses.  These buildings became a trendy new spot for the city’s young fashion designers.  This makes for some interesting sights as you stroll the streets. What you see are rows of rooms with glass doors and above each door is a little red light. In the doorway you will see A) nothing, 2) a scantily clad woman, D) a gorgeous high fashion outfit or window arrangement.  Every now and again you may come across a blue light in a doorway…no, they didn’t just run out of red lights. What you will see is a scantily clad woman, but if you were expecting a female you will be sorely disappointed.  So, if you want to avoid an unpleasant surprise (unless you enjoy that sort of thing), steer clear of the blue lights.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you!  And no, we didn’t learn this from personal experience. Unfortunately photos are frowned upon (apparently frowned upon quite harshly by big burly men) so if you want to see what it looked like there is always Google.

Canal Tour: One of the most interesting ways to see the sites of Amsterdam is by taking a canal cruise. The canals are positively everywhere, so you can see a little bit of everything.We snapped some neat photos and enjoyed ourselves in spite of the rain.

Sex Museum: Small museum full of sex and fertility artifacts from around the word, vintage photos, silly statues, and funny animatronics. Not very educational , but pretty good for a laugh. Not suitable for kids, but probably more tame than what you might stumble upon if you did not have safe-search on when searching Google Images.

Reijksmuseum: A slight change of pace from the Sex Museum. This is the Dutch national museum. Tons of art type stuff with Rembrandt’s Night Watch as the crown jewel of the collection. When you see reprints of this painting it does not impress upon you just how huge this painting is. It is a wall unto itself and apparently had to be painted outside under an awning as it was too large to be painted inside. There were plenty of other greats to see as well, although the coolest Vermeer paintings were all on loan in NY and Toronto.

The Amsterdam Dungeon: A guided tour though the horrors of Amsterdam’s past. Stuff like the plague and being sold into slavery by salt merchants. It was very interactive with lots of gore and creepy sets.  Looked like a fun summer gig for the areas theater nerds. It was pretty entertaining and the whole thing ended with a bad roller coaster ride.

We closed out the trip with a night train to our next destination, Munich. It was like sleeping on an airplane, but less comfortable. Dave managed to sleep like a wee baby but Ben and I only got an hour or two.  It was cold and cramped and Courtney departed the train with swollen feet.  Not a pleasant experience, but there was no time to moan and groan (though Courtney certainly tried) for we were off on phase two of the adventure.