Day 1 (Part 1) – Amsterdam: Plane Lectures, The Ghost Light District, and the Scale of Lady Justice

I saw this couple in the airport just before I boarded the plane for Amsterdam. They were very tanned and in their 50s. The woman had black tights on with “Guess” bedazzled down the leg, bleach blonde hair and a giant rock on her ring finger. The man had a gold chain necklace, linen pants and numerous gold rings and bracelets. Of course, thinking “now THERE is an interesting couple” is karmic code for “I’m going to sit beside them on the plane I’m catching in 2 minutes.”

So the six and a half hour plane ride from Toronto to Amsterdam began with sitting next to this couple of Canadian and Dutch citizenship. This man out yelled my grandfather while speaking. He also gave me a four hour lecture on everything including Dutch politics, the Dutch ownership of the world, the beer industry, the aeronautics industry, the “terrorist” Nelson Mandela, and the value of being a tradesman. Needless to say, I didn’t get to sleep or read much.

Thankfully, upon arriving in Amsterdam and getting my bag, I bid farewell to this oddly opinionated couple and thanked them (genuinely) for the stimulating discussion and began my search for the nearest ticketing machine so I could catch the train from Schiphol Airport to Amsterdam Centraal. All excited to be in a new country, I bought my ticket and boarded the northbound train with other recently airborne travellers and numerous businessmen and women off to start their day. Oh yeah! I forgot to mention that it was approximately 7:45am when I got on the train.

Fifteen minutes later I arrived at the bustling Amsterdam Centraal Train station. I could hardly wait to go explore the city! In fact, I forgot completely about the plan to store my large backpack in the lockers at the Centraal and exited on the north end of the building which brought me to water. That’s it. Just water. There was harbour in the distance and road that went east west, but I couldn’t see a city anywhere. For about 5 minutes, I thought I had gotten on the wrong train and wasn’t in Amsterdam at all!

Fortunately, a security guard saw my confused look and directed me towards the main south entrance and lockers. Now my adventure in one of the most liberal cities in the world can begin!

First, leaving Amsterdam Centraal reminded me of leaving Waterfront Centre in Vancouver. If you walk out the doors and turn right, you end up in Gastown—a lovely neighbourhood overflowing with typical touristy Vancouverite culture. And if you walk out the doors and turn left, you end up in the poorest, most drug ridden postal code in Canada—the downtown eastside. In Amsterdam, right would have been the museum-filled touristy roads. But instead I turned left and wandered into the heart of the Red Light district.

Upon discovering where exactly I was, I smiled to myself and giggled a little. But I quickly noticed how quiet it was. I checked my iPod for the time—8:45am. “No one buys sex or drugs at 9 in the morning!” I thought to myself (I was corrected by Marike who watches a man go to the same house at the same time every Sunday morning in the Hague’s Red Light District on the camera’s the police set up in the area—way more fun that church). Anxious to get my day started and stay awake, I wandered through the streets that smelled of stale beer from the night before; while perusing the windows of closed the sex shops and gay cinemas, I sought out a cafe to have some coffee and breakfast in. I stumbled upon this great urban chic place that had extremely decadent croissants and a tiny sitting area. While sipping on my double espresso and trying to come to grips with the reality of being in Amsterdam, I glanced up at the neon sign that just flickered on in front of my in the opposing alley. I didn’t recognize the green and orange mushroom until I read “SMARTZONE” and “MAGIC MUSHROOMS” with an arrow pointing down the dark alley. Yup. I was in Amsterdam.

After finishing breakfast and wandering a bit more through the Red Light District, I stumbled upon Oude Kerk (Old Church). This beautiful old building was blacked with age and experience and had the most amazing church bells that rang at 10:30am. They sounded like an entire symphony and reverberated off through the entire area, signalling to all the business in the area should open their doors to visitors (like me) who forgot to bring a power adapter and couldn’t use their dead laptop until they found one.

But the electrical stores weren’t the only businesses that opened. While I stood with my eyes closed in the middle of the empty street, listening to the church bells, a 200lbs woman had changed into her lingerie that exposed a part of her nipples in the building directly opposite the church doors. Upon opening my eyes and seeing past my reflection in the window, I nearly crapped myself when this woman was winking at me and bouncing her partially exposed breasts and bending over to expose her---I’m not gonna go on here....

Within a few hours, I had found an adapter and was ready for lunch. I had about 5 hours before I needed to take the train to Delft to visit Marike, Lasslo and Femke. So I stopped at the Cafe Kobalt near the train station and had about 4 espressos with my ginormous Old Almaar sandwich (old cheese, tomato and Dijon mayonnaise). The entire time, a little cat that the waiter owned conversed with me, waiting for a little bit of cheese to drop to the ground. For those of you who know Simon’s Cat, this was definitely his Dutch cousin.

Continuing my roaming through the streets, I stumbled upon a mom and pop brewery (Brouwerij de Prael) and got some craft beers to try with Lasslo (I intended to share with Marike too, but I didn’t know she was pregnant. Sorry Marike!)

Without having too much time left to wander, I decided to take a quick tour of the Nieuw Kerk (New Church) that was built as a showcase to the booming metropolitan pride that was Amsterdam in the 1400s. This church was beautiful. It was vast and simply designed, yet there was such decadent detail in things like the pulpit (which is no doubt the most detailed and beautiful pulpit in the world, I have no doubt) and the organ (which has shutters to encase it in the wall and can be opened during extravagant events like the marriages and coronations of the Dutch monarchy). I was able to catch a little bit of the history video before leaving to catch my train to Delft. My favourite part was about the Canadian General who visited Nieuw Kerk after the Liberation of the Netherlands from the Nazis in 1945 thought that the Kerk was so gorgeous and powerful—particularly the monument to Admiral Michiel de Ruyter, considered the greatest Dutch war hero of all time. The mayor of Amsterdam ordered that the Lady Justice’s scale that was carved out the pulpit should be removed and presented the general as a gift. (The exact names escape me, but I’ll Wikipedia it to get it right.

And then, I was off to Delft.

I’ll save the reunion with the Marike and Lasslo for tomorrow morning. It’s 2:20am here now.

Welterusten!