 Hello Amsterdam!... After spending around 4 months in Israel and a few days in Egypt I headed back to Europe... First I had to make a quick 2 day stop in Athens as I had a return ticket from Israel... I didn't do much in Athens this time, I was just there to find my way north and I heard there were great deals on airfares to Amsterdam, so I went looking for one... in those days you couldn't shop around on the internet...you had to physically walk into several travel agents to get different quotes...and eventually I got a good one! After 2 days in the same Athens hostel where I stayed my first time, I was ready to fly north... We landed in the famous Schiphol Airport, which was exciting in itself as I wanted to see that Airport which has a famous taxiway for planes that cross over the highway over the cars passing by! I remember seeing a poster of that before I left Mexico and I wanted to see it with my own eyes... I thought I was going to be questioned again for a while at passport control as I was in London but the Dutch were friendlier and gave me no trouble on arrival... I headed towards the city centre by train...and what a train! I was so impressed by the beautiful yellow trains in the Netherlands. This was actually the very first European train I'd ever been on...so cool. It was just a quick 15-20 minute ride to the 'Central Station' in Amsterdam and the YHA Youth Hostel was a fairly short walk from there. That Youth Hostel was the perfect location... It was within walking distance of the 3 major sites that I wanted to visit; The Rijksmuseum (The National Museum), the Van Gogh Museum and the Heineken original brewery in Amsterdam's city centre. Amsterdam is a beautiful city and I fell in love with it from the moment I set foot on it... It is an extremely charming and picturesque city and there is something about it and you just can't help but fall in love with it... Maybe it is its old narrow houses or its canals or the 'pedestrians only' streets or its trams or its amazing cycle-paths or the flower vendors at every train station... It is hard to pinpoint what makes Amsterdam one of the most likeable cities in the world... Here are a few things that stood out for me from this wonderful city... 1- Its charming houses...Absolutely adorable...it is like a toy city... 2- Everyone's on bicycles! ...Yes, rain or shine they get on their bikes to go places. I saw hundreds of people travelling by bicycle, umbrellas in hand if need be, and kids in a child-seat at the back or front of their bikes and only riding on their 'purpose built' cycle-paths and with no helmets! They signal with their hands if they are going to turn and they stop at their own tiny 'bike traffic lights'...very orderly... I had never seen anything like that in my life! Note: They actually built the 'cycle-path' infrastructure back in the early 70s if I'm not mistaken, due to their transport situation at that time... (something that just recently Auckland City, and other cities around NZ have been working on, probably there hasn't been a real need for that in NZ as it was in the 70s in the Netherlands...) Currently, there are more bikes in the Netherlands than people! 3- Their electric trams... They are just what one needs to move you around the city (if you don't have a bike)... What?...They are not free?... For a couple of days, I thought they were free as you can get on board through any of their 4 doors and no one ever charged me until I realised I should've bought a ticket at the ticket station or newsstand and put it in the machine at the door, I honestly had no idea, the system relies on people's honesty to buy their tickets and there may be an occasional inspector that may get on to check, but never saw one.... 4- Dutch Fries...There's something about their potato chips (Friet/Patat)... so delicious, and they eat them primarily with mayonnaise! 5- The beautiful canals...I didn't know about the existence of so many canals in any city apart from Venice, Amsterdam has approx. 160 canals covering 100km. No matter where you are walking around the city you are bound to walk by or over some of the 1,500 bridges! 6- Heineken Beer... Amsterdam is the home of the Dutch most famous beer, although there are many other brands. I was lucky to be able to visit the original brewery in Amsterdam when it was still operating as a brewery, it is now only a tourist attraction. I was able to learn about the entire brewing process and then have a beer right there and, of course, buy myself a classic 'Heineken beer t-shirt'... (Want to learn more about Heineken beer? visit their website here) 7- The Rijksmuseum.... The National Museum in Amsterdam was the very first museum I visited in Europe. Absolutely amazing! I was blown away by Rembrandt's paintings and had the chance to look closely at the famous 'Night Watch' (pictured below)... *You can learn more about this extraordinary painting in an amazing online show right now, view the 'Night Watch' Experience here) 8- The Van Gogh museum... Wow, his artwork is highly renown around the world for many reasons and you simply can't help but be amazed by his works... (*Learn more about Vincent Van Gogh here) Frankly speaking, I had never been that interested in artistic paintings or works of art of any form before I left Mexico. I may have liked and been into music to some degree and I may have taken the "Arts workshop" in high school where I drew with pencils and charcoal and painted a couple of pastels and an oil painting...but never really was into it, per se... I truly wished I had read or learnt something about Rembrandt and his paintings before walking in at the Rijksmuseum and, the same goes for the Van Gogh Museum... I felt a little bit lost during my visit... TIP: Do take the time to learn more about them through the above links, I wished I'd known all that about them then... I truly had no idea how to behave inside a museum... I was simply looking at the paintings and walking around slowly like everyone else, pretending to know what I was doing but I sincerely was faking it...a bit embarrassing but...I figured many people in the museum were feeling the same way too... Prior to these museums in Amsterdam and the National Museum in Cairo, the only times I had been to a museum had been when I was a kid in a 'school excursion' to a museum in Mexico, which, in retrospect, may have been a good idea to pay attention at what we were looking at, but I was a kid doing something that was imposed on us as part of our schooling curriculum and they made us take notes and do homework about it, which made the whole experience a boring chore, tedious, and a complete nightmare...thus I never went to any museums after leaving school in Mexico...that is, until I arrived in Europe... then things started to change... Right at that point of internalised self-embarrassment at the Rijksmuseum, I was somehow, ready to grow and build up my cultural knowledge.... I remember walking around the enormous Rijksmuseum and walking slowly and getting close to some groups which had a guided tour and I would get close to listen in for free, yes it was a bit sneaky but it was an inexpensive way of getting to learn about the things I was looking at and the groups never seemed to mind my tagging along...you have to do this kind of things when you are on a tight budget... I did the same at the Van Gogh Museum... I remember hearing in one of the guided tours that I got close to about his cutting off part of his ear! What!? He cut off his ear? That somehow made me look at his paintings more intently... Isn't it weird the things that catch our attention?... After my first 2 days in Amsterdam and a total induction into real art and museums, I had to have a break and that's when I went to check out the amazing Heineken Brewery and have a 'cold one', as they say... The whole tour was actually quite interesting... It was also interesting to learn, for the first time, that there are several kinds of beer... Up until then I only knew...Beer! The Dutch are also quite proud of their beer and they are quite specific about how they must be poured and served at a PUB... It is a bit different to the UK... It must be cold, unlike the British who like it at cellar temperature, and it must have a head (that is the frothy foam on top of beer after pouring, the perfect beer is considered to have a two-fingers thick foam layer, according to the Dutch) The brits don't really fancy any head on their beer...unless it is, Guinness. After ending my cultural tour I spent one more day in Amsterdam admiring the city, walking around its busy 'pedestrians only' streets. I had some delicious 'Dutch Frites', their extremely popular potato chips, traditionally served in an ingenious cardboard cone contraption, smothered in 'mayo' (Mayonnaise or Fritessaus ), and also stopped to listen to several street performers... and then... it was time to move on... I was beginning to worry a bit about my financial situation... I left Mexico with $2,000 USD thinking it was a substantial amount of money, but I had really no idea how much everything was going to cost overseas, I truly was so naïve about that and I had the intention to be abroad for a year or so... and so far up until that moment, I had been spending money, carefully and as strictly as I could....but nonetheless, I had spent some of my funds mostly on travel expenses on buses and planes in Europe, and trains and limo-taxis in the Middle East... and according to my notes on my diary, I was left with about half of my funds and I needed to get some money back in, otherwise I'd have to head back home soon and that was not the plan... So far I'd been away from Mexico for nearly 5 months, it was now the beginning of May 1981... I decided then that I would go to London and try to find a job, something that would pay 'cash in hand' and that might take me in not having a working permit... I was also hoping to get some money that was owed to me from my previous employment in Mexico, I was expecting around $500 USD.... so according to my diary notes, I was fairly confident that if that money arrived and if I could get a job in London for a few weeks I could recoup my capital to my original $2,000 USD by June... That did not quite happen...however, I managed with some help... more on that in my next story... Meanwhile, it was time to head back to the UK... So I took a bus to London, this bus went down to the port of 'Hoek van Holland' where we boarded a ferry across to Harwich, a 6-7 hour overnight nightmarish ride across the 'English Channel'. It was raining heavily and the sea was so choppy... We had huge swells and I could feel the boat going up and down the massive swells and could hear the splashing of the waves....It was simply quite a nasty ride! I remember clearly I was trying to immerse myself in my music, I had my 'Sony Walkman' playing my music and I had the volume at its loudest...primarily trying not to hear the splashing but also trying not to hear the people that were making all kind of scared exclamations. I remember a girl sitting next to me saying..."Oh my god... I'm going to puke!! ... oh, my god, I'm feeling so sick"... And I was telling her...Enough already! Just hearing you I want to puke too...If you need to do it go to the loo and go for it....a bit rough but I just wanted to stop listening to her, even over my loud music!! She left and never saw her again, thank goodness... Anyway, after a few hours of that, we arrived at Harwich, and I was not quite ready to face the passport control people, dreading again that I was going to be questioned again for hours and I wasn't feeling up to it but... not this time...It was very early in the morning and probably because I had previously been given a 6-month visa they stamped my passport with a 'ONE MONTH' visitor visa (I've just checked that stamp in my very first passport). After that, we got back on the bus and headed towards London... Once we arrived at the bus terminal in central London I headed back to the first Youth Hostel I had stayed at in Chelsea... It was like coming back home...I'd been there before so I knew my way around... Then I saw a sign on the notice board... 'Kitchenhand Wanted' for the morning shift... So I asked the guys at the reception...Hey, can I apply for that job? "Sure", they said....When can you start?...Tomorrow, I said... "Deal! please show up at the kitchen at 6 am" they said... They didn't ask me any more questions...so...I took it!... Lucky me... Well well well, Hello London!! It's good to see you again...cup of tea? 
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |