Amsterdam + Zaandam
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| Windmill De Zoeker |
Before I decided to attend UEA in England, I was originally enrolled at Hanze University of Applied Sciences in Groningen, Netherlands. I had gotten so far into the process that I was looking into picking my housing and courses when, suddenly, a rug was pulled out from under my feet. The university term dates were changed without notice, and I could no longer attend, forcing me to pick another university to attend. I was sad I would no longer be able to attend university in the Netherlands, but I was more than willing to readjust to be able to have a study abroad experience. Even though I would not go to school there, I vowed no matter where I ended up in England that I would take time to experience Dutch culture.
I flew to the Netherlands from London Heathrow Airport to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol on November 7. I did my traveling alone but met friends while in the city. This would be the first time I would travel outside of the U.K., and it was the first time I traveled out of the country alone. It was nerve-wracking only because I worry over little things. Everything went as planned, though I did have to wait in a two-hour-long passport check line.
Because the passport check took so long, I did not have much time in the city after checking in at the hotel. I stayed at the Ibis Budget Hotel near the airport. Perfect for travelers and it had a free shuttle to and from the airport where we would take the train to and from the city center. My first time seeing Amsterdam was lit up by Christmas lights strung up between houses and on lamp posts. It was quiet because it was a Thursday, and the city seemed peaceful.
The next morning, I made my way over to the Anne Frank House. I was looking for an old apartment-like building and was surprised to find a modern building carved out into a tall building on the side of the canal, among others. It did not look like anything remarkable from the outside, but the inside told the story of Anne Frank and her family's experience hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam during the 1940s. She documented her stories in diaries, and her quotes now cover the walls of what was her father's business, where the family hid: The Anne Frank House. Photos, video interviews, objects, and an audio tour guided me through the museum portion and eventually up into the family's Secret Annex.
The original bookcase was still covering the hole in the wall, leading to where the Franks lived for years before eventually being captured and taken killed in Nazi concentration camps. In Anne's room, you could see the magazine clippings she had pasted onto the wall to decorate. The floor eerily creaked everywhere you walked. I could not imagine living years in silence, being weary of every step. At the end of the museum, her original diaries and novels were on display. One final quote on the wall said she dreamed of becoming a journalist or a writer, how sad she never got to see the impact her work had on so many.
After the Anne Frank house, I got a bagel and walked around the city more to look at the houses and canals. The buildings look odd, being so tall and cramped right next to each other. Every street crossing a canal had a bridge lined with a few dozen bikes.
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| Bikes chained to a bridge |
Canal boats cruised down the river and around bends. Cars lined the water and were incredibly close to the edge. Some cars were so small and were only able to fit one person. Bikes are the primary mode of transportation, and there are so many riding down the street at all times.
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| One-seater car and a moped |
After I took my own personal walking tour through the city, my friend Violet joined me. We got fries and cheese sauce to eat as we walked around. I had heard the fries in Amsterdam were exceptional, and they were a pretty tasty midday snack to eat while walking.
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| Violet and I "cheesing" with our cheesy fries |
This day we went to the Rijksmuseum, the largest art museum in the Netherlands. We had both purchased the "I Amsterdam" city card for 48 hours, which included this museum and many more. I would recommend getting a city card for Amsterdam since it includes trams, buses, and a canal tour with the price. It payed itself off easily while we were there for a couple days. We could activate it anytime, so Violet ended up using it even after I left to see the Rembrandt House.
The Rijksmuseum was one of the coolest art museums I had ever been to, it was huge. It had a large collection of Dutch art and art from all over the world categorized into periods.
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| Rijksmuseum |
After that we went to the NEMO Science and Technology Museum. Even from the outside, this museum was neat. It is a big teal ship-shaped building on the water. Each level of the museum was targeted to different age groups. It had so many interactive exhibits to teach about weather, physics, the human body, etc. It was fun getting to play with all the different exhibits, it reminded me of when I went to the science museum in Phoenix as a kid. What surprised me the most about this museum was how openly it talked about the human body, including genitalia and sex. The Dutch are very open about sexuality and embrace it. They do not hide anything, and it is not seen as a taboo topic. I was aware of this cultural difference before coming to the Netherlands, but it was still unexpected to see a sex exhibit in a kid's museum.
After dark, we visited our last museum of the day: the Moco Museum, a contemporary art museum. It had pieces by Banksy, Keith Haring, KAWS, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Takashi Murakami. My favorite piece I saw was Untitled_Sexy Robot type II floating by Hajime Sorayama. It was surreal and futuristic looking, I had never seen anything like it before. It made me wonder how someone could make such a sculpture.
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| Untitled_Sexy Robot type II |
The next day we went to Zaandam to look around town and see the iconic windmills. Zaandam was about a 30-minute train ride and it was well worth it to spend a day there. Zaandam was historically a milling town and it still has an industrial feel to it.
First, we hopped off at the Zaandam station to walk downtown around the shopping area and get some lunch. The architecture was so fun. The buildings were cartoon-like and were painted bright green and blue. We saw the Inntel Hotel Zaandam which looks like multiple smaller buildings all melded into one.
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| Inntel Hotel Zaandam |
After lunch, we hopped back onto the train to Zaanse Schans, a historic windmill neighborhood in Zaandam. Big smoke stacks puffed into the thick blanket of clouds overhead. As we walked a strong scent of chocolate blew in. Two chocolate and biscuit companies in Zaandam now make "scents" why the smell of sweets is so heavy. As we walked a short distance through chocolate air, we saw the windmills. It was a gloomy day, so they looked creepy sitting in the fog.
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| Zaanse Schans windmills |
The area around the windmills was cute too. We did not have time, but there were many shops and a few museums. We got access to go up the windmills with our city card. We went inside De Kat Windmill and saw how they worked on the inside and learned some of them still produce goods such as paint pigments. The ladders to get up were long and scary though, but it was worth it.
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| Diamond clog |
As we were walking out of Zaanse Schans, I was joking with Violet, saying it was silly and interesting how the Dutch used to make their shoes out of wood. I was kidding around, saying, "How could they not get splinters?" We were laughing about it until we saw a worker actually wearing clogs. I did not think people still wore them. I always assumed it was just a piece of cultural heritage that no longer bled into modern life, guess I was incorrect. Turns out, some people still wear traditional clogs as protective footwear in agriculture, factories, and mines.
After the windmills, we went back to town to meet up with our friend Emily, who had arrived by train that day. We got dinner and drinks, and that was the end of my time in the Netherlands. Both Violet and Emily would go on to stay another day, but I had to be back on Monday for school, so I left early Sunday to get back to Norwich. I was very grateful to have our hotel so close to the airport for my 7 a.m. flight.
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| Walking around Amsterdam at night on a Saturday |
One thing that surprised me about Amsterdam was how relaxed everything seemed. Weed is legal, so there were people casually smoking inside "coffee shops," which are specifically for people to sit and smoke in. If you want actual coffee, you would need to go to a café.
As I mentioned before, sex is not a taboo in the Netherlands, and sex work is completely legal. We walked through the Red Light District frequently because it is the oldest area of Amsterdam. A few streets had red lights and windows where sex workers would sit and "advertise" themselves in the window. This was definitely a culture shock because this type of stuff is typically frowned upon in the U.S., but here it is no big deal. We were curious about the history that led up to the legality of sex work in Amsterdam. We found out it was legalized in 2000 to decrease abuse toward sex workers, allow for more autonomy, and decrease crime. Whether or not this has been successful is up for debate, as sex trafficking and abuse still occur despite legality.
I learned so much from the Netherlands and enjoyed seeing a culture different from the British and America. Amsterdam is a beautiful place with such an interesting history. I felt safe exploring alone and with others, and everything was accessible from trains, trams, or walking. All of the food I had was absolutely delicious, though I was too wary of tourist trap stroopwafel shops and did not end up getting one. I would love to visit again in the future and see more of this beautiful place especially when the sun is out and the tulips are blooming. Gives me all the reason to come back someday.
This blog post was written for HON491C
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