Amsterdam - Saturday 17 Sep

Our second day in Amsterdam began with a hearty breakfast at a small café down the street from the hostel. After eating, our first order of the day was to go on a requisite boat tour of the city so we could admire it from the dozens of canals that intersected nearly every street.

We chose a company that gave us a free one-hour tour with our Amsterdam Card, arriving just in time for the next tour. Amsterdam is incredibly beautiful, especially viewed from the water. Look at my photos to see how well this hour was spent.

The end of the boat tour brought a previously agreed-upon splitting up so that Emily could go to a stable she’d heard of where she could ride horses and Sam could go off and explore the parts of the city she hadn’t been able to convince us to see, as well as to rest up and regain her health. I was headed in an entirely different direction. Melissa, a friend from school, is studying in Utrecht, and we’d already worked out a place and general time for me to come and visit for a few hours.

Let me preface the story of my trip to Utrecht by saying that Amsterdam Centraal Station likes to make buying train tickets as difficult as possible for tourists. The automated machines that gave directions in English wouldn’t accept foreign credit or debit cards, and the machines that accepted coins had no directions in English. Finally, I decided to buy a ticket from a human being, which took about 30 seconds and directed me to the platform of the soonest train.

The half hour train ride alone was worth the 12 euro round trip that I paid, as it afforded beautiful views of the Dutch countryside. I saw the kind of pastoral settings you only see in storybooks, and small farms of which Americans have only a faint memory. Even their cows looked healthier and happier than those in the United States, I swear I’m not making it up. The grass truly is greener there than any I have seen elsewhere – literally.

I arrived at Utrecht Centraal Station a bit earlier than expected, but Melissa arrived soon enough, and we were both very happy to see the first familiar face from home since both of our arrivals in Europe. She led me from the station to the center of town, which looked very much like Amsterdam on a much smaller scale, as well as the omission of any English or tourists. We passed through a large outdoor market and wandered through streets full of shops, eventually ending up at Utrecht’s Dam, a massive Gothic cathedral and tower (the tallest church tower in the Netherlands).

The Dam has two interesting points of history. The first is that part of the church’s nave was destroyed during a tornado in the seventeenth century, separating the tower from the church by enough space to have a street dividing the two structures. The second is that, during the Reformation, Protestants defaced much of the church, as they did all Catholic institutions. Its large stained glass windows are from the twentieth century. Two fourteenth century archbishops of Utrecht are also entombed within the church, which I found quite interesting.

Our first instinct in arriving at the Dam was to climb the tower, but we found they had sold out of tickets for the day. I then suggested we go into the church, which Melissa had never thought to do. As soon as we walked in, we heard the sound of choral voices singing a fantastic hymn. Unsure if it was a recording designed to elevate the experience of visitors to the church, I hurried around the corner to discover a large choir and musical ensemble during what could have only been a dress rehearsal, judging by their attire and level of comfort with the notes.

The music was beautiful and made the church an even more amazing place than it would have been otherwise, so Melissa and I decided to sit in a pew and listen for probably more than half an hour. If you have never had the fortunate experience of listening to a choir sing music in such a beautiful forum for which it was designed, I encourage you to find a way to do this immediately. We sat transfixed for a long time, and didn’t get up until we realized how long it had been and realized we had other places to go as well. We then wandered around the church a bit, taking it all in, and finally took our leave.

Within mere blocks of the Dam, we came upon a group of street performers. Four musicians sat with cellos in front of a bookstore, and we had arrived just in time for the beginning of a new song. Halfway through, I recognized it to be a rock song recorded within the last couple years (a song by Evanescence, I believe Eternal). It was a very good arrangement, and one I’m sure they wrote themselves.

After the song ended, Melissa and I decided it was time for lunch, it being after 2 pm. We ate at a café with tables spread out over a large plaza in the center of town, where we lounged for a long time until at last it began to rain, so we hurriedly paid the bill and left the place, when the rain decided to stop as suddenly as it had begun.

We then went to see Melissa’s dorm room at University College, which was a pleasant walk through shady residential areas and a cheerful little park where people rode bikes, talked, and ran around. The campus was pretty; though it was built recently, it is designed to resemble Utrecht’s older buildings, and the nice brick exteriors made it quite a surprise to see that Melissa’s dorm room was actually quite cold and concrete.

I got to meet Melissa’s roommate, a friendly Australian girl, and also to see Melissa’s pictures from her visit to Cologne when the Pope visited several weeks ago. She had photographs of giant posters of the Pope that covered the sides of large buildings, which was quite interesting.

I at last realized it was past 5 pm, and it was time to get back to Amsterdam to meet my friends for dinner. I enjoyed a brisk yet leisurely walk back to the train station and caught a train just as it was about to leave. Back in Amsterdam, I met Sam and Emily at an Italian restaurant a few blocks from the train station, where we enjoyed a light dinner.

Our next stop of the evening was the Sexmuseum, which we had read about in our guidebook. It contained three floors devoted to the display of various works of art, photography, writing, and other expressions of sexuality. The museum has a large collection of private and commercial pornographic photos, many of which are from the 1880s – 1920s. The main message of the exhibits seemed to be that nothing much has changed, and human sexuality has always been exciting and often perverted and strange.

We then returned to the Red Light District to see how it changed at night, which indeed it did. In addition to the hordes of tourists and tour groups, the shops and windows with prostitutes were more lively and active. We wandered in and out of a few sex shops to wonder at their wares and, at the request of Sam and Emily, watched a man bargain with a prostitute over her rates.

Leaving the Red Light, we stopped at its edge to supply much business to a tiny but crowded pastry shop. We bought the most fantastic pastries I’ve ever tasted and gorged ourselves until we couldn’t any more – and by “we” I especially mean myself – and walked home with full bellies and hot drinks. Back at the hostel, I checked my email to discover lots of friendly messages wishing me happy birthday, putting the icing on the cake of a great day. And thus ended the second day in Amsterdam.