Day 8-10: Sex, Drugs, and Frites

We woke up at an ungodly hour to have breakfast and board the buses to our first academic excursion to Amsterdam! After a 2 and a half hour bus ride (which I slept during) we arrived in the infamous city. Our first sight upon crossing city limits: the Heineken Brewery. Win. The buses took us to our hostel to drop our bags and collect our lunch bags provided by the hostel (which were lackluster to say the least). We were separated into groups to take a walking tour of the city with a teacher. I was delighted to learn mine was being lead by Dulcia! The only downside was that it was pouring rain the entire time! After walking around for a little, Dulcia decided to take us to one of Amsterdam’s “brown cafes” for coffee, tea, and hot chocolate. A brown café is a certain type of café in the city that is known for its brown walls and sand floor. When people were allowed to smoke in cafes and pubs, the walls would turn brown from the tobacco. Owners got sick of the stains so they just kept painting the walls brown-hence brown cafes. The café was so gorgeous with purple, yellow, and green paneled stained glass windows and Christmas lights hanging from the ceiling. We sat for a long time while Dulcia gave us a history of Amsterdam and the castle. She told us all about the renovations she has helped the castle undergo and we were surprised to learn that a lot of the renovations were funded by the Dutch taxpayers. The mayor of the municipality Well is in also has an agreement with Dulcia that if she allows the barn to be rented out for weddings, the city would pay for restorations. The barn is gorgeous! Hmm, new place to get married??

[Cafe Pieper (?) So cozy!]

After we left the café we walked to this beautiful, separated little section of the city that is a sort of nunnery. It is convent like in the sense that they are celibate and are dedicated to helping people but there is no religious aspect to it. It was such a beautiful, peaceful place. Dulcia then took us to Dam Square, Amsterdam’s central hub of activity. It is where the royal palace and the stock exchange are. The square is huge and filled with performers and people everywhere! I met up with Joe and ate lunch while we walked around and checked out the souviener shops. After lunch we met back in Dam Square and were led to the Rijksmuseum by my professor Rob. I was beside myself with excitement because the Rijksmuseum is home to three Vermeer paintings and a ton of Rembrant and Jan Steen works. I’m going to be honest and say I got a little teary eyed seeing the Vermeer painting “Kitchen maid pouring milk” and Rembrant’s masterpiece (and the emblem of the Netherlands) “Nightwatch.” To see these magnificent works in person was breathtaking. Rob let us walk around by ourselves and then led us through some paintings and we discussed how lines and the use of light really shape paintings.

[Dam Square at Night]

[Rijksmuseum-it's under construction]

From the Rijksmuseum we walked to an Indonesian restaurant for dinner that is a castle tradition. SO DELICIOUS!! A traditional Indonesian meal begins with a mound of rice (white or fried) in the center of a plate. Small helpings of all different kinds of meats and sides are placed around the rice. As you eat the meats and sides, you are supposed to mix in the rice. We had a sweet beef, a spicy curry beef, a lemongrass-lime chicken, sweet fried egg, and spicy potatoes. Everything is topped with these finely shredded fried potato sticks or dried minced coconut. For dessert we had an Indonesian take on Spumoni. I was so happy after that meal because it was the most delicious thing I’ve had since I’ve been here and I was so full! Dinner was also great because I sat at a table with a lot of fun girls and I got to meet new people and a few of them are going to Barcelona with me.

[Indonesian Restaurant]

[Square outside of the restaurant]

We left the restaurant and walked back to the hostel where we checked into our rooms. I roomed with five other girls: Lousia, Holly, Rosheen, Aurelia, and Rachel. We had so much fun and all got along really well. After we settled in, Cailin, Holly and I met up with some other people to try to go back to the café Dulcia took us to for a drink. Well, halfway there the plan turned into a search for a coffeeshop and the search was filled with an annoying amount of indecision so the three of us decided to break apart from the group and find a place that we could just sit and have a drink in peace. The exact opposite happened. After an extensive search that involved lots of walking, we bumped into some castle people who ushered us into a bar that they were in. It was pretty empty so we went to the bar and ordered drinks and sat for a little. Because I was in Amsterdam I had to have a Heineken, so good! After a little the club started to fill up, mostly with women though. The only men in there didn’t talk to any of the women and stayed to themselves. We found out in the morning that we were mistakenly in a gay bar. Emerson students winding up in a gay bar by accident? No surprise there!

[Heineken and Applekorn!]

[Cafe The News aka surprise gay bar]

It started to snow, well hail the size of dip-n-dots, as we walked back to the hostel around midnight and it was so gorgeous! The canals looked even more beautiful covered in snow. It was as if everything was frosted.

Speaking of the canals, they are very different from the ones in Venice. Amsterdam canals are very wide and sparse compared to the Venetian ones, though they are still as beautiful. Amsterdam itself is surprisingly beautiful with its brick and cobblestone roads and gorgeous old buildings. There’s an old-world charm to the city that isn’t really present in places like Boston or New York. It’s almost indescribable so I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves! Amsterdam gets such a bad reputation as being only about pot and sex but it is so much more than that. The Dutch really value art and culture so all of their buildings are preserved really well. Fun fact: the Amsterdammers used to be charged taxes based on how wide their house was along the canal so many of the houses were built very small width-wise. To compensate, more depth was added so Amsterdam homes along the canal are deceivingly large. As for the pot and sex-if you want to avoid it you can (as long as you ignore the sparse whiffs of pot that waft from coffee shops). It’s unfair that Amsterdam gets such a bad reputation because it truly is a beautiful city. Also a note-apparently the Dutch don’t like it when foreigners try to speak Dutch because the Dutch can speak English so well there is no need for us to butcher their language. Guess I won’t be saying “Dank u wel” anytime soon!


Saturday morning brought a beautiful blanket of snow and blue skies along with a visit to the Anne Frank house which was incredibly moving. I felt like I was a part of history, walking the same floors and touching the same walls she did. There was even a wall that had the height measurements she made while she was in hiding. The only bad thing was that it was so crowded so that the reverence that should have been there was diminished a little. After our visit, we walked to Dam Square for lunch. Because the hostel lunch was gross yet again (half cheese sandwich, half egg salad, a roll, Clementine, juice box, and weird chips), Aurelia and Amanda invited me to grab a slice of pizza with them. The conversation was great and I loved getting to know both girls but the Dutch cannot make pizza! Back in Dam Square I saw Saran Wrap Man from London!! Aunt Leslie and Kelly-I’m not sure if you remember him but I swear it was the same guy we saw in Convent Gardens!

A group of us were led to the Van Gough museum by the modern art teacher. The over 200 Van Gough works were absolutely gorgeous! I couldn’t believe I was seeing all of these incredible works in person. I bought a really cheap print of one of my favorites. Afterwards, Cailin and I walked to the “I Amsterdam” sign outside of the museum. It is a marketing ploy by the city to create a brand similar to the “I heart NY” brand. It’s a landmark that every visitor has to take a picture next to. We were exhausted to we went to dinner in the hostel- YUCK. We had some sort of chili followed by a frozen peach flavored mousse-yogurt. Definitely not ok.

A lot of people wanted to go clubbing or coffee shop hopping but I was sore and exhausted and in no mood to go dancing (sorry to let you down mom!). Instead, Cailin, Louisa, Joe, Holly, Rosheen, and I ventured off to the Red Light District in search of the infamous Sex Museum (a place that’s on the must list for college tourists in Amsterdam). The Red Light District was an experience and a half. Seeing the women in the windows was disturbing and sad. The windows are level with the street and right against the sidewalk so they are almost right on top of you. Most of the girls just looked bored, a few were even texting or on their cells. I just can’t imagine what led them to be in this profession. The rest of the area though was surprisingly ok. If you ignore the sex shops and coffeeshops (which are the most harmless things in the city), the area has a lot of pubs and cafes that are nice. It is also really safe because there are police everywhere. The Sex Museum was.. wow. I don’t think I can ever be fazed by anything again. Definitely not for the faint hearted. It was interesting though to see how sex has evolved through history and how people’s perceptions of it have changed. It was also interesting to see how the idea of what is attractive and beautiful has changed from the early 1900’s to now. After the museum we went and got Frits- a Dutch specialty. In essence, they are delicious French fries that are covered in a traditional mayonnaise-based sauce. I had a garlic sauce that was delicious! The entire time we were venturing through the Red Light District it was alternating between rain/hail like I’ve never seen before and we were soaked by the time we made it back to the hostel! We got back early because we were all tired and sat in the room having a really interesting talk about religion and spirituality. I felt like I really got to know the other girls in my room a lot better.

A note on Amsterdam roads: THEY ARE INSANE. There is no division between sidewalk, bike lane, road way, and tram lane. Everything is mixed in, making the road a booby-trap. Not only do you have to watch for insane bicyclists who won’t slow down for anything (I’m pretty sure they would hit you and keep going if they could) but you also have to watch for trams coming right down the street inches away from you. It took a little while to get used to the chaos, though there are a lot less cars than most cities.

Sunday morning we packed up and had breakfast at the hostel. Cailin, Joe, and I had no group activites so we decided to just wander around and take our time seeing the sights. We walked back to the “I Amsterdam” sign and took pictures with it. As we worked our way to Dam Square we bought some souviners for friends. We had a hard time walking because the ground was iced over in places so we spent a lot of time slipping and skating our way over bridges and across streets. We didn’t want to eat the hostel lunch again so we searched for a cheap lunch option. We happened upon a Chinese/Indonesian place in an alley. It was delicious! Afterwards we walked to Centraal Station, stopping to hear accordion players and checking out an extension of the Vodka Museum. We took our time because we were all hurting and tired, not to mention now we were carrying our backpacks! The backpacks made us feel like real travelers, not just tourists. Cailin left to go to a concert with her music class so Joe and I decided to catch a train to Well because we were exhausted. After some confusion, we got on a train to Eindhoven, then to Venlo, and eventually a bus to Well. I was so happy to see the castle!


Overall the weekend was great! Amsterdam was a surprisingly beautiful city that is brimming with culture. I hope you enjoy the pictures!