A Whirlwind Last Day in Amsterdam

Today was my last day in Amsterdam and I have an early afternoon flight to catch tomorrow back to the states. I wanted to make sure I took full advantage of my remaining time here, so I spent a long time last night planning out the usage of my day. The morning started with a breakfast of baked breads, jams and cheeses at a local bakery. From there, it was out for a morning of shopping in the Western Canal Belt and the Jordaan neighborhoods. I stopped to snap a few photos on my way...how could one ever tire of scenes like this one of houseboats on the canal?


Among my shopping targets was this cheese shop, De Kasskamer. How fabulous is this shop? I was in heaven in there, and came out with my shopping bag substantially heavier and my wallet substantially lighter!


After dropping the morning parcels back off at the hotel, I walked down to the Museumplein, where I enjoyed the park a bit before heading into the Van Gogh Museum. Here's a photo of the amsterdam sign (It really says "I amsterdam" - as in "I am amsterdam" - but it's not all photoed here).
The Van Gogh museum was excellent. When I think of Van Gogh I think of wheatfields, but I learned that this was just his later work in a career that features all sorts of diverse painting styles (did you know he had a period where he was influenced by and even copied Japanese artists?)

After the Van Gogh, I went to the meeting spot for the bike tour. A very cheery Kiwi by the name of Lucy was our tour guide, and she gave an expert history level while we stood on the Museumplein before heading to pick up our bikes.

Lucy was full of interesting facts. Just on the topic of legalized prostitution alone she was very informative - since it is a legalized business here that requires registering the business with the government, she was saying that this has interesting financial consequences - did you know that prostitutes in Amsterdam file taxes, can expense any products they buy to use in their business, and can seek out business improvement loans for plastic surgery!

The route took us along the Amstel River to the outskirts of town and beyond, into the cow fields that lie along the dyke. One interesting thing to see was that the surrounding cow pastures were below the water level of the Amstel, kept dry only by the small dyke on which we were biking.

We stopped at a 350 year old windmill, now a residence. Yes folks, I've now officially been to Holland...



The windmills were not used for what you might think. They were used to pump out the water to make the land. 1/3rd of the Netherlands was once under water. The Dutch devised an ingenious system to drain the water with the use of wind power and dykes long before electricity was available.

Our next stop was a cheese farm. Here is a farm worker explaining the process to us.


The farmer also spends his time making clogs. Nowadays it's all made by machine and a shoe takes about 2 minutes to make. Here he is demonstrating the process.


The ride back along the Amstel was tranquil.


To round out the tour, we stopped at a Pub in one of the many squares around town - this is the Leidseplein.


On the tour I met my new friends Marcus and Kylie from Australia. We decided to go on the Heineken brewery tour. The tour was awesome - but I'm not sure I learned anything about how to make beer. However, we did learn what it's like to be a beer bottle (which required that we stand on a moving platform and hold on tight), what it's like to deliver beer around town by horse (which required that we seat belt ourselves into the ride), and what it's like to DJ (see, because you DJ at a club, and you serve beer at a club, so it's a natural...or something) in a big simulated dance club. We also saw trippy videos, send video email back to Katie and Dana, and enjoyed free beer in not one but two bars along the way. So, we're not sure exactly WHAT the Heineken Experience was, but we had great fun!

After that we met up again for dinner, in chinatown at a place our bike guide recommended. Our four dishes of food that we ate family style hit the spot after the bike ride. Finally, we finished up the evening with a tour of pubs around the city, including munchies stops for Amsterdam-style frites (french fries, with an amazing array of sauce choices - we went with a combo of mayonaisse and curry - it was tasty!) and apple turnovers.

All in all an incredible last day here. I've really covered a lot of ground in my short time here, and Amsterdam truly is a world class city. It has the canal charm of Venice, the cafe culture of Paris, some of the oldest remaining architecture in Europe, more museums per sq. mile than any other city in Europe and a laid-back atmosphere that relaxes you as soon as you start exploring the city. I can't wait to come back!