AmsterDAMN

Today I was off to Amsterdam for the week to celebrate King's Day, see the tulips, and visit Carissa again!

I took the train to Amsterdam immediately following my class which took about 3 hours. I was staying at Mike & Teresa's flat so from the train station, I took the local tram and Teresa met me at the station. I picked up a beautiful bouquet of flowers to thank her for letting me crash on their air mattress for the week.

Once I dropped off my stuff, Teresa took her other houseguests and I to the museum of canals. The museum of canals was situated in what looked like an ordinary house. The museum was a self-guided audio tour that took you through several different rooms to explain the history and construction of the canals.

In Amsterdam, there are over 100 canals and the entire city is below sea level. It rains 18% of the time which is not good news for the city. Every drop of water has to be pumped out to avoid flooding. The canals are not very deep and average under 10 feet with sand on the bottom. The houses that are built on the canals were made by hammering logs of pine into the sand to create a solid foundation. From there, bricks are laid out to build the house from the ground up. Today, some of the houses still have their original foundation but many have had to replace the original wood foundation with concrete. It is clear how old some of the houses are given that many are now leaning and slightly crooked. The leaning sadly can never be fixed unless the whole house is brought down. Given space constraints the Dutch faced, they built up rather than out which means the stairs in each of the flats is extremely steep. Even in Teresa's flat I looked at the stairs and thought "here we go again". Since the stairs are so steep, it is impossible to move furniture in and out so on the exterior of houses you can see a hook that is used to move large items such as a washing machine into the house through the top windows.

It was interesting to see how Amsterdam was designed in a semi-circle design and each of the canals was lined with trees to create an urban forest vibe.

In the evening Carissa and I met up with the people she was staying with for a canal cruise. I had imagined a massive tourist boat cruise but was pleasantly surprised to find out it was only about 12 people of which 6 were Carissa's friends. The boat was very cozy and inside the boat, the driver had laid out an assortment of cheese, meat, fruit, olives, and of course stroopwafels! Immediately as we entered the boat, he poured us a glass of wine. I was definitely onboard with this treatment!

The boat driver had a fascinating past and his mother was friends with Anne Frank. His mother ended up surviving the Holocaust and he had recently created a documentary detailing her story. The driver had a lot of historical knowledge but was also very funny. He joked about how many people but also cars fell into the canals each year and how close to the edge of the canal he would park his car. He owns another business where they exclusively pull out plastic from the canals that is then repurposed to create boats.

In the canals we passed many houseboats that lined the canals. There are only 2500 spots available so if you want a houseboat, you have to buy it from someone - there is no room for new ones. Some were actual boats while more modern ones have been built on concrete slabs and rented out as Air Bnbs.

The cruise was very relaxing and it was beautiful to be on the water at sunset. Halfway through the cruise, the driver got out and brought us back traditional Dutch food - bitterballen! The proper way to eat the battered potato balls was to throw it in the mustard. He then had us all take a shot of some Dutch gin. The cruise was the perfect way to see all of the city and landmarks!