№57 — Amsterdam
When people go to Amsterdam, they go there to party, to drink, and to have a good time. While nothing wrong with that, my Amsterdam experience was slightly different, yet not bad at all. As I quickly learned, there is a completely different side to the city that is widely known for it’s opportunities to have a great party.
Before coming to Amsterdam, I spent a few days on a training for new senior consultants in the middle of nowhere, The Netherlands. Since the training was also designed to reward us for our promotion, propensity to drink was high and workload was comfortable. Therefore, I did not really need to have a full weekend of partying in Amsterdam — the city has so much more to offer anyway.
As it was my first time to Amsterdam, I still took the time to walk around the inner city, visit the flower market and enjoyed the view from the A’dam tower. However, right after lunchtime we joined Amsterdam Underground Tours. This was not your typical upbeat city tour but a rather dark, behind-the-scenes one. A woman, who has been — according to her — “addicted to every drug you can be”, spent time in prison, worked as a prostitute, was raped and nearly killed showed us the dark side of the party business.
After this rather sobering experience, we escaped the crowd that was getting more drunk by the hour — Germany was playing the Netherlands in Amsterdam that night and lost — and headed towards the Foodhallen, a concept that I love wherever I encounter it. Nothing beats an industrial structure with a central bar and different food outlets serving creative and tasty food. Paired with some beers, this lifted our spirits before going on to the next heavy attraction.
At precisely 19:15, we were allowed to enter the Anne Frank Haus. Together with a large crowd, we were told the story of Anne Frank, her family and how she hid for a long time in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam during World War II. I haven’t read her diary in school but it was still a place worth visiting.
After two such mentally exhausting experiences in one day, Silia and I both decided to skip the obligatory Van Gogh and Rijksmuseum visit — I do not know much about art anyway — as well as the Heineken Experience. I will definitely come back to Amsterdam some time and by then I hopefully have developed a remote interest in classical paintings or at least am better at faking it.
We flew directly from Vienna to Amsterdam with Austrian Airlines, a short flight for a relatively acceptable price. In Amsterdam, we stayed at the Hyatt Regency, a very nice hotel a few minutes walking distance away from the city center. If you want to spend some money and you’re sick of a hostel bed, I can recommend it.
