Awesome Times in Amsterdam

Just another lovely street in Amsterdam

Early on Saturday morning, after having a great time the previous night hanging out at one of the French students' apartments, my roommates and I somehow managed to wake up in time to catch our train to Paris.    We wound our way over to the Gare du Nord (North train station) and settled into our comfy seats on one of Europe's high-speed trains.  It was totally worth it to get up early, because after just 3 hours of traveling at over 200 miles per hour, we were in the heart of Amsterdam with a full day ahead of us!

We started off by just wandering towards our hotel, which was in the center of the city.  We actually went too far at first -- we were surprised by just how close it was -- but it was nice to see some little canal streets that we might not have normally seen.  Our hotel was located right on one of Amsterdam's many canals that wind throughout the city, and it was an absolutely beautiful view.  

Needless to say, this most beautiful area of Amsterdam also happens to be its red light district.  Our hotel was conveniently (just kidding) located above a sex shop, and the entire street was lined with similarly weird stores.  It was slightly shocking to remember just how relaxed Amsterdam's laws are, especially when we walked past window after window of prostitutes waving at passers-by.

Our great hotel location.....

Despite how horrible all of that might sound, Amsterdam felt surprisingly safe and pretty calm.  I suppose part of that could be attributed to the fact that several people seemed to be smoking pot -- old, young, and in between.  Certain streets had more "coffee shops" than others (any store called a "coffee shop" sold drugs, unlike the "cafés"), but we could smell weed all over the place.  Some stores even advertised shrooms and who knows what other drugs.  Nevertheless, the locals were all very friendly and didn't seem to treat marijuana like it was a big deal at all.  They all spoke flawless English too -- probably the best I've heard in Europe so far -- so it was easy to navigate the city.

After meandering for a while, we walked to the western side of town to see the Anne Frank house.  After a very long wait, we got to see where Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazis.  It was extremely cramped and the tour was obviously very moving.  After seeing that house, I'm eager to see Auschwitz in a week.  The house was one thing, but seeing the death camp will be totally unreal.

On a happier note, after leaving that museum and having some serious discussions, we went into an architectural bookstore.  I had forgotten how influential the Dutch are in modern architecture; I was drooling over all the pictures of cool Rem Koolhaas designs.  (Google him or his firm, OMA, if you haven't seen his stuff!)

We ended up at an Italian restaurant for dinner, which turned out to be a rather poor decision because our food took almost 2 hours to arrive.  I had wanted to find a non-touristy restaurant with some local cuisine, but we couldn't find anything.  It was rather difficult to find anything genuinely Dutch in the busy parts of Amsterdam... it was such a mish-mash of cultures that I still couldn't quite say what Dutch cuisine even is.  There were lots of Belgian waffles, French crepes, and Argentinean steaks available... but I guess the only purely Dutch things I saw were Heineken and Amstel beers.

Anyway, the next day, we walked to the southern end of town to see the Van Gogh Museum.  It only had a couple of his most famous works, but it was still worth seeing.  After that, Brittany and I grabbed lunch and sketched the famous "I AMsterdam" statue nearby.  Once the rest of the group joined us, we took the typical tourist route by climbing all over the statue and taking corny photos.

We sat down in the Leidseplein plaza area after having some difficulty crossing a street on which a marathon was taking place.  We unfortunately missed the city tour we wanted to take, and the tour of the original Heineken brewery was too expensive.  Instead, being the dedicated architects that we are, we walked back through the canal streets and sketched a lot.  Lots of people were watching us and taking photos -- it was pretty funny.  Eventually, it was too cold to continue, so we wandered back towards the red light district to find a restaurant for dinner.  After eating some cheap falafel (so much international cuisine!), my roommates and I headed back to Amsterdam's "Centraal Station" for the train ride home.

Overall, my impressions of Amsterdam and the Netherlands as a whole were great.  Even the trip getting there was beautiful: it was common to see cows grazing in pastures beneath old wooden windmills.  Now that I've seen most of the main tourist sites in Amsterdam, I would love to go back and meet more locals -- especially to discover Holland's real cuisine and to get a better understanding of its relaxed attitude!

Major Art Overdose! Two Busy Weeks

Last week was a long and exhausting one: it was officially our "intensive sketch week" at school.  On Monday (Sep. 27th), after our real introduction to Design Studio class in the morning, we had lectures from Jack Kelley and Michael Plautz in the afternoon.  These guys were probably two of the best sketchers I've ever seen in my life -- their slides were mostly scans of their drawings, and they were all AMAZING.  Throughout the week we went to different Paris locations every single day, including the island of Saint-Louis, the Palais Royal, and Place Vosges.  Traveling on the train that much was draining, but I think my sketching did improve a little.  They taught us some good tricks for drawing plans, sections, elevations, and axonometrics of towns or spaces just by walking around and looking at proportions.  We also had a history tour of the old Roman ruins in Paris, so I learned a lot and saw a lot all week.

The highlight of Friday afternoon: hanging out with two of our little host sisters, Celestine and Jeanne.  They just lingered in our doorway after I said hello; and once they realized we were friendly, they hung out with us for an hour!  They found everything we did fascinating, so they helped me pick out clothes, they watched me use the microwave, they stared while I brushed my teeth... just too cute for words.  They also decided to have a photo shoot with my camera, so now everyone can see that I'm not lying -- they are so adorable!

Friday night was definitely interesting, to say the least.  We got free tickets from school to see the opera Aida at the Stade de France.  It looked pretty cool when we arrived: big Egyptian obelisks and lots of sand served as the set, which was laid out on the field of Paris' giant stadium.  The show was a weird culture clash -- the songs were sung in Italian, but the story was set in Egypt, and the subtitles were in French.  I could just barely follow along.  It was four hours long... so I don't think I ever really need to see an opera again.

Afterwards we headed out for a night in Paris, since it was the once-a-year night of Nuit Blanche (White Night, or Night of Lights).  There were tons of artsy exhibitions occurring all throughout the streets of Paris, so we wanted to try to see as many as possible!  Unfortunately, we only made it to 3 -- but the ones we saw were pretty cool.  First there was a temporary white bridge built over the Seine onto which really crazy light displays were projecting.  There was electronic music blasting from it, so it was very surreal to walk through.  Next we went into a courtyard to see another light show featuring really a simple projector shooting light onto a complex wire sculpture.  It sounds plain.... but in the dark, since you couldn't actually see the wires, it looked CRAZY awesome!  It was like there were little ghosts of light flying all throughout the air.  It's definitely something I would try to set up myself someday... just too cool.

Next we headed to a nearby exhibition of sound.  It was weird but cool: in this dark, old hotel room full of beautiful antiques, there were a bunch of vacuums set up to play music.  They lit up at random times and played random chords, so the result was bizarre.  They sounded like accordions and organs mixed together.  Since they sometimes meshed and sometimes clashed, the show was called "Harmonichaos."

After that, the night was pretty much one big fail.  The metro lines that claimed they would work all night long lied, so at 3am we were unable to get to the Eiffel Tower area, where more cool exhibitions were located.  The bus home was canceled too, so instead we ended up waiting for the morning trains to start at 6am.  Saturday was definitely one big nap.

The next week was our first week on the normal school schedule, so class went as planned.  On Tuesday night, Brittany and Allie and I went on an awesome tour of Montmartre, the edgy and artsy hill area in Paris.  Our tour guide was this hilarious American girl who knew all of the fun facts about the neighborhood that a guide book would never anyone.  We saw the places where Picasso, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec and Oscar Wilde liked to hang out, and we learned about the Moulin Rouge and the Basilica of Sacré Coeur.  Afterwards we got free wine at a little bar, so I can't wait to do another New Europe Tour again.

Wednesday night was crêpe night at Natalie, Andrea, and Allie's place, which was amazingly delicious.  The crêpes kept coming, so I seriously had about 8 of them (ham and cheese, or nutella and bananas... can't resist!).  We watched Glee afterwards, which was great.  There's actually a bunch of posters for Glee in Paris.  The next days were busy with travel planning: trying to book Amsterdam for next weekend, and then Berlin, Prague, Auschwitz, and Vienna for our travel break.  Still working on that... so hopefully it will all get worked out!

Today I had to visit my history research paper site, the Château de Fontainebleau.  The TGV train was really fast getting there, and the town there was very quaint.  I'm still not sure what aspect of the building to research, but hopefully I'll decide soon.  Once back in Paris, I spent the afternoon shopping on the Right Bank.  I hit up the Galeries Lafayette (the gorgeous one from before) which turned out to have a huge sale going on.  Then again, Longchamp and Prada and Gucci "on sale" is still way out of my price range, so I went next door to Mango instead and got a 25€ purse/school bag.  (Another step to looking more Parisian: lose the backpack.)  We're going out tonight in Versailles... but after that, I'll pretty much be thinking about nothing but Amsterdam next weekend!

The back of Château de Fontainebleau