All the Amsterdam Things

As my time here in Germany is winding down, things get weird and busy and sad and all that stuff. No excuse for not having a blog post in a looooooong time, but my motivation has been a little lacking. I have done some really cool things in the time I haven’t written, so I really should share them. So hopefully I can do my memories justice. It will be a little brief, though, because I have to fit two weeks into one post and I don’t want to make anyone’s head explode. Alright. Let’s begin.

Street in Amsterdam

The last weekend in July, Varun and I made a last trip out of Germany. He wanted to go to Amsterdam, so that’s exactly what we did. We flew from Stuttgart to Amsterdam, passing through Zurich. On the short flights, we got chocolate and a sandwich. So European airlines > American airlines. When we got to the Amsterdam airport, it took a long time to figure out how to get to the main train station. When we got there, we wandered around trying to figure out how to get the tram we needed to get to the hostel. When we did find it, it was about 10 feet wide. But everything in that city is skinny and small. It was about midnight on Thursday night as we passed through the city and everything was alive and crazy. There were so many people everywhere. We finally made it to the hostel, put our bags down, and left again to get food. We immediately noticed that Amsterdam was not only dirtier than Germany, but also bikes. Everywhere. Locked to every solid fixture, or sitting on the sidewalk. We later learned that there are 1.2 bikes for every person in Amsterdam. Not sure why that’s necessary, but it seems it is. When you cross any and all streets in that city, there are many steps to take. 1. Make sure no bikes are coming in the bike lane in front of you. 2. Make sure no cars are coming in the lane nearest you. 3. Make sure no cars are coming in the opposite lane of travel. 4. Make sure no trams are coming in either direction. And finally 5. Make sure no bikes are on the other side of the road that can run into you. Basically, stop every three feet to make sure you won’t get run over by something bigger than you. That is one of the main lessons of Amsterdam: you move for bikes, they don’t move for you.

Taryn at I amsterdam

Canal cruise by Anne Frank House

Mini tugboat?

National Museum and I amsterdam

Canal cruise

                                                                                    Back at the hostel, we were in a four bedroom, and one of our companions I will affectionately refer to as The Chainsaw. Because that’s what he sounded like when he slept. Which was a lot. When his friends knocked on our door at 6:45 the next morning, he finally stopped. After Varun and I ate, we set out to find a canal cruise to give us our first look at the city in the daylight. We ended up on a little boat with some Swedes and Italians. Our guide was awesome and knew really random things about everything. That was my favorite part of our trip. It started to rain on our open boat, but I was too fascinated by what I was seeing to care at all. When we were finished on the water, we walked by the National Museum and made our way to the I amsterdam letters. There were people everywhere, street performers trying to impress the tourists, people climbing the letters and their friends taking their pictures. From there we walked to the Van Gogh Museum, waited in line, and then entered the craziness that awaited us inside. It’s four stories of one continuous line basically. It took a very long time to get through because there were so many people, but being able to see the evolution of his style was definitely cool. The gift shop was also pretty cool. When we left, it was raining, so we went back to the hostel to grab our jackets. Keep in mind that it’s only about 4 in the afternoon at this point. And who do we hear when we get to our room? You bet. The Chainsaw. We have no idea what he and his friends did in Amsterdam, but it must have been really great to make him sleep so much. From there, we made the half hour trek to the Red Light District. We wanted to see it during the day and also at night. It is the oldest part of the city, so us history buffs wanted to get the full effect of the area. We walked around, not really understanding that we were in the middle of where we wanted to be. The Red Light District is also the green capital of the city. There were coffeeshops everywhere and weed paraphenalia in all the windows. It was so strange to see something so stigmatized in the US be so open and free here. It also started to pour, so the streets emptied out pretty quickly. Eventually, we walked all the way to the main train station. We found a pasta place to eat at. It was conveniently located right next to a sex museum. Such is Amsterdam.

1928 Olympic stadium!

Inside the stadium

Could that be prettier?!

Line for the Anne Frank House

The actual Anne Frank House

Everyone knows we Sissersi are a big track family. Any and all track meets make us feel right at home. This makes the summer Olympics a very big deal to us. This also makes seeing Olympic stadiums one of the coolest things ever ever of all to me. Did you know that Amsterdam hosted an Olympics? Neither did I. Until I got there and saw it on the map. Which meant I had to go find it. I’m collecting stadiums. Unfortunately, I didn’t do my research very well, because it took us two hours to find it. When we got there, a meet was actually happening.                                                                                                                                                                                                    We bought tickets and went inside and it immediately began to rain. Of course. There was even a pole vaulter! We waited for the rain to stop. When it didn’t. they finally ran some races, but there was no more vaulting. Sad. After that fun trip, we walked for an hour back to the main part of the city and went straight to the Anne Frank House. We waited for the requisite 2 hours in line. When we finally got in, though, it was totally worth it. The tour starts in the office building next to the Secret Annex. There are videos and pictures, but no furniture. When her father, Otto, returned to Amsterdam to find he was the only one of his family to survive, he made their hideout a museum. He said there was to be no furniture anywhere in the museum to signify all the lives that were lost during the Holocaust. A noble sentiment, but I wanted to see how everything looked when they were there. Thankfully, there were models of each room. We saw the famed bookcase and climbed the incredibly steep stairs to the apartment. The rooms were small, which I didn’t realize until I was not in them any longer. I also didn’t realize that I was IN FREAKING ANNE FRANK’S HOUSE until I wasn’t in it anymore. Her room that she shared with another person was maybe 10 feet wide, and they had 2 beds in there. Peter’s room was the tiniest. And there was a ladder going directly through it. I am very glad that we waited, because a trip to Amsterdam would not be complete without seeing this incredible place. While I was waiting in line for two hours, I realized that a teenage girl made this kind of impact on people that 10 hours almost every day of the year there was a two hour wait to see an empty building. She was insightful and driven and hopeful. All at fourteen. I also, sadly, realized that her words probably would not have reached as many people as they have if she had survived. She is one of the most widely read people because of her tragic ending. But she wanted to get her experiences out into the world. It is incredibly horrible that it took her death to make that happen, but she deserves all the recognition she gets. That is another lesson I learned in Amsterdam. That Anne Frank is way cooler than I originally thought.

From the profound to the vulgar, we went from the Anne Frank House back to the Red Light District. We finally realized that the naked dancing ladies were not on the main streets, but in the alleys between them. I also discovered that they weren’t naked nor dancing. They were all scantily clad, but most of them would stand in their windows and play on their phones. I guess I got quiet as we walked through the alleys with their red lights and open windows, because Varun asked if I was uncomfortable. Which I was, but not for the reasons he thought. Of course, it is weird to see something you’ve always known to be illegal be out in the open. But what really got me was just the girls doing this as a job. Coming from a family who always told me I could do and be whoever I wanted, seeing women voluntarily choose to sell their bodies was just a concept I don’t understand. I am sure they all have their reasons, but they will never make sense to me. It only seems degrading and base to me. I feel sorry that these women only see themselves in this way and don’t know that they can be something else, anything else. But. That’s just me. It was still an interesting experience, but one I am glad to only be witness to, not a participant in.

Palace in Dam Square

Narrowest house: 1.8 m across

I'm really upset about my life at the moment

The Vondelpark

                                                                                                                                                  The next morning, we checked out of the hostel, put our stuff in a locker, and went on a walking tour. Our tour guide was named Robbert and he was freaking fantastic. He knows so much about the city that he could probably talk for days straight about all the random facts he has in his head. He is also one of the fastest walkers I have ever met. We would start as a group, and in 20 seconds, he would be 50 feet ahead of us. Good thing he was tall, otherwise we would have lost him in the first 10 minutes. The tour took three hours, but we saw and learned so much. From there, we went back to the Anne Frank House and found a restaurant across the canal to eat at. It was a goal to eat on a canal while we were there. Eating on a canal by the Anne Frank House was an added bonus. Varun got a sophisticated sandwich with a grown up glass of wine. Taryn got a milkshake and a pancake with chocolate and bananas on top. But it was so yummy. YOLO. From lunch, we walked back to the hostel, which was conveniently located next to the main park in the city, the Vondelpark. We sat in the grass and watched the many barbeques happening around us. Then it was time to leave the city. We took the tram back to the main station. As we drove, I took my last looks at the crooked city. The houses that not only lean into the street but also to the sides, the hooks on top of all the houses to haul things to the upper floors, the canals and boats that are everywhere, the bikes that were literally in almost every empty space available. I would miss it all, but I was missing Stuttgart. But actually I was missing home. And that is when I started to get homesick. Finally.

Solitude Castle

Ludwigsburg Castle

On the grounds

The next week was hectic. The end of the month meant that many people’s projects were ending and they were packing up to leave. There were many people to say bye to and many things to clean. On Thursday, Marissa and I took Varun to the airport so send him back home. About half of the kids in the program left, so our group activities have become much smaller. After such a weird week, Marissa and I decided to stay in Stuttgart for the weekend. Which actually turned out really great. Our friend Binja, who is really my friend Amy’s friend, came into town on Saturday to visit her aunt, so we went to visit them. We had a good ole American barbeque. There were country fries and hamburgers. Her family is just as entertaining as she is, and I’m glad we had the chance to see her one more time before we left. On Sunday, Marissa, our friend Tiemo, and I took a Castle Day. We went to two castles, the Solitude castle and the Ludwigsburg castle. Both by the same guy, only 20 kilometers apart, but one the vacation home. We started with the smaller one, the Solitude. It was quite dead on a rainy Sunday afternoon, which made it even more beautiful in my opinion. From there we went to the Ludwigsburg castle, which is not small in any way. The front grounds are covered in colorful flowers, the castle itself is massive, and then behind the castle is everything from a petting zoo to a fairy tale garden. We took an hour and a half tour of the castle itself. It was all in German so I had no idea what was going on, but that just gave me a lot of time to look at each room. The walls were covered in velvet and the ceilings all painted with cherubs and angels and whathaveyou. There was going to be a concert in the main square of the castle, so the end of our tour was drowned out by sound testing, but everything was still  incredibly cool. After four hours there, we were tired and ended up leaving for home without exploring every nook and cranny of the grounds. It was still beautiful to see what we did. Definitely glad we went.

Concert time!

At work, we have received the printer we were promised, and so now I am experimenting with it hard core. I have no idea how to do anything, so I make a lot of Skype calls to the company asking questions. we are making progress, but it is hard not to get frustrated after hours trying to get one thing to work. When it does work, and it doesn’t last very long, it is really sweet to watch. I’m hoping to be able to print something I can take home with me. My own handmade souvenir. But we will see how much progress I can make in a week. It is exciting and I am sad that I have so little time to play with it. But such is science.

Printing

Printed pink plasticine

After Amsterdam, where I heard the most English I have heard in the past three months, I started to feel like going home. When one of my best friends here left, that only made me want my mommy even more. While I am stoked that I am actually 3D printing, I am getting excited for when I get on a plane to go home. I am excited to go to Prague this upcoming weekend and then London and Dublin the week after, but seeing the people I care about most sounds real good right about now. The plan is to get off the plane, hug my family, eat mexican food, sleep, eat pancakes, sleep, get a new phone, sleep, eat mac and cheese, and sleep. Then it will be time to go back to school and start my senior year of college. (WHAT THE HELL.)While I have wholeheartedly enjoyed this journey, I’m ready to hold my dog against her will and sleep in my own bed and drive my car and have an enchilada while surrounded by my family. Let the countdown begin!

Forever and always,

Taryn