Schtop! Thish Dutsch ackschent ish not ready yet!

Published on Tue 30 Mar 2010

I went to Amsterdam at the weekend to meet up with  Kate who'd been sent out there for work. What a great place it is to be. I went there a good few years ago for a stag do, and had a great time then too, the little of it I can remember.

I got to Stansted way earlier than I needed to because I got bored sitting around at home, though I nearly ended up in Birmingham by mistake because the train a few minutes before the Stansted train helpfully had Stansted Airport written on the front of it. There was something of an exodus when the driver (thankfully) said "This train is for Birmingham New Street". Good one guys. Having a couple of hours to kill in the departure lounge actually worked to my advantage - I got a glass of wine and settled in for a quiz machine session (Charley Boorman is back in my good books) in which I won enough money to buy a Rough Guide to Amsterdam. I also made friends with the guy on the machine next to me. I couldn't understand a word he said (I think he must have been from Chelmsford or something) but he seemed to be convinced of my genius by the time he went to catch his plane, several pound coins heavier.

The Rough Guide came into its own almost immediately when I got off the double decker train at Amsterdam Centraal station, by telling me how the trams work and allowing me to follow exactly where I'd got to. It's always one of the hardest things about getting buses/trams in a new place - figuring out where to get off. After I dumped my stuff at the hotel we went out for what was the nicest steak I've had in years, some ice cream and a look round the tat shops. The tat was amazing on a couple of levels - firstly the variety of everyday objects that you can attach massive wangs to, and secondly, how funny I still find everyday objects with massive wangs attached to them. I've not decided if the mug with one sticking up inside it which would slowly be revealed as you drank your tea or the windowful of surprisingly well endowed but otherwise very cute pink rabbit soft toys that I couldn't see anything unusual about for ages was the highlight. It led to a discussion later on about what the best object would be to shape like a wang. I think the wang car won, with the wangbrella a close second. I reckoned someone should open up a shop devoted entirely to that kind of thing and call it Nobjets d'art.

Amsterdam isn't exactly rammed full of touristy things to do, but one of the obvious ones is Anne Frank's house, so, next morning, after checking out a church by the main square which, oddly I thought, was devoted to an exhibition of middle eastern dress,

we went to join the queue. It was quite a long queue, but there was another nice church to look at.

Kate passed the time by trying to pretend she was somewhere else. Or just not with me.

I wasn't really prepared for how upsetting Anne Frank's house is. Obviously I know the story, but having it drummed into you that it actually really happened in the place where it happened and spending that time quietly thinking about that, and how many other people it must've happened to gets to you. The interview with her father right at the end of the tour is particularly heartbreaking. The mood was slightly lifted when the "beer bike" went past as I was looking out the window. It's essentially a market stall on wheels with seats running down each side each of which has a set of bicycle pedals. Groups of lads then career round the city drinking beers and shouting. I wish I had more friends...

After a massive burger and a couple of Long Island Iced Teas (or equivalent) at The Hard Rock Cafe while watching classic rawk videos we went on a boat tour round the canals and harbour. It was pretty good. Reminded me of doing the same thing in Gothenburg (though we didn't have to get on the floor of the boat). Actually a lot of the place reminded me of Gothenburg, and made me decide to definitely go to Way Out West again this year.

In one of those weird coincidences, Jason happened to be in Holland visiting his friend Christina, who I met a few years ago when Jason, Kaya and I played in Toronto, so we all met up on Sunday to go to the Van Gogh museum and the Heineken brewery.

I found the Van Gogh museum pretty moving too. The idea of devoting yourself completely to art and dying thinking you're a failure, despite having made something that people still love more than a century on... It made me want to try to learn to paint. Thankfully that's worn off now, but I am still really enthusiastic to actually Make something. I've resolved to get this little CD I'm trying to finish out of the way in the next few weeks so I can get on with something good. Weirdly (or maybe not), there was a poster advertising a Don Mclean gig outside. I never much liked that song.

We did the traditional holiday thing for lunch of buying a bag of rolls, some ham and some cheese from a supermarket and eating them on a bench. I also got some Milka because I remembered essentially living off it when I went on a school ski trip to Austria once. It wasn't that nice. Jason accidentally dropped one of his rolls and within seconds the sky was dark with pigeons. It was like something from The Birds. This photo doesn't really convey the true horror.

The Heineken Experience was a lot of fun I thought, once you accepted that you were paying 15 euros to be advertised at for a couple of hours. I've been on a few brewery tours now, and they're all pretty much the same (show you the ingredients in little bowls, the big vats they brew in, the bottling process and then give you a taste) except that this one had an added bonus. A "brew you" ride, a little bit like Star Tours at Disneyland, where you follow the progress of the beer on a moving platform, with realism being added by a spray with water as the hops are dropped into the vats, and having the room filled with bubbles as the beer becomes ready. 

We were also taught some fun Heineken facts, such as that they used to sell it in bottles that could be recycled, not by making them into new bottles, but by using them as bricks with which to build houses for poor areas of the world, and that the 'e's in the logo are "smiling" (a bit wonky) which I'd never noticed.

After that it was a tram back to by the station, a quick slightly uncomfortable wander through the red light district, and the train back to the airport. A really nice weekend, and a reminder that going to places is much nicer if you have other people to hang around with. Anyone fancy keeping me company in New York for a few days in June? The only disappointment about the whole thing was that the casino at Schipol airport was closed so I had to spend some time sitting on the floor waiting for them to let on which gate to go to.

Roll on Vegas.

Oh yeah, this is the best shop name I've seen in a while: