The Netherlands – A Dam Good Time

March 4

Hello everyone!

Though based in The Hague for our trip, no excursion to The Netherlands would be complete without spending some time in the country’s largest city: Amsterdam.

It's not just teenagers who can have fun!

Historic buildings line the streets - a world away from Malawi

I have been here before, at the end of my backpacking adventure through Europe in 2008. For a variety of reasons, it disappointed rather than delighted. It may have been travel fatigue as I had been on the road for 3 months. It may have been missing good friends I had made in Prague, where I had been for the previous month. It may have been the magical type of mushrooms I had which made me think my university housemate was eating me in the way that the genie’s mouth becomes enormous in Aladdin. Either way, I didn’t have the fondest memories of Amsterdam.

A short train journey northeast took us to Amsterdam

A calmer side of the capital

Professional duties obviously meant this trip would be very different to my escapades 12 years ago. We did have to walk through part of the red light district to get to different locations. Many of the groups seemed very curious about a shop with mushrooms in the window – this time, I had to herd them along like sheep.

The smell of this was quite strong in some streets

Normally you would have taken
something to see an outfit like this...

One thing I remember vividly from my last visit was the sheer number of bicycles. The weather and time of year probably means that fewer people are riding than usual, though there are clues about peak season…

Many sources state that there are more bicycles
(almost 900,000) than people in the city of Amsterdam

Parking: tight

Many bikes are parked on one of the 1500 or so bridges which link the city together. These bridges cross over about 165 canals which are lined by leafless trees and steep houses. Even in the embryonic days of spring, they are still a pretty sight.

Apparently there are more canals here than in Venice

Laws dictate that wooden houseboats
have to be repainted every three years

One of these houses is particularly famous for being the hiding place of a young girl who wrote a diary: Anne Frank. I did visit her house in 2008 but found the experience to be as deeply moving as last time. I also find it remarkable that we know the story at all – just one flaw in the chain reaction of events would have lost this story to history. What if her friend hadn’t kept the diaries and hidden them? What if her father – the only family survivor – hadn’t returned? What if he hadn’t wanted that story told publicly?

The Frank family were in hiding at this location for two years

The museum entrance is clearly not part of the old house

I always wonder about the other stories similar to this which have never been told. There is a section at the end of the museum which outlines some examples of people from that very neighbourhood in Amsterdam who survived the Holocaust. Their stories are arguably just as fascinating, from the man who forged passport stamps to help other Jewish people escape to the lady who hid and ended up marrying Anne’s father.

The annex at the back was where they hid, with the
movable bookcase being the gateway between

A stark reminder at the exit that this was a young girl,
of a similar age to many students on our trip

Being on a trip involves doing lots of activities to keep things ‘fun’. As well as playing mini golf in a bizarre setting under a road, we also visited the NEMO Science Museum. This was a pretty cool place, reminding me of visiting Cardiff’s equivalent called TechniQuest when I was younger.

5 floors of fun - even as an adult I found it to be an interesting place

A quite frightening app which combines your face
with a famous person - this is me and Barack Obama...

The other aspect I try to introduce on a trip is a bit of local cuisine. When I think of Dutch food, I think of cheeses like Edam and Gouda. The stereotype Amsterdam plays on is Dutch pancakes, which resemble enormous crepes.

They also made these small pockets of batter called poffertjes

I went super-sweet with mine - an apple crumble pancake!

Not one of the healthier lunches to offer a group of ravenous teenagers, but we were all very content. Indeed, I am much more content with Amsterdam after this sojourn from The Hague. A very different, much more positive trip, and one which has changed my opinion of the largest city in The Netherlands.

Love you all,

Matt