Amsterdam: Van Gogh, flea markets, people–watching and more!
Another memorable weekend trip during my study abroad was a weekend spent in Amsterdam in November. I keep saying that I’m a country girl, but these cities are starting to change my mind. My roommate, Ryan, and I felt like Amsterdam was definitely more modern compared to where we were living in Florence, and at times it reminded us of our home city of Boston. Our trip was almost ruined from the start when our plane was delayed due to wind, but luckily we made it to Amsterdam from Florence Airport very quickly after the wind subsided. After taxiing to our hotel from the Amsterdam airport, we made it to our hotel around 11:00PM.
We stayed at Hotel Casa which originally was created in the ‘50s to provide students housing! This origin story definitely transferred to its current mission as the hotel still serves to “provide students with enjoyable and affordable student housing.” The atmosphere of our stay felt like it was made for a younger generation, with most employees also aged on the younger side. Unfortunately, by the time we arrived at the hotel their kitchen was closed, so we used Uber Eats to grab some McDonald’s because we did not have many options that late at night.
In the morning, we spent €12 on a buffet breakfast at the hotel which was definitely worth it. I filled up on yogurt with granola, a croissant with nutella (my guilty pleasure for the entirety of my time abroad), and pancakes. Hotel Casa wasn’t exactly walking distance from the classic Amsterdam streets we were hoping to see, so we ended up Ubering downtown which is where we got our true, first taste of the city. By this time of year the streets were decorated with Christmas lights and classic Christmas songs were playing from street performers. We decided to spend our first day in the city walking and shopping; we visited stores like H&M, Bershka, Urban Outfitters, Pull + Bear, and more. During our time walking, we ran into several protests that ended up overlapping each other. First, we saw a protest against eating meat, then we stumbled upon a climate change protest which was absolutely packed with people carrying signs, chanting, singing, and there was even a drum line in the midst of the protest.
After observing for some time, we ended up in Dam Square in front of the Royal Palace Amsterdam where we were met with one of the weirdest experiences of my life, and somehow, no it was not the grim reaper with the “I love Amsterdam” shirt on. I am totally a bird person so naturally I was attracted to the flock of pigeons to take some photos, but before I knew it a man came up to me and laid some rice on me and before I knew it I was covered in pigeons. Yeah I acknowledge that to some people this may be absolutely nasty, but being a bird lover I was pretty thrilled (but still desperately wanted a shower after).
After hours of shopping we did the American thing and went to Starbucks where I got a delicious hot chocolate to keep me warm. For lunch we ate at the Flower Burger, which immediately caught my eye when we walked past it. The restaurant has a “100% plant based menu of colourful burgers made with only natural ingredients and real food,” but basically in my mind I just thought “colorful burgers.” I ended up getting the Tangy Chickpea with Edamame on the side and it was delicious and filling.
Keeping up to date on our covid testing was very important while we were traveling, so we used resources like this one to find free testing near us. We were required to test negative in order to enter the Van Gogh museum, which was one of the most anticipated parts of our trip. We had no problem getting tested, just make sure to bring your passport! Unfortunately Ryan, who had been tested kept her American SIM card and ended up never receiving her confirmation code to check her results so we had to revisit the testing site to get her results in person. This was the only flaw we ran into while testing; we were just glad we were still in walking distance when we received our results.
After dealing with covid testing (boring I know), we stumbled across a flea market that was closing up. We walked through to see a variety of vendors and I ended up buying a ring for only €5 whileRyan bought some Gluten Free dessert samples. We still had plenty of time before the day was over so we found a free ferry to cross a river (embarrassingly we asked where to pay only to find out it was free), and made it to A’dam Lookout where we had reserved tickets.
The lookout has a “360-degree view of Amsterdam and the surrounding cities,” and also is home to Europe’s highest swing, some VR experiences, a sky bar, and more. To be perfectly honest, this place was definitely more of a touristy location, but we got to take fun photos in front of a green screen and got the digital copies for free, and received vouchers for 2 drinks each included with our tickets. The elevator up to the top included a really unique light show which was a nice touch to the overall experience. The tickets were affordable and the view from the top was hard to beat! Ryan and I didn’t end up wanting our drink vouchers, so we gave them to some random people who were very appreciative and we got some nice conversations out of it! We also got to see a beautiful sunset during our time there.
We realized we were pretty hungry for dinner so we didn’t end up staying long at A’dam, so we took the ferry back over the river and started our hunt to find a Gluten Free restaurant for Ryan. We were definitely spoiled with accommodations during our time in Florence, but it was trickier to find GF places in Amsterdam. During our search we accidentally wandered into the red light district where the vibes immediately changed. Neon lights were more apparent and person-sized windows were scattered throughout the streets which was when we realized we were headed in the wrong direction. We moved on pretty quickly and finally found an Italian restaurant called Sapore Italiano that made GF pasta, and I had a tortellini with spinach and ricotta which hit the spot. We also had a delicious bread that could be dipped in a garlic butter which had some incredible flavor to it, and they even gave us mints at the end. For dessert I stopped at a dessert shop where I shamelessly spent €12 on a waffle covered in peanut butter and chocolate sauce topped with Oreos, KitKats, and other European chocolates.
We Ubered back to the hotel after a long day of 7 miles of walking, and ended up skipping our club reservation because of how exhausted we were and went to bed at 10:30.
The next morning we were up at 8 and checked out of the hotel and grabbed some banana bread for breakfast from the lobby to hold me over. The hotel held onto our luggage for the day so we were able to travel hands–free. We Ubered to the Van Gogh Museum where we arrived a little too early, so we walked around and admired the architecture, foliage, and got some more hot chocolate from one of the vendors lining the street.
We entered the museum at our time after showing the results of our covid test, and then we locked up some of our belongings in provided lockers at the museum. Of course I knew of Van Gogh, but I had never known the variety of work he accomplished nor did I know the full story of his struggle with his mental health. He drew a lot of his inspiration from nature, and one quote that he said really stuck with me: “If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.” As a nature photographer, this truly stuck with me as I was viewing his paintings, and it made me so sad he was unable to see the success of his works or be recognized during his lifetime. We spent a lot of time going through the four+ floors filled with some of his most iconic works and learned his story. The museum was definitely my favorite part of the trip and I ended up buying a few souvenirs from the gift shop including a tote bag, perfume, and an ornament.
By this time we were pretty hungry so we found a GF pancake place that Ryan found. We walked 30 minutes to the restaurant (we were committed) and then we ended up waiting in an hour–long line to sit inside. We were out of luck and it started raining while we were waiting outside, but it did not deter people away from waiting – this was a very popular spot to be and people were willing to wait in the rain! Once we got in, I got American pancakes with chocolate sauce, bananas, and crumbs of those airplane waffle things (I cannot remember the name of them). I have a sweet tooth, but I think that these pancakes were almost too sweet with all of the toppings so I ended up pushing a lot of them off.
After pancakes we went to a souvenir shop where I bought some gloves in preparation for my trip to Switzerland, and then we stopped at a french fry place called Manneken Pis Damrak where I got truffle mayo and they gave a generous portion!
Our next adventure of the day was the NXT Museum, and we met up with some friends and took a ferry over to the museum (on our way we got to see a rainbow!). The museum was very interactive with seven different exhibitions. I will let the photos show just how cool this place was.
After the museum, we had to say goodbye to Amsterdam, so we grabbed our luggage from Hotel Casa, and then went straight to the airport in hopes of a stress-free departure. Amsterdam should definitely be a part of your bucket list if visiting Europe, there is so much to do and seen just within walking distance.
