November 9
I didn’t do much this day since I flew into Schipol quite late in the day. Once I dropped off my stuff at a hostel, I beelined to a nearby McDonald’s so I could quiet my stomach that had been rumbling since I took off from Madrid. On the way, I got a chance to peek into Amsterdam’s nightlife: people were having a lot of fun, a bunch of dudes were chanting football slogans, and regular drunken debauchery was taking place on the street. I was way too tired to participate so I quietly ate my McDonald’s chicken sandwich (word for the wise: do not get the special chicken sandwich at a Dutch McDonald’s; it tastes horrible and creating that monstrosity should be listed as a crime). After making my way back to the hostel, I crashed for the night.
November 10
My first order of business for the day was checking out the Van Gogh museum. The museum, as you could probably guess from the name, goes through the entire life of Van Gogh, from his humble beginnings as a painter in rural Netherlands to his French adventures and eventual mental health problems and death. The museum did an excellent job painting his life (pun intended) through his artwork. I could clearly see how his artwork changed as he grew older, met new artistic influences and incorporated them to create his own vibrant, distinct and well-known style. I was particularly taken aback by the emotion stirred up inside me as I walked through the exhibits; seeing how such a brilliant man succumbed to the common illness of depression was heart-wrenching. The museum did a brilliant job weaving a narrative of Van Gogh and his contemporary painter friends and his brother. I particularly liked exhibits relating Van Gogh to his brother, as I can personally relate with many of the Van Gogh’s sibling gripes and love.
After finishing up at the museum, I made my way to Amsterdam’s suburbs to get some Indonesian food. I had been craving Asian food for a long time as Madrid is not particularly well-known for its diversity in cuisine. Regardless, the Indonesian restaurant I went to (Warung Barokah) truly slapped. I knew immediately that I ended up in the right place when I was greeted with the babble of Indonesian between Amsterdam locals as I walked through the doorway. I gulped down a plate of nasi goreng and chicken satay for a decent price of 7 euros and made my way to Vondelpark.
The Vondelpark itself was quite average; the rain and coldness didn’t really help my opinion of the park. I would recommend skipping this park if you are short on time in Amsterdam. I then walked through the Jordaan, which I think is incredibly beautiful part of Amsterdam. Walking through the canals of Amsterdam with the turning leaves of the trees gently caressing the water truly made me appreciate coming to Amsterdam on a whim. The streets of the Jordaan were also quite busy and lively, which made it really fun to walk through! I would recommend visitors to check out the neighborhood.
The goal of walking through the Jordaan was to make it to the Anne Frank House. I quickly met up with a couple of my friends and started the tour. The tour was a very haunting reminder of one of humanity’s dark periods; seeing the horrors that one family went through as they hid from neighbors and from Nazi’s put a lot of life’s struggles in perspective. I was fortunate enough to read a bit about Anne Frank before I came here so I knew what to expect when coming into the house, steeling myself for the sad memories of the family. I know many people found it especially sad, especially if they didn’t have too much knowledge of Anne Frank. There wasn’t much discussion of Anne Frank the writer, so if you’re particularly interested in her writing style or wanted to read her books, the museum doesn’t exactly cater towards that.
After the house, we stopped by the Winkel cafe to eat Amsterdam’s famous apple pie and warm ourselves up in light of the bone-chilling weather. I didn’t really find the apple pie that great, but I am also not a big dessert guy. Afterwards, we took an evening canal tour of Amsterdam. I didn’t particularly like the canal tour despite meeting some lovely people on the boat, mostly because it was too dark to see a lot of Amsterdam. The tour guide did go through some of Amsterdam’s most famous landmarks, but I would have appreciated doing the canal tour in the daylight.
After the canal tour, we hit up some ramen (which SLAPPED with the cold weather outside) and then crashed at my hostel.
November 11
I woke up early to go check out the area around Amsterdam Centraal. I was blessed to have a nice day that day so it wasn’t too cold and I could get some sunlight (which I heard is rare for Amsterdam in November). I got some Dutch pancake as well (not the biggest fan, it has a weird texture) and made my way to my walking tour.
The walking tour was awesome. We walked throughout central Amsterdam, including the Red Light District, coffeehouses and the Jewish Quarter. The tour guide also brought a lot of local knowledge of Amsterdam which I really appreciated. Local opinions are often gilded over when you are visiting touristy areas; walking tours are one of the best ways to dive deep into the local’s favorite spots. Afterwards, I got a stroopwafel with a friend and made my way to the suburbs again for some Israeli sandwiches at Mezzave. I would strongly recommend visiting this restaurant; the owner was very kind and recommended a better sandwich than the one I initially picked out after he inquired about my food tastes. The sandwich was truly heavenly; the cumin-filled meat paired extremely well with the Israeli sauces.
I intended to see the Rijksmuseum but a personal emergency came up so I had to make my way to Schipol extremely early. Asides from the Rijks, I felt like 2 days was just enough to explore everything I needed in Amsterdam!
Tips
- Book tickets for everything as early as you can. The Van Gogh museum is particularly hard to get tickets, but there is a trick! New tickets for the upcoming day are always released at 5pm on the previous day.
- I would recommend visiting Amsterdam in a warmer month. Northern Europe is not very pleasant in November onwards, as its cold and wet
- Dutch food is nothing to be excited over, but there is plenty of great cuisine from elsewhere in Amsterdam. Netherlands is well known for having Indonesian food given its colonial history, so I would recommend checking it out while you are there
- Transit is super simple; you just need your credit card. Amsterdam is one of the rare European cities with a pay-as-you-go system.