fulbright blog.: What is this life?! (Fall Break Travels to Amsterdam & Duesseldorf)

I successfully visited the Netherlands for the first time last week! It was amazing - I absolutely loved it.

My journey began when my alarm went off shortly before 6 am last Wednesday. I took a regional train to Eisenach (which is free because of my student ticket) then took the IC to Kassel then another IC to Hannover then the IC to Amsterdam.

Cool view from the train.

While on the final train, we stopped for a bit at a station in Bad Bentheim, which appeared to be a small town. I was confused about why we stopped for so long, but finally we started moving again and a lady came around to check our tickets. It appears that at the last stop in Germany, the staff switches to a Dutch staff. The ticket lady was perfectly nice to me, but some British girls sitting at the front of the car weren't so lucky. They had their tickets on their phones, but that's illegal in Holland, so they were forced to pay 36 Euros for their trip to Amsterdam (although they'd already paid for their ticket to Amsterdam through the deutsche Bahn). They pitched a really loud fit, and the ticket lady tried to throw them off the train until they finally agreed to pay their fare.

I loved Amsterdam from the moment I stepped off the train. It was beautiful - there's a canal right by the station, although it would have been better if there wasn't construction on the tram lines. (Everywhere I go, there is construction on the public transportation. More on that later...)

The first place I went as soon as I stepped off the train was to Amsterdam's central library. It's fantastically beautiful, and also is the place where John Green wrote part of The Fault in our Stars. When I walked in, I asked one of the librarians if I was at the library where John Green wrote The Fault in our Stars. She had no idea what I was talking about, but she was still really friendly and helpful and told me about the lockers downstairs (which were free!), so I didn't have to carry my backpack through the library.

After wandering the library a while, I decided to head to my hostel to drop off my backpack. This is the street in front of the library. You can see a canal in the photo as well as St. Nicholas Church in the background on the right.

The hostel I stayed at was very easy to find! (It was even easier to find due to construction - most of the tram lines went by it due to the diversion.) It was located a street off of the main drag, which was nice because it wasn't too loud. Shelter Jordaan also has a no drugs or alcohol policy, which was really important to me because I'd heard stories about how hostels in Amsterdam are just filled with people smoking weed, which isn't what I went to Amsterdam to experience!

As I was leaving the hostel, I stopped to ask the girl at the desk for directions to the Anne Frank House. (The staff is mostly volunteers because they're a Christian hostel, so people volunteer their time in exchange for room and board and the opportunity to do mission work.) It turned out that it was right at the end of the street, and it's open until 9, so I had plenty of time to find it! While walking there, I saw this sign. My first thought was "this should say "bell out of order, please knock."" followed by my second thought of "what did Sherlock do to destroy the doorbell?"

The Westerkerk. I tried to go inside several times, but on Thursday they closed early and on Friday they were having a concert when I attempted to visit. Statue of Anne Frank outside as well. When I walked by the Anne Frank house there was a massive line (at 4:30 on a Wednesday in October), so I decided to walk a bit more and see if the line was shorter later. I got some Dutch fries and munched on them while I walked around the neighborhood. I stumbled upon the monument to homosexuals, which I decided was a traditional monument.

The Anne Frank House & Westerkerk from across the canal.

I ended up wandering all the way to the Dam, which is the royal palace (they charged admission fees and no student discount. I don't care enough about the Dutch royal family for that.) But of course, there was a Riesenrad. I think the only place in Germany I've been this year that hasn't had a Riesenrad up is Eisenach.

After wandering all the way to the Dam and back, I decided that it was time to wait in line for Anne Frank. I waited perhaps 15 minutes total (and when I left the house there was no line despite the museum being open for 1.5 more hours). The people behind me in line were extraordinarily interesting. They worked for an airline and were from New York. They were talking about mutual friends in the industry and about how one of their friends gets international flights because he speaks Arabic and didn't have to pay his dues flying domestically. I also learned about which flights are the best in terms of layovers (Mumbai seemed pretty legit), and about a lot of gossip from their flights. I tried to stay near them for the first part of the museum because they were so interesting.

Anyhow, the actual museum was tastefully done. The rooms were stripped bare after Anne & her fellow inhabitants of the secret annex were arrested, and Otto Frank wanted it to remain that way, so you had to imagine a lot of the stuff based on photos. There were many small children there who didn't seem to quite understand the gravity of the place, but then again, why should kids have to be solemn and depressed in this museum? This house was a place for the living, not for the dead.

The street opposite the Anne Frank House as the sun set over Amsterdam.

I wandered a bit more (the sun sets early here, so it was totally dark by 7) and saw the Riesenrad in all its glory.

Side note about my time in Amsterdam: I did not see the red light district. I found it on a map on my first day and actively avoided it. Avoiding coffeeshops was much more difficult, but it's not like they jump out and drag you in. (Pro tip: Koffie = coffee = good place to go. Coffeeshop = place you may or may not want to go. If you're not sure, use your nose and common sense. If the establishment is filled with stoned 20 year old guys, it may not be a starbucks. Also, if you're somehow still not sure, coffeeshops are generally located in the basement level of buildings.)

Oddly enough, I liked Amsterdam because I didn't breathe in as much secondhand smoke as I usually do in Erfurt! The people of Amsterdam smoke cigarettes less than the Germans I'm around, and when I walked by a coffeeshop I walked quickly and held my breath because I'm not a fan of the pot smell.

Then I happened upon some girls getting hazed. I know they were getting hazed because the girls in black were wearing shirts that said "hazing squad."

Streetlights along the canal near my hostel. Before heading back to the hostel for the night, I stopped at the grocery store to get something else to eat. To my extreme happiness, the grocery store had hummus!! I haven't been able to find hummus in Erfurt, so I was very excited about it. I took my hummus back to the hostel cafe with me, and was going to read as I ate, but one of the girls who worked there invited me to play this Dutch board game with her and two young men from Spain who were job hunting in Amsterdam. The game was really fun and I got to meet another guy who was working at the hostel as well. (The internet says the game was called Sjoelen. I really liked it because each person plays individually while everyone else chats then you compare scores at the end. It was very low pressure.)

Hostel lockers & bed. I had my own light & there was a sink in the room. Both were very much appreciated, as was being in a single-gender dorm!

The next morning, I set my alarm for 7:45 because breakfast started at 8 and I wanted to have as much time as possible to see the city! However, once I awoke I discovered that the sun doesn't really rise in Amsterdam until around 8:30 in late October. Rookie mistake! However, there was enough light for me to start my adventure as planned. The first thing I did was buy a day pass for the tram system. The trams are kinda weird in Amsterdam (German transit operates on the honor system with spot checks every few days). You have to buy your ticket on the tram, then you have to hold your ticket to a sensor as you get on and off the tram so that your ticket can tell where you got on and off. It was all the stranger because the trams in Amsterdam are exactly the same as the trams in Erfurt, except we don't have a person sitting there to sell tickets!

After buying my tram ticket, I attempted to follow the directions I had to get to Bloesem, the restaurant that inspired Oranje in The Fault in our Stars. It turned out that due to construction, I needed to take a bus instead of the tram (luckily, my day pass covered all public transit). Finding the restaurant wasn't a problem, but getting back to Amsterdam Centraal certainly was! The construction meant that most transit was only running one way. Once you got to where the restaurant was, there wasn't a corresponding train going back the way you came. So I got to wander through some of Amsterdam for a bit. I happened upon an old man doing stretches naked in his living room (my own fault for being a peeping tom, but he could've closed the curtains!) and absolutely ran in the opposite direction when I noticed that the next block had red street lights. Eventually I made it safely back to the center of town and set off to find the Hotel de Filosoof.

I made sure to take the #1 tram when I went to the Hotel de Filosoof because that's what Hazel & Gus did in TFIOS. I was having trouble finding the right building and was considering just going to the Vondelpark and forgetting about the whole thing when I decided to double back to take a picture of this cool building with a quote painted on it. It turns out that that was the Hotel de Filosoof!

I got an old man who was dealing with his crying grandchildren to take my picture. Thanks, Opa! I wasn't brave enough to go inside, though.

Then it was off to the Vondelpark! I saw a group of pregnant women doing yoga at one part. There were tons of families and bicyclists and dogs. It was beautiful!

A note on bicycles: I have never seen so many bicycles in my life. Amsterdam is very bike-friendly. There was a huge bicycle parking lot near the train station that had thousands of bicycles. It was ridiculous. I only had two close calls with bicyclists, and both weren't my fault.

Then I went to the Van Gogh Museum, which I was very excited about because Van Gogh's my favorite artist. (I'm pretty sure this means I'm cliche and uncultured, but he's a genius. And he has a Doctor Who episode.) The line to enter wasn't very long, and although the museum cost 15 Euros, in my mind it was 15 Euros well-spent. I got to see Sunflowers and many self-portraits and paintings from artists who taught and inspired Van Gogh, like the painting above.

You were also allowed to take photos of most of the paintings. This got a bit annoying because so many people would crowd the paintings for a photo instead of enjoying them. Sunset at Montmajor is now my favorite work of art. I didn't take a photo of it because I'd rather remember it than be forced to look at a reproduction of it.

The Rijksmuseum and I amsterdam sign. There were kids climbing all over the sign - I loved it! Amsterdam is so vibrant and alive.

The park area near the Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh Museum.

Amsterdam Centraal is a beautiful train station.

I ended up bumming around town for a bit and found myself back at the central library, where I found a chair and a copy of TIME and read to my heart's content. It is such a beautiful library! Before I left, I went around and grabbed a few free postcards to add to the collage on my wardrobe.

That evening after wandering the streets for quite some time, I returned to the hostel because they were having a Dutch food tasting at 7:30 and my feet were very tired! I went down to the cafe, where I met a girl named Andrina from Switzerland who was being a cleaner while on break from college. Then the food tasting began. It was hosted by a group of Dutch high school students who were in Amsterdam with their church youth group over fall break. They had these weird pink and white sprinkles on toast that tasted like licorice, herring (which I tried and hated), kaas (Dutch cheese), drop (weird licorice things that were gross), hagelslag (chocolate sprinkles), stroopwaffel (like 2 piece of waffle cone stuck together with carmel), and speculaas (cookies). It was fun, and I ended up talking to the Dutch kids for a bit and went to a devotional time they were having. It was a good time!

I went looking for the Waterstone's in Amsterdam because I'd never been to a Waterstone's before and I miss English bookstores. I found this while on my way there. Once I finally got to the bookstore, it was closed because bookstores don't open before 10! I wandered a bit more before returning to the store once it opened. I then proceeded to read most of the Amsterdam part of TFiOS because my copy is at home. It reminded me that I could very easily find the house that Peter van Houten lived in, so I did that! I didn't take a picture, though, because it is someone's real house and that felt like an invasion of privacy.

Since I was near the Vondelpark, I went for another stroll, and ran into the Dutch kids again! It was nice to see them once more and say good-bye.

Lots of people take pictures of the I amsterdam sign.

Have you read that book The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog? It was my life. I got a hot dog at a stand near the Rijksmuseum and this pigeon watched me eat it. I knew he was watching because he flew off as I took the last bite.

Then it was good-bye, Amsterdam, and hello to Duesseldorf! As I was bidding Amsterdam a fond farewell, I went into a drugstore to get a travel-sized container of contact solution. Next to it on the shelf was ibuprofen. I felt like I hit the jackpot! OTC ibuprofen AND brown sugar?! Holland is a magical shopping paradise. (You can totally get ibuprofen here, but you have to ask for it at the Apotheke and I don't like doing that.)

I went to Duesseldorf because the German Fulbright Alumni Association was having their annual welcome meeting. I stayed at Backpackers Duesseldorf, which was my least favorite hostel out of the three I've stayed at. The other Fulbrighters stayed at a different hostel, but I went with Backpackers because it was cheaper.

You'll never guess what was happening in Duesseldorf when I was there. Public transit construction!!! However, this construction was just for the weekend so the natives were looking confusedly at the signs just like me.

The first evening I was in Duesseldorf, there was a dinner get-together for everyone, although not everyone attended. It was at Himmel & Aehd, which was a typical German restaurant. The food was good and the question "what does the fox drink?" was answered. (This restaurant featured Fueschen Alt beer, which means fox old beer. The beer is called "old" because is conforms to the old style of brewing.) I met some cool German Fulbright alums as well as a guy who had just got back from a trip to North Korea. One of the German Fulbrighters was from Otterfing (stop before Holzkirchen on the S-Bahn) and had done his Fulbright year at KU, so he knew Dr. Keel. It's a small world!

Oh, then I got back to my hostel, where I was quietly getting my stuff together to go shower while using my iPod as a light because I didn't want to disturb the others by turning on the overhead light. As I'm doing this, another guy walks in the room, turns on the overhead light, takes off his pants, and climbs into bed. I was a bit startled because why'd he have to take off his pants with the light on? Why didn't he have pj pants? Why didn't he open the window?! (No one opened the window, and it was toasty when I woke up.)

I took the bus from my hostel to the Stadttor in Duesseldorf, which is this huge fancy office building that also houses a lot of the state government of Nordrhein-Westfalen. Our meeting took place on the 18th floor in the space owned by the Boston Consulting Group. I was really excited because Kahlilah was there! It was nice to see someone I knew from home as well as seeing other ETAs and meeting some of the full grant Fulbrighters.

When we got to the meeting, there was a nice breakfast spread. Then we had a coffee break after about an hour and a half. After another hour, we were naturally famished and treated to a nice lunch of carrot-ginger soup and meatballs. Then it was time for workshops, where there were drinks readily available. Germans do not play around when it comes to hydration.

After the meeting, we had an hour and a half to kill before the group dinner, so one of the guys who was from Duesseldorf led us on a bit of a walking tour.

We saw the ugliest building of all time.

I found another Riesenrad. I see them EVERYWHERE.

Dinner was pretty amazing! We had a buffet of German food, so I got to try Sauerbraten and had some turkey & mushroom concoction on rice as well. I was sitting with Kahlilah, another ETA named Joan, and a German Fulbrigher named Dennis (I think. I'm sorry if that wasn't his name.) Joan is really interested in religion; Dennis is Mormon and Kahlilah used to be Mormon, so I spent a large part of the evening learning about Mormon beliefs. (Learning is what happens when you stick a bunch of nerds together.) After that there was karaoke, which I didn't participate in, but enjoyed watching.

The restaurant where we ate dinner said "isst was gar ist, trink was klar ist, sag was wahr ist" on the outside. Ron Swanson would hate that...although I think he'd dig the Sauerbraten.

This time, I opened the windows at the hostel. It was loud, but it wasn't hot.

When I woke up, I was really confused about what time it was. My iPod said 9:50, but my phone said 10:50. Since I had to check out by 11, this was an important difference. I ended up confirming with the guy at the desk that European Summer Time was, in fact, over. Germany has fallen back, y'all! Now it's dark at 5:30!

Duesseldorf has weird German. The regular German would say "Pass auf! Da oben sind die Dachdecker!"

As I was waiting for the bus in the morning, a man came up to me and asked how long until the next bus. I told him 5 minutes, then he turned around and proceeded to relief himself into a grate on the sidewalk. Duesseldorf gets a 3/10 for classiness. There were also a ton of beggars in the area of town with restaurants and bars.

I was struck by how Western Duesseldorf seemed. Erfurt is also a state capital, but we don't have Dunkin Donuts or Pizza Hut or Starbucks. Our brands are much more German and local.

I saw this in a park near my hostel. The ugly building portrayed in street art!

The art museum had a Calder exhibit, but I didn't have time to visit it!

I went on a walking tour of the Altstadt (old city) with the other Fulbrighters before leaving Duesseldorf. It was great to see other ETAs again; I hope to be able to attend the Fulbright Alumni Winter Ball in the new year! I learned a lot about Duesseldorf's history (did you know that Duesseldorf's been debt free for 6 years?) before heading to the train station. I was early for my train, but the tour had fallen awkwardly so I hadn't eaten lunch.

Then my train was delayed 20 minutes due to some sort of construction. I knew this was a bad sign because my connection in Mainz was only 15 minutes, so unless we made up some major time I was going to miss it. (Spoiler alert: we did not make up the time.) Luckily I was just going home and knew that even if I got stuck somewhere, almost every major city has a Fulbrighter who would probably take me in if I was stranded.

Koeln! And a Riesenrad! They're everywhere.

Koelner Dom! It's still so beautiful; that area will always remind me of my Holzkircheners. I miss them so much!

On the train between Koeln and Bonn, a man got on and yelled for the whole car to hear that his girlfriend's purse was stolen while they sat on the steps of the Koelner Dom. Her purse had their tickets and money in it, and they were scared because they didn't know what they were going to do. He then asked for money, and people gave it to him. Germans are really quite compassionate.

When I got to Mainz, I'd missed my train, so I headed up to the DB Info desk. You know things are going poorly when the guy working at the DB Info desk starts complaining about the incompetency of the Deutsche Bahn (his employer) while helping you find an alternate route home. (The next best option was "not running today," so my best option was taking the S-Bahn to Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof and catching an ICE from there.)

So I got on the S-Bahn to Frankfurt, which provided me with an excruciatingly slow trip from Mainz to Frankfurt. The slowness got even slower when the train stopped and kicked most everyone out at Frankfurt Stadion because there had been an accident further down the line (someone jumped in front of the train), so the train couldn't go to the main station from that track.

The situation was almost comic: a few hundred people were standing around on the platform, confused. There was an announcement saying that our train would arrive at platform 6, so we all walked over to platform 6. While there, I saw a man go by in a wheelchair. He appeared to have someone from an airline accompanying him, which made sense because he appeared to be both physically as well as mentally handicapped. Then there was another announcement saying our train would come to platform 5, so we all had to walk over there (they weren't directly opposite so we had to go down and back up stairs).

Finally, the announcement I'd been waiting for ("Vorsicht bei der Einfahrt!") came. It means "caution! The train is arriving," and means that the train is somewhere between already at the platform and 4 minutes from the platform.

It was then that I saw the man in the wheelchair again. His chair was balanced for a moment on the edge of the platform, then I saw him fall, almost in slow motion, out of his chair and onto the tracks as his chair fell on top of him. In this moment, I was sure that the train was going to come and hit him, and I was going to see this man die. Everyone on the platform turned to look. Then about 20 people jumped down onto the tracks to help the man while another 20 went running down the platform to flag down the train driver so he didn't come flying into the station. Both movements were successful - the driver was successfully alerted and the man and his wheelchair were saved. Again, Germans are incredibly compassionate and selfless people.

This all happened at the stadium stop in Frankfurt, so I've decided that I'm allowed to love or hate Frankfurt's soccer team because I've spent some time there.

After all this excitement, I finally arrived at Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof. I'd actually always wanted to see something of Frankfurt besides the airport, so I got that wish. Instead of waiting in the 50 person deep line at the info counter, I decided to just check my options by using a ticket machine (which is all the info desk people do. The only reason you need to talk to them is to get your ticket stamped saying you missed your connection so you don't get in trouble for being on the wrong train later, but I'd already done that in Mainz). It turned out that there was a train leaving in about 45 minutes that would go straight through Erfurt. (I'd only purchased my ticket to Eisenach...but the train went to Erfurt and I kinda slept through Eisenach because the stop was at 11 pm.) To rejoice in the fact that I was alive and safe, I visited Starbucks!

After Starbucks I went into a bookstore, where a pile of books that said "bad wolf" were on display. If you're a Doctor Who fan, you may realize that this means that the end of the world is coming. So that's cheery.

Once I got back to Erfurt, I had to wait 30 minutes for the tram to my apartment. While I was gone, the construction on the tram lines in town had ended, so now I get to relearn the network. (Luckily Nummer 3 Richtung Urbicher Kreuz still takes me home.)