12 Days in Europe - Amsterdam (day three)
Today was the time to do the normal touristy things. I started out by taking a stroll along the familiar path down to Museumplein. To my surprise, a lot of the trash from the day before was already gone but there was still a plenty of urine all over the place, but we digress. The Van Gogh museum was the first on my list. After waiting in line for half an hour I finally got in and started from the top floor as suggested.
There were not many Van Gogh pieces up there so I was pretty disappointed. There were more on the first floor and then I made my way to the special exhibit - Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night with my favorite painting, the Starry Night itself, on loan from New York’s Museum of Modern Art. There was also many other of his impressionism masterpieces there. In the end it was really worth the admission fee. Not sure if I would recommend it once the special exhibit is over though.
After grabbing a couple overpriced hot dogs by the museum I walked over to the original Heineken brewery. They no longer brew beer there, instead, it has been turned into a touristy spot completed with Brew U, a thrilling motion ride. Not really. Still it was much better than the “read all the stuff on the walls” so called tour at the Coor’s brewery in Golden, CO. I also ran into my hostel roommates - the five Italians and two Australians during the tour and we had a good time downing a couple cold ones at the end.
In the evening I went on the Red Light District Exposed tour. It was a lot of fun and our guide was very lively and knowledgeable and we felt pretty safe during the tour. At the end we stopped by for our free shot and continued to hang out there with a couple American guys that were studying in Spain and a couple American girls that were studying in France. Eventually we got out of there, grabbed some Chinese, and went on another tour of our own. Coincidently, it turned out that the girls stayed at a hostel right across from mine.
The rest of my 12 Days in Europe posts:
- Getting there (Detroit-Amsterdam-Paris)
- Paris - Touristy things and flying!
- Marseille (day one) - Touristy things and get-together
- Marseille (day two) - Touristy things
- Torino (day one) - Getting there from Marseille and party time
- Torino (day two) - Recharge
- Torino (day three) - Touristy things
- Milano
- Amsterdam (day one) - Milan to Amsterdam, pre-Queen’s Day concert
- Amsterdam (day two) - Queen’s Day Celebration
- Amsterdam (day four) - Plane spotting at Schiphol
- Coming home