Amsterdam, part I: Jordaan shoots, aaaaand Jordaan scores!

Amsterdam, the Netherlands

With such a huge name as Amsterdam, I was a little intimidated by the scale and hearsay of the Netherlands' capital city. When I emailed my dad to say we were a day away, the key line was promising not to smoke pot or hire a prozzie. I can safely say I fulfilled this promise, and was no worse off for it. My adventures in sobriety started in the neighbourhood of Jordaan. 

The tall brick Westerkerk with a bulbous blue crown atop its tower signalled entry into the Jordaan. It is said that only those born within the radius of this church's bells can call themselves true Jordaanians. Though the area has become richer over the past century, it was originally a working class neighbourhood. Rembrandt, after falling into poverty, lived the last years of his life here and was buried beneath Westerkerk. His remains were exhumed and destroyed twenty years later - a common practice for the empoverished at the time. Now Rembrandt is remembered each year with a concert at the church, with music contemporary to his life played. 

The working class mostly moved away in the sixties due to increases in housing prices. Although I know that the rich now reside on these streets, the Jordaan retains a sense of quaintness. Off the main streets, greenery and flower pots liven up the brick and plaster facades. It's theorised that the name derives from the French 'jardin', meaning "garden". 

Imagining residents enjoying their breakfasts sitting on wicker chairs on the footpath brought a smile to my face. 

For lunch, we ate Dutch pancakes at Pancakes! Similar to the French crepe, the pancake was a little thicker, with ingredients baked into the batter. In my case, this was spinach and on top was goat cheese, pine nuts, and garlic oil. It was filling and sumptuous, and we returned on our third day in Amsterdam for their breakfast pancakes: more like American flapjacks, but lighter and smaller, they were filled with apple, sultanas and cinnamon. Homemade strawberry coulis accompanied them, and I ate all three. I should have only eaten two, as I was full to bursting and had trouble walking around the canals after we left. The staff gave us a tiny wooden clog at the end of a keychain as a souvenir - a nice touch, and meant that you didn't have to buy one from the brightly coloured mounds that graced each tourist shop. 

I knew bikes were popular in the Netherlands, and that it's common to hire a bike when exploring the canals, but the number of bikes was astronomical. They were chained up everywhere you can imagine (though not in this hedge), and it's blatant that bikes are preferred over cars here. We took the metro into the centre from our campground because it's standard to pay €50 per day to park your car anywhere near walking distance of Amsterdam. 

On each section of road, you would have one lane for cars to drive, with houses on one side and a canal on the other. Sometimes two lanes if they're feeling generous. Then you'd have the bike lane, which is the most important, of course. If you're lucky there's a small footpath for pedestrians, though this is always full up of parked bicycles so you have to walk in the street. It felt slightly ridiculous, as a place that values green transport such as cycling would surely place just as high an emphasis on safe walking. 

But although I was sometimes (often) annoyed at the lack of proper footpaths, we walked a lot. We returned to the Jordaan a couple of times, once specifically for apple pie. Not just any apple pie - a cakey spiced apple pie that incited a line trailing out the door on market days. The crust was a bit dry, but the rest was pure Jordaan gold. 

As we wandered nearby, we stumbled across the Multatuli museum. Named one of the most important Dutch writers of all time, Douwes Dekker published his satirical novel Max Havelaar about corrupt colonialists after working for the Dutch East India Company for nineteen years. By that time, he knew enough about colonialism to shatter his rose tinted glasses and he wanted everyone in the Netherlands to understand what was going on across the world. He published under the name Multatuli as in Latin it means "I have suffered greatly", referring to the colonised people he wrote about. We attempted to visit the free museum that chronicles his life and displays furniture from his residence in Indonesia, but found that it is only open three days a week. Ah, Europe. 

A famous resident of the Jordaan was Anne Frank, at least in the house in which she stayed hidden from the Nazis. Very near Westerkerk, the Anne Frank house had a queue coiled round the square until you thought that someone was throwing out free spliffs for the crowd that had gathered. We tried to buy tickets, but unfortunately didn't make it to see her hiding place. We'll be purchasing them way in the future next time. We overheard a man saying that he's lived here fifteen years and he has never seen the line that long. It is peak tourist season, but I wonder if it also has something to do with the success of John Green's the Fault in Our Stars. Thiugh it was already on my to-see list, the novel certainly spurred a visit for me. 

During the day, the canals are pretty, but at night they are magical. Did I say we walked a lot? Perhaps an understatement. We walked constantly, only stopping for museums or café breaks. I wouldn't do it any differently.