Blog

Let me first thank all the peo­ple that pro­vided rec­om­men­da­tions for things to do and see, and places to eat in Ams­ter­dam. There are def­i­nitely a lot of things to do in Ams­ter­dam. Unfor­tu­nately, we didn’t make it around to every­thing that was on our list, includ­ing a day trip to Bruges, Bel­gium. We will have to save those things for the next time. Nev­er­the­less, we had a really nice time! With­out fur­ther ado, here are my notes (which get a lit­tle thin toward the end) and photo gal­leries from the trip.

Note: For the photo gal­leries, you can either click on “Show as slideshow,” or sim­ply click on any of the thumb­nails images to see an enlarged ver­sion. Use the arrows at the bot­tom of the picture(s) to can nav­i­gate left and right within the pop-up gallery. To get out of the gallery and return to the post, just click on the pic­ture.

Travel Day

Our British Air­ways flight was sched­uled to depart Dulles at 6:15 pm. Some­where around noon, Carla approaches me, with a sick look on her face, and says “I have a sink­ing feel­ing that my pass­port is in the apart­ment in New York.” Zoinks!!!

I must admit that my first reac­tion was not a tem­pered one. “Why are you just now look­ing for your pass­port? I asked you and Noah a few days ago about them.” Carla’s sug­gested that the direc­tion of my con­ver­sa­tion is help­ing the sit­u­a­tion. The panic in the air was pal­pa­ble. It became clear that, bar­ring the appear­ance of a pass­port fairy, Noah and I would have to travel to Ams­ter­dam with­out Carla. The big, loom­ing ques­tion was really whether she could get on a plane from New York the next day with­out pay­ing British Air­ways a king’s ran­som. Carla imme­di­ately got on the phone with British Air­ways. Appar­ently, there was trou­ble try­ing to make changes to her ticket, because it was arranged through Hilton’s travel office. (Hilton spon­sored the trip on Top Chef, so we worked with their in-house travel office.) In the end, the British Air­ways agent sug­gested that we all go to Dulles, and, hope­fully, one of the agents there could help Carla sort things out. So, we all piled in the car for a rather quiet drive to the air­port. I didn’t want to pro­vide any more non-constructive commentary.

Once at the air­port, Noah and I went to one agent, and Carla went to another. Our agent bumped Noah and me up from pre­mium econ­omy seats to Club World seats (no lounge access, unfor­tu­nately) for the flight to Lon­don. Once checked in, we walked down to Carla. For­tu­nately, the agent was able to get her on a flight the next day out of JFK, and the fees were just $275. Whew! While I was sad that we wouldn’t fly out together, I was relieved to know that things worked out. With that, Noah and I gave Carla a hug and said goodbye.

Our flight departed on time from Dulles, and we arrived in Lon­don Heathrow around 6 am (GMT).

A lit­tle side­bar about the flight: The British Air­ways Club World seats were nice! The ser­vice was spec­tac­u­lar. The lay-flat seats with 10″ per­sonal, swing-out screens were awe­some. The food and wine was tasty. I appre­ci­ated even the small­est touches, like the per­sonal toi­letry kits that we received. Noth­ing like being able to freshen up and brush your teeth after an overnight flight.

After a short lay­over in Lon­don, we boarded our flight to Ams­ter­dam. It was a short flight, and we landed in Ams­ter­dam around 9:40 am (CET) — six hours ahead of East­ern time. (Read: It was 3 am to our bodies.)

Day 1

I read quite a bit about catch­ing the train to Cen­traal Sta­tion and then tak­ing a tram to the hotel, but I opted for a taxi. It still amazes me that taxis in a lot of Euro­pean coun­tries are Mer­cedes Benz sedans. Any­way, twenty min­utes and 35€ later, we arrived at our home for the week — the Hilton Ams­ter­dam. Sur­pris­ingly, in spite of the early hour, we were able to check in.  Noah and I were tired, but we forged on. We picked up 24-hour tram cards from the concierge, and walked over to the near­est stop. We took the tram in to outer part of the city cen­ter, walked around a bit, and then decided to jump on a canal tour. We had to wait for about 40 min­utes until the next tour, we Noah and I walked around in Von­del­park. We jumped on a Blue Boat Com­pany canal tour boat, and pro­ceeded to nod off repeat­edly. After the tour, we walked along the fash­ion dis­trict until we stopped in Brasserie Keyser for lunch. The ser­vice was incred­i­bly slow, which given our jet lag shouldn’t have both­ered us, but we would much rather sleep in the hotel than at a brasserie table. We jumped on a tram back to the hotel. Noah and I both passed out imme­di­ately when we got into the room. I woke up after and hour, and tried to stayed up as long as I could to get adjusted to the time. Noah didn’t budge.

 

Day 2

Noah and I got up around 9. Buf­fet break­fast was included with our stay, so we head down to Roberto’s. Carla was due in around 11, so we planned to stay around the room until she arrived. I just hap­pened to be online when I received an IM from Carla let­ting me know that she missed her flight in Lon­don because of a snafu with the air­port tram. She was not due into Ams­ter­dam at 2pm. Instead of head­ing out and com­ing back, Noah and I chilled out in the room until Carla arrived.

After Carla arrived — around 4 — we all walked out and jumped on a 16 tram to Dam Square. I heard that one must try Indone­sian food while in Ams­ter­dam, and I remem­bered hear­ing about Toko Joyce. We walked around look­ing for Toko Joyce. This involved walk­ing up and down the streets of the Red Light Dis­trict. Between the women in the win­dows and the near non-stop aroma of weed waft­ing through the air, the walk was quite an experience. It’s an under­state­ment that the streets of the City Cen­ter of Ams­ter­dam can be con­fus­ing. When we finally found Toko Joyce, but were dis­ap­pointed to dis­cover that the place was a take away, not dine in.  That was my bad. Appar­ently, I didn’t read enough about the place to know that it wasn’t a dine-in spot. We changed gears pretty quickly, and walked around. We came across Blauw ann de Wal, which was rec­om­mended by a few peo­ple that com­mented on the blog. We popped in, but were told they were all booked for the evening. We made a reser­va­tion for the next day and asked for a rec­om­men­da­tion. We were told to go to Restau­rant Anna. After get­ting lost a few times, again, we finally found the restau­rant. Unfor­tu­nately, they were also com­pletely booked for the evening. The host­ess sug­gested vis­it­ing their sis­ter restau­rant, Brasserie Harkema, which was about 7–10 min­utes away by foot. She told us that the restau­rant was a straight walk. I couldn’t resist quip­ping that noth­ing in Ams­ter­dam trav­els on a straight line. She politely laughed. Off we went.  The atmos­phere at Brasserie Harkema was nice. The ser­vice was a bit spotty and the food was decent. After din­ner, we caught a 16 tram back to the hotel.

Day 3

I think that we all woke up inter­mit­tently in the wee hours, but I’ll say that we offi­cially got up around 10 am. We had a quick break­fast at the hotel, and then hit the street. We caught the 5 tram to Dam Square and walked to the Ann Frank Huis. It was rainy, quite windy, and chilly. As we approached the museum, we could see that the line wrapped around the build­ing and ran down the side street. We were in the queue for about an hour and a half. (Note: If you visit, it is best to buy your tick­ets online. You will get to avoid stand­ing in the long line.) Entry to the museum was 8,50 € for adults and 4,00 € for kids 11–17. It’s free from kids up to 10. The wait to get into the museum was well worth it. The tour was very inter­est­ing. I guess that it’s been a while since I’ve read the Diary of Anne Frank, because I thought the liv­ing quar­ters of the secret annex would be much smaller (not that it was enor­mous). After tour­ing the museum, Carla and I both com­mented that we feel com­pelled to read the story again.

We were plan­ning to vis­it­ing the Heineken Expe­ri­ence, but since the tour of the Anne Frank Huis took a long time, we decided to return to the hotel and rest before going back out for din­ner at 6:30. We rested up and then head back out for din­ner at Blauw aan de Wal.  Our host sat us at the cen­ter table on the first floor, which is a small, rus­tic room with about six or seven tables. The walls are exposed brick, and there is a server area with wine and a dumb waiter. Appar­ently, there is more seat­ing upstairs, but we didn’t walk around. Once seated, the host (I can’t recall his name), pulled up a chair and sat with us to explain the restaurant’s con­cept and the din­ing options. We all opted for the three-course prix fixe meal. It isn’t cheap, though — 55 €. The meal was fan­tas­tic, as was the ambiance. Our host paired each course with a great wine. I must say, this is a great place. I would highly rec­om­mend it to any­one vis­it­ing Ams­ter­dam. After din­ner, we walked a bit in the Old City Cen­ter — no really need to hit cof­fee houses, the con­tact high was strong enough. Even­tu­ally, we hopped on a tram back to the hotel.

 

Day 4

After a quick break­fast at the hotel, we caught the 5 tram down to the muse­umplein area and picked up three 48-hour iAms­ter­dam packs. These packs gives us 48-hour tran­sit cards and an iAms­ter­dam card. The iAms­ter­dam card pro­vides admis­sion to many of the major muse­ums and a canal tour. We also gott 25% of many other attrac­tions, includ­ing the Heineken Expe­ri­ence. We went across the street to the Van Gogh Museum. The exhibits were amaz­ing! After the Van Gogh Museum, we walked to the Heineken Expe­ri­ence. I am not much of a beer drinker, but it was inter­est­ing learn­ing more about the com­pany and the process for mak­ing the beer. By the end of the tour, I hap­pily enjoyed two cold beers.

After the Heineken Expe­ri­ence, Noah and I walked to the FOAM Museum (pho­tog­ra­phy) and Carla walked to the Tassen Museum of Bags and Purses. We met up after the museum tours and jumped on a 24 tram. We hopped off in the Albert Cuyp street mar­ket area so Carla could check out the bak­ery, Bakken Met Passie, that she saw ear­lier from the tram. Armed with fresh baked goods, we jumped back on the 24 tram and returned to the hotel. We were all pretty tired from day, so we decided to do some­thing low-key for din­ner. After decid­ing that the din­ing options in the neigh­bor­hood around the hotel weren’t that promis­ing, we hoped on a 24 tram to eat at Burg­er­meester on Albert Cuyp­straat (across the street from the bak­ery). The burg­ers were pretty tasty — so much so that I for­got to take pic­tures. I must admit, thought, that I had a hard time get­ting past not hav­ing fries, or at least some chips, to go with my burger. They did have a baked potato, but that seemed to be a bit much.

 

Day 5 (New Year’s Eve)

For the first sev­eral days of the trip, I was mak­ing an effort to jot down reflec­tions of the day. Unfor­tu­nately, I didn’t make notes for the last few days of the trip, so this is where the trip notes get a lit­tle thin. Some of you are prob­a­bly think­ing, “Thank God!”

We walked through the glass doors of Roberto’s for break­fast and were greeted by the chef. It was quite clear that he rec­og­nized Carla, and he doted on her quite a bit. Mean­while, Noah and I went about our busi­ness of for­ag­ing for waf­fles, bacon and fresh fruit. The chef brought us a plate of Oliebollen, a fried dumpling that is tra­di­tion­ally eaten in the Nether­lands at New Year’s Eve. Now that our bel­lies were warm and full with these Dutch treats, we bun­dled up and head out for the 5 tram. We hopped off at the Rijksmu­seum, which is the Dutch national museum. The museum is fea­tures works by Rem­brandt, Ver­meer, Hal, Steen, and many oth­ers mas­ters. In a word…Wow!

It was rain­ing when we left the Rijksmu­seum. What should we do next? Some­thing indoors would be ideal, so we decided to visit the Her­mitage Ams­ter­dam. Nat­u­rally, the trip to Ams­ter­dam wouldn’t be com­plete if we didn’t attempt to take every form of pub­lic trans­porta­tion. Well…not really, but it sounds adven­tur­ous. We ended up on the Ams­ter­dam Metro because the walk between the tram stop and Her­mitage was a bit far in the rain. I couldn’t help but chuckle as we descended into the sta­tion, and the first sign over­head admon­ished patrons to be on guard for pick­pock­ets. Duly noted!  We got off the Metro and got turned around, yet again, on the streets of Ams­ter­dam. Unbe­knownst to me, we walked right past the Ice Bar. Once we got back on track, we found the Her­mitage Ams­ter­dam, and got a chance to view some great works by Van Dyck, Rubens and Jordaens.

Once out of the Her­mitage, we had a deci­sion to make about what to do for New Year’s Eve. Carla and Noah were clearly beat from a lot of walk­ing, stand­ing, cir­cling (asso­ci­ated with get­ting lost). Carla and I are not what you would call revelers/partygoesrs, but we were torn about hang­ing out. Noah was indif­fer­ent. We were told by more than a few peo­ple to be mind­ful of ran­dom fire­works. Appar­ently, folks in Ams­ter­dam are quite fond of pyrotech­nics, includ­ing shoot­ing fire­crack­ers, Roman Can­dles and other explo­sives rather indis­crim­i­nately into the air (read: crowded spaces). With that in mind, the notion of going back to the hotel, order­ing room ser­vice, and watch­ing fire­works from our win­dow and on TV became more appeal­ing. We were not  dis­ap­pointed. The fire­works in the Oud-Zuid (Old South) neigh­bor­hood were insane! We heard and saw mis­cel­la­neous fire­works being shot off through­out the evening, but at midnight…we were treated to nearly an hour of fire­works!
 
Here’s a video that I shot from our 5th-floor hotel room.

 
Here is my gallery from Day 5.

Day 6

When we were plan­ning this trip, I thought that it might be a good idea to cut the trip short by a day. My con­cern was that things would be closed on New Year’s Day. Noth­ing like being on the ground to see that con­cern come to fruition. Ams­ter­dam was prac­ti­cally a ghost town on Jan­u­ary 1. Almost all the muse­ums (except for the Anne Frank Huis), restau­rants and shops were closed. We used this lack of tour­ing options to attempt get­ting back on East­ern time. The three of us stayed up most of the night before and then slept in. We didn’t go down­stairs for break­fast until 11:30. We were treated to a dif­fer­ent room in the restau­rant that over­looked the canal, as well as more Oliebollen. That was a pleas­ant start to the day. We chilled out in the room for a while after break­fast, and then decided to walk through the Jor­daan area of town. We were told that this for­mer working-class neigh­bor­hood now has an eclec­tic mix of peo­ple, and fea­tures a lot of art gal­leries and funky shops. We knew that we would be win­dow shop­ping, if you will. We took the 5 and 10 trams, and got off in Jor­daan near the mosque. We walked up and over a few times, but there wasn’t much to look at. I sus­pect one has to be there dur­ing nor­mal work­ing hours to get a feel for the funk­i­ness. Also, given the amount empty wine, Cham­pagne, and beer bot­tles, the res­i­dents of that area had quite a party the night before.

Not deterred, we slowly walked around, tak­ing pic­tures, mak­ing our way back over toward the Old City Cen­ter to get to one thing that we absolutely knew would be open — the beau­ti­ful, art deco/gothic Pathé Tuschin­ski the­ater. Yes, we went to see a movie in Ams­ter­dam. We saw Sher­lock Holmes: A Game of Shad­ows. Noah and I enjoyed the movie. Carla fell asleep a few times, so I sus­pect she’ll need to “see” it again. We actu­ally timed see­ing the movie so that we could take the evening canal tour at 8 pm. It was rain­ing, light but steady, so we were a lit­tle con­cerned about how much we would be able to see from the canal boat win­dows (if they weren’t fogged up). For­tu­nately, the rain let up just enough so that we could pull the win­dows back on the boat and see the sights. The tour lasted about 9o min­utes. Ams­ter­dam is absolutely beau­ti­ful at night, par­tic­u­larly when viewed from the canal. After the canal tour, we head back to the hotel and ordered room ser­vice. We, again, endeav­ored to stay up all night to realign our bod­ies for the time change. Noah fell first, Carla hung in there until about 2 am, and I stayed awake the whole night.

 

Day 7 — Headed Home

There is really not much to say about this day. We were up and in a taxi at 5 am for a 7:30 flight from Ams­ter­dam to Lon­don. We had nearly a three-hour lay­over in Lon­don, which we used to grab break­fast and a nap. Much to our sur­prise, when we approached the gate to board the flight to Wash­ing­ton, all three of us were bumped up to Club World seats. Woot! Per­haps a sign that we had a good trip was me hit­ting a Royal Flush on the poker game on my video console.

 

So there it is. Seven days in Ams­ter­dam, give or take. We had a really nice time, and I look for­ward to the oppor­tu­nity to return to see and do more things. I am sure the city is beau­ti­ful in the spring. Until then, I’m on to plan­ning our next trip. Tokyo, per­haps? Stay tuned.