NEVER STOP SMILING: My trip in Holland

Sights of A’dam

That’s the way we called Amsterdam. There you can find people from every corner of the world, and every kind of people, from gentlemen to dangerous people…But that’s typical of cities like it. We arrived in A’dam the evening of Wednesday (7th December), and just out of the railway station, a wonderful sight. On our back the amazing Railway station building, on the right the Old Catholic Church and in front of us the main street with many many tall buildings. So, we went right to our hotel, in Leidsenplein, the square of the night life in Amsterdam. We ate, then a bier and we decided to visit one of the most popular sites in A’dam, i.e. De Wallen, the Red Light District. Contrary to what we thought, it’s a crowded place, visited by tourists of all ages, from young to old people, men and women, without any distinction. What surprised us is the fake atmosphere you can find there. It’s a non-place, where you can find transgression but the fact itself that the transgression is so overexposed made it so normal that it becomes fake.

Davide floating on the canal

Buildings reflecting in a canal

Heineken advertising

A coloured building

The day after, we decide to become more Dutch, so we rent a bike to visit A’dam and the countryside. We walked around the city, then, in the afternoon, we took a boat at the station crossing the river that divides the city from the countryside. From there, we rode our bikes through one of the ways indicated in the traffic signs. Big canals crossed by bridges, windmills, land divided by narrow canals and sheep all around. It was like diving in a reality belonging to a century ago, just few kilometres from downtown A’dam. So nice. But also so cold…so, we came back home before the sunset and then, after a Thai dinner, we started to look for a party. It seems that A’dam has a lot of places where you can party, but if you ask someone the names, they just say “Oh, it’s plenty of clubs around here, just look or ask someone else…” Sorry, I understand that there are so many clubs and discos, but can you suggest me at least one of them??? It’s so difficult? Anyway, we found an apparently nice pub where there was an international student party. We went there, but the music was not so good, and the people not so friendly to us, because they already know each other…So, we went home, hoping that the next day would have been better at least under this aspect…and actually, it was.

A windmill

Davide and me riding our bikes

Street of lights

We spent Friday (9th December) going in the morning to the Van Gogh Museum (very interesting) and in the afternoon shopping and walking down the streets of A’dam. That evening we ate a pizza in an Italian restaurant where we found also two Dutch girls which were really nice to us. We talked with them about Italy and Holland. Actually, we also know from them why most of the buildings in A’dam are “sinking”. That’s because the ground is full of water and it is subsiding. We also know, from our guide, the reason of the building’s shape. In the past, in fact, the houses taxes were concerning the width of the buildings. So the smart Dutch people built narrow and tall houses to save money…Ok, after the dinner, we went with the two girls we met first to a club in downtown A’dam (a really nice club, called “Escape Deluxe”) and then to another place called “Cooldown Cafè”. We had fun until late at night, and the day after we had to come back, at least in our original plans…