How to Wander Around Amsterdam
And where to take your drugs!
Amsterdam smells like weed and jasmine. And rose bushes. Often like kebab stands and falafel too. Or powdered sugar and waffle dough.
It’s a quiet city. In Amsterdam you hear faint, soft electric vehicles that emit from cars only a meter wide. They fit in the bike lane and squeeze between stoops when parked on the sidewalk.
Of course you also hear the soft twinkling sound of bicycle spokes.
Oh the bikes. There’s surely enough written and said about the bikes in Amsterdam already, and I’m sure I won’t be saying anything new. But I’m not sure you can truly grasp the bike culture until you’ve been here. Because the bikes don’t twist and turn around scenic paths bending in a yellow wood, between fields of tulips and windmills. I mean, maybe elsewhere in the Netherlands, but not in Amsterdam. Observing the bike lane in Amsterdam, I’m reminded of my not-so-dearly-missed 405 in Los Angeles; the bikes zip past you like a California-grown driver weaving between the HOV and the fast lane.
The bike is utilitarian— decked out with various baskets and trunks and seats attached to handlebars. You’ve never seen ingenuity until you’ve seen a Dutch bike decked out for food deliveries— a stenciled pizza slice on the side of a back kind of “cabin” on the caboose of a bicycle. Bikes are serious vehicles here. They can go fast, making you question if you really can make the intersection before the next herd of two-wheeled creatures comes whizzing through. And the Dutch know how to wield the bicycle as well. We once saw a shirtless man dress himself — not a hand on the handlebars — as he crossed over a canal on his bicycle. Someone else ate a takeout meal with both hands while on his.
The city layout of Amsterdam is sort of a concentric circle. Bike lane, road, tram line, sidewalk, canal, and repeat over and over. We take the tram a lot since we’ve booked the cheapest accommodations we could find, and as a result, we’re placed quite far from the city center. Because of this arrangement, we tram into our desired neighborhood to explore for the day, and take respite when tired in various cafes and on park benches.
Because we had just spent the last week in 97° Spanish heat, packing up our entire apartment and moving out just the day before our flight to Amsterdam, we didn’t have a lot booked and planned for the trip. The Anne Frank house and the Van Gogh museum are sold out. The forecast fluctuates between windy and nippy, rainy, and 70° with sun. With a nearly empty itinerary, soon our trip becomes a series of decisions such as “When to eat our space cake?” and “Which park do we sit in?” and “On which day should we try Dutch pancakes?”. This suits us just fine.
Amsterdam is taking photos of stickers on traffic poles as you wait for the pedestrian green light. Amsterdam is taking turns playing sudoku from the booklet we bought at the airport. It’s carrying around a water bottle and some saltine crackers from the convenience store to keep on you as you walk 20,000 steps a day. It’s remembering which metro line we can take to get home, and taking a different one later anyway.
Amsterdam is eating gummy bears in your hostel bed. The bed is pushed up against the bed of your friend, so you are basically sharing a king-size together. You’re high so you are snacking away on a bag of Dutch potato chips. There’s a small TV in the corner of your hostel room, so you’re clicking through on the remote. Each channel is a different Dutch news channel or sports game or cooking show.
And now we’re watching the French Open with Djokovic versus Zyrev, with Dutch commentators, realizing we don’t actually know the rules of tennis. Tomorrow we’ll wake up, get coffee, and begin our 20,000-step wandering again.
Below are some of the places we wandered into.
The STRAAT Museum
One highlight of the trip was the STRAAT museum, which we did plan the rest of our wanderings around. It’s located North and just a ferry ride away from the city center. Situated on a wharf, the STRAAT museum celebrates street art from around the world. Giant canvases hang in this former warehouse, forming a jungle of street art to walk through. The artists showcased at the STRAAT present pieces with many different subjects: political calls to action, celebrations of culture and heritage, pure expressions of beauty, grapplings with technology and the modern age, and so much more.
These subjects, presented to us on massive murals, transform you to a different world each time. An intimate scene of a Moroccan artist’s childhood kitchen. A colorful fish. A loud anti-Apartheid graphic. Something that looks like plain old graffiti. Worlds followed by worlds. Vignettes of lives and movements and histories you’re not a part of. I drift from one to the next, not sure if I’m really conscious. Each piece is just so much to take in. The viewing experience is even a bit physical, because of the size and scale of it all. My back hurts a little. I think I’ve been craning my neck. And I’m walking a lot, trying to step back, then forward, then to the sides, of each canvas.
But I just keep on drifting, as slivers of the next canvas are revealed from across the room.
Pro tip: take your pot brownie beforehand. I didn’t, but I just know it would’ve been a vibe.
Noordermarkt
Nothing is better for a wanderer than a weekly vintage market. Noordermarkt, open Mondays 9am to 2pm and Saturdays from 9am to 4pm, is a funky little happening where you can feel like a cool local Dutch girl as you sift through a bin of 3-euro vintage scarves.
Pro tip: Stop by BunBun in between shopping for a little pastry and coffee break. Here you’ll indulge in a sticky bun made of fluffy croissant dough. If you’re like me you’ll struggle between choosing the classic cinnamon roll flavor, the pistachio one, and their bacon and cheese savory roll.
Copenhagen Beads
Thoroughly inspired by the fashions at the Noordermarkt, we find ourselves drifting into Copenhagen Beads, enchanted by a colorful earring display in the window and the warm wooded interior. But the store is no clothing or gift store, instead the walls are lined with wooden shelves and mason jars containing endless beads. Clay, glass, metal, wooden. Charms. Chains. Jewels. Organized by color, then by size.
A handful of effortlessly stylish Dutch locals wander through the store, deep in their various projects. Picking out the perfect final touches. Just a few beads more. The lobster or toggle clasp? Silver or gold? One woman makes a keychain. Someone else, a chest-length necklace.
Inspired by nothing in particular but the creativity and the options around us, we grab our own boards, elastic, and get started on the process.
In the beginning the possibilities feel endless. Do I want blues and greens? Reds? Oranges? Should my bracelet be symmetrical? How long does it need to be? Eventually the thing starts to take shape, and we end up with our beautiful jewelry, made in Amsterdam, by us.
But Where Should I Get High?
I know you all were wondering.
Vondelpark. You don’t need to be high to enjoy this park.
Westerpark. Yeah, another park. This one is very woodsy with cute cottages and canals and fairy houses placed by mailboxes and tree trunks.
Coffeeshop La Tertulia. Really cute loft area where you can enjoy your drugs and a tea (I really liked my chai here). Folks read their books, played board games, and we played sudoku and journaled.
Coffeeshop Siberie. Chill atmosphere, friendly and well-informed employees. In a cute neighborhood by the canals for walking around afterwards.
Canals and coffeeshops
Damn, we should’ve had the brownie before the STRAAT museum