Bike Tour and the Sugar Factory

Sunday, April 29th

Today we (well I) wanted to go to the Van Gogh museum and do a bike tour. I'd heard really good things about this Mike's Bike Tour http://www.mikesbiketoursamsterdam.com/, so I really wanted to check it out. We had to meet the group at 12:30, so we had to get to the Van Gogh museum bright and early first thing. Obviously that didn't happen. We got there around 11am and the line was ridiculous! We (I should clarify that it was me, Shannon and Francisco - the other ridiculously tall and probably fake mexican) decided that we would just walk around and then go to the bike tour since that was the more important item on our agenda. i was the only one who really wanted to go to the museum anyways. I was pretty bummed about missing the museum, but knew that I wouldn't be able to do everything I wanted to while here, so it's ok. The bike tour turned out to be around 5 hours long and REALLY exhausting/painful.

Our tour guide - Sean, was really good. Some guy who moved here 8 years ago from Cali. He gave us a great but brief history lesson on Amsterdam and took us through the city and out to the countryside (ish). We rode the bikes along the Amstel river and stopped a few times along the way for more history discussions. As with most tours, there's a little money-making to be had, so he took us to this farm where the guy has cows and makes his own cheese as well as wooden clogs. The farmer guy is pretty funny, so it was an entertaining show. After they explain how the cheese is made and then how the wooden clogs are made (apparently they're very orthopedic), there was a souvenir shop where ppl bought ridiculously over-priced stuff.

The bike ride wasn't painful because of hills (even though going over all the canals got a little tough after a few hours), but it was painful because of the seats! The Dutch bikes are pretty different from ours in the States and I kept sliding off the seat. On top of that - I didn't have enough back-side padding so my seat was hurting by the end!!

Again - we were lucky and had another beautiful day and enjoyed the outdoors. Stopped at a pub on our way back to the bike shop and had a beer with the group, and then walked back to the hotel. Even if I don't workout much over here, I'm definitely getting some exercise with all this walking!! It's great - but really tiring since I'm not used to it. Anyways - headed back to the hotel for another nap and then woke up at 8:30 to meet with the group for dinner. Francisco called it an early night again and didn't make it out with us. Since tonight was "pre-Queen's night", the celebrations kinda started early. Our tour guide told us that this place, Sugar Factory" is pretty hot on Sunday nights and played this good music (mix between house and jazz), so we wanted to check it out. For dinner we hit up this Chinese place called Walk to Wok, which ended up being pretty cheap and REALLY good! All this is within 10 min. walking from my hotel! I love it :-). After Chinese, I was craving some ice cream so we went to the Australian (ice cream chain) that was right across the street. AMAZING ice cream!!! I had the Mango (being true to my Indian heritage) and it was so great. Totally hit the spot. The ice cream was kinda like sorbet, but basically just tasted like a frozen mango. oh wow- sooo good!

We walked around for a while and checked out the scene in the square (Leidseplein) and danced to the late 80s/early 90s music that this band was playing on a stage that was set-up for Queen's Day festivities. People were selling beer on the streets, everyone was dancing and having a good time, just really great energy overall.

Conveniently enough, the Sugar Factory was right down the street from the Square and our hotel, so we went there to pay cover before the line got too long. Apparently they weren't a fan of Shannon's open-toed shoes, so they made her go to the hotel and change them. Not a big deal though cause it was only 10:30 and no one was really there yet. We went back to the hotel and then grabbed a drink at the bar and chilled for a while before heading back. Met some random people from Boston and Phily who were in town for the weekend and just BS'd with them for a while.

Back to the Sugar Factory we go...get inside and the place definitely isn't as packed as we expected. The music was definitely different. The tour guide wasn't lying when he said that the music was a mix between House and Jazz. The house music was ok, but not really something I can dance too and then they would play these songs that definitely had jazz undertones (sax, etc.), but were set to a techno beat. Really interesting. Basically we ended up posting up and commenting on outfits, behaviors, etc. that we noticed. I felt like we should had a video camera and made a clip on "what not to wear to the club". There were some crazy outfits going on. Oh well - to each his own, but it was definitely a sight to see and kept us entertained :-). It's all in good fun though, I'm sure that people have stuff to say about the way I dress too!

Well, Shannon and Rafael got tired after a while, so we headed back around 1:30am...I coulda stayed but definitely wasn't gonna do it by myself so I headed back with the others. Shame too though cause the line was crazy to get inside around the time we left!

So back to the hotel we go....talked to a few ppl in the states on Skype and went to sleep. I definitely have mixed feelings about that thing. When it works it's great, but I'm having some issues with it, so we'll see. It's doable for right now until I figure out something else.

Oh! I should probably discuss some of these pictures and things our tour guide mentioned.

We went to a windmill that is apparently pretty famous because Rembrandt used to paint it a lot

since he came from a miller family...Windmills were used back in the day to pump out water from all the swamp lands (the Netherlands was basically a big swamp) and pump it into the river - in this case, the Amstel River.

On our way back, we stopped at a park that was given to Queen Beatrice on her 16th bday. Nothing too special but I liked the majestic lion statues with the triple X's representing the Netherlands and the symbol of the monarchy. It's also no coincidence that when people see the Triple X, they thing of X-rated and pornography...most of it was shipped out from Amsterdam with this stamped on them and people just started associating the 2 together.

This is a pic of the road that the Nazis were forced out of Amsterdam on.

We also stopped at the Hilton hotel where John Lennon and Yoko Ono stayed and held a "Peace Conference". They stood outside their hotel room naked and then to communicate with the press, they wrote on the windows of their hotel room. It's the 3rd one down and still gets rented out by the hotel for who knows how much money!

At the end of our stop, there was this phrase written in Latin: Homo Sapiens non urinat in ventum. Seriously inciteful...it means: people, don't urinate in the wind. ;-)

Oh! and my favorite story...again this deals with urinating. Apparently back in the 1970s, there was a big women's movement here in Amsterdam. It was also around the time of this big heroin problem here, but basically the women were upset because there were all these outdoor urinals set up for men, but women didn't have any place to use the bathroom. The city council said that there wasn't enough money so too bad. One day a mass of women (not sure how many) marched to city hall and ALL of the lifted up there skirts and popped a squat right there on this bridge and covered it with urine. disgusting huh? not only that, but they promised to do the same to every single bridge in amsterdam until they got their port-a-potties. Done...it didn't take long to get them set-up, however, since it was the height of drug usage, needles, etc, people were using these port-a-potties to shoot up. This led to STD's and other infections from needles being left around in these public bathrooms. Every single one of these facilities except 1 had to be shut down (over 500) within 1 year. What a waste huh. The 1 that wasn't shut down happens to be in Leidsplein, so I'll have to get a picture of that one. This is the first female port-a-potty in Amsterdam.

And with that...I'm done. The Queen's Day blog will be coming shortly...lots of craziness and TOO MANY PEOPLE.

Anne Frank, the Keukenhof Garden and the Red Light District

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Saturday was a busy day....First I got up at 6:30 am after going to bed at 2:30am (still not sleeping properly), and then met up with Shannon for breakfast at 8am in order to get to the Anne Frank House by 9am. That's when it opened and apparently you have to get there first thing otherwise the wait in line is about an hour long. I really lucked out with my location here because not only did I get the Amsterdam location (other members of our team are out in Zwolle, about 1 1/2 hours away), but this Marriott is basically a 5 min. walk to Leidseplein Square - this really great area with restaurants, bars, shopping, etc among everything else.
It took us about 30 minutes to walk to the Anne Frank House (about 1 1/2 miles away) and we got there at 9 am sharp. The line was already around the corner, but luckily it didn't take too long to get it. It was a very sobering place, sad but amazing at the same time. I never read the Diary of Anne Frank, so now I feel like I should. We were there for 1 1/2 hours or so and just really absorbed everything. I was really amazed to see how big the "hiding place" was, but at the same time it wasn't really THAT big...considering 8 people lived there for years, couldn't go outside or make any sort of noise especially during certain times of the day. It was really sad to realize that they were discovered and taken to the concentration camp and died just weeks before the war ended (her father was the only one who survived and got her diary published) . Anyways - really interesting stuff, but it was also so sad. It reminded me of the Holocaust Museum in DC...an amazing museum but it really makes you sick to your stomach to realize what these people went through and how someone could actually do that to another human being.
After our tour of the house, I wasn't really up for a 4-hour bike ride and I needed something to lift my spirits. Shannon and I agreed that we should go to the Keukenhof Garden(Tulip Garden) in Lisse about 45 minutes away. First we needed to get some lunch so we were girls on a mission to find a sandwich shop that served something besides ham. Shannon doesn't eat beef or ham and I'm not too fond of ham myself...apparently in this group of internal auditors, that makes us "vegetarians". I was surprised at how difficult it was to find a turkey sandwich. The great thing about Europe is that everything is so fresh!! We found this really great deli near our hotel (I'll have to find the name to give the manager/owner mad props), but they had fresh vegetables, sliced smoked turkey and really fresh (as in they were squeezing the oranges right there) orange juice! We both had a turkey sandwich and tried this Kiwi/Orange juice concoction that they also were making fresh. One of the workers was peeling the kiwi fruit as we ordered our sandwiches. Everything was phenominal! I'm sure you're thinking "it's just a turkey sandwich", but you'd be amazed at how good something is when you're starving and it's fresh. We also picked up some fresh strawberries from a local market and ate those with our lunch. They were perfect! Definitely hit the spot. All the workers at this deli were really friendly even though I think only 1 guy spoke English. He must've been the manager or the owner. Anyways - it's my new favorite sandwich shop over here.

So off we go to the gardens. We got off to a little rocky start, but it ended ok. We saw that there were tons of people in-line to go somewhere and so Shannon dropped me off to go get tickets while she parked the car. Turns out there were multiple entrances and I went to the one opposite of where she parked. So we killed about an hour while I was waiting for her at my entrance and she went to multiple entrances looking for me. When we finally found eachother we agreed - never split up again! Once we got inside though, the gardents were soooooo beautiful!! We really lucked out with the weather, sunny at 70ish but breezy so not too hot. The different tulips were amazing, different colors, shapes, heights. I had no idea that there were so many variations. Of course it made me think of my mom and how she would have LOVED it!! We were there for almost 3 hours just wandering around and getting lost in all the flowers and the atmosphere. It was so serene and peaceful even with the hundreds of people all over the place. Shannon and I had a good time taking lots of pictures! I've put in a few, but for all of our Tulip Garden pics, see the link below:
http://new.photos.yahoo.com/ambi713/albums (it's the album that says "Amsterdam - Tulip Garden).

We eventually were too tired to walk anymore and started heading back to the car. Unfortunately, we had no idea where we were or where we parked. It took us a little while to find it, but eventually we were good and found the right parking lot. Thankfully Shannon drove back and when we got to our hotel we PASSED out!! I ended up sleeping for almost 4 hours! Woke up at 9pm and realized i was starving! I got a hold of Rafael and then he, Shannon and I headed out for dinner. We went to this massive Heineken Bar in the square and got some Heiny's and Shannon and I got something to eat. Like before, it took us an hour before we actually got our food, so by 10pm I was getting a little cranky. Anyone who knows me knows not to talk to me when I'm that hungry! Oh well - we finished eating and I wanted to go check out the Red Light District to see what all the fuss was about. Shannon only wanted to see it during the day, but Rafael was with us so we felt pretty comfortable with our Mexican body guard. The RLD was about 1 mile away and somehow Rafael knew how to get there by only looking at my map ONCE! I didn't ask any questions - don't ask, don't tell ;-).

So we strolled down the streets of Amsterdam, did some window shopping, observed some people and made some comments...what shocked me the most is that I saw a lot of couples taking walks with their babies in strollers at 11-11:30pm! Especially with all the crazies out!! It really amazed me.

So we got to the RLD and it wasn't as crazy as I expected. Maybe my expectations were too high, or maybe we went on a slow night...or even could have gone too early. Mainly there were a bunch of tourists walking around smoking joints on the street, drinking, etc. Lots of people, but no one doing anything too crazy. The District itself was interesting. Apparently they have girls stand in these big full-size windows half-naked trying to entice guys into coming inside. If they're with someone, then the curtain is closed. Oh and of course there's a red flourescent light above the windows where the girls are. Streets were lined with these places. I can't believe that these girls were dressed like that and doing those things...but it is what it is. There were also all sorts of peep shows and sex shows, but obviously - we aren't that daring or crazy so we didn't go in. The words and pictures outside were enough for us. So we just strolled through the District and made our way back to the hotel. Nothing crazy, but at least we were able to see the famous Red Light District. Of course you're not allowed to take pictures there, so if you wanna see it - go yourself ;-). Oh, I forgot to mention the outside urinals. Another interesting thing about Amsterdam. Apparently there are over 500 of these things all over the city, but it's basically this big "port-a-potty" outside but for a guy and there are no doors or anything. More explanation will come on this in the next posting as I learned more during our bike tour, but here's my pic ;-). It's kinda hard to see since it was night-time, but you get the jist of it.

Similar to Friday night, nothing wild and crazy and we were back at the hotel by 1am.

Friday night bust...

OK - it's Friday night at 11pm, I'm in Amsterdam - so why am I in my hotel room you ask? WELL - we got back from work early - around 5ish and i headed straight to the drug store to get doped up for this weekend. i didn't want any cold or sickness to get in my way of having fun. Little did I realize that EVERYTHING was in Dutch! The cashier had to help me pick something out and tell me how to use it. Kinda sketch right? well - I did recognize 2 of the 3 ingredients: caffeine and vitamin C....not too bad I guess. It was this pill that I'm supposed to take like Alka Seltzer. I got back to my hotel and luckily my friend Jana was online. She's a former PwC co-worker who did a tour in Dallas when I lived there. We became really close and still keep in touch even though she's back in South Africa now. Well, I told her about the medicine and told her what it was. Afrikaans is pretty similar to Dutch, so she said it was ok for me to take and that it was "Anti-Flu"...ok, good deal.

Took a nap and then got ready to meet up with my other co-workers for dinner. So here's an important note to any girl who uses the CHI...It doesn't work in Europe!!!! The voltage is different, so even if you use a converter it doesn't work. Basically I melted it (see pic to the right). I plugged it in and did some other stuff in my room then ran to the bathroom when I smelt something burn. OOPS!! That kinda bummed me out but what're you gonna do. Lesson learned - oh well, curly hair it is!

Met up w/one of our IT auditors, Shannon, and another new guy, Francisco, another freakishly tall Mexican like Rafael. As a side note - both Shannon and Francisco are married...not sure how they can do that with all this travel! Alright, back to the story. We were all pretty hungry so we hit up the square again and settled on an Italian place. Francisco was the most aggressive out of all of us when it came to getting something to eat, so we just let him decide. We ordered our food and he was sooo picky with his order! The waitress was like WTF?! well, I wasn't much better...we also ordered a bottle of wine - I just read the descriptions and picked one that I thought would be kinda fruity. Some guy brought over a bottle (they were only by the bottle) and let me try it. I wasn't a big fan and Shannon tried it too - she wasn't feeling it so we asked the guy to bring us a different wine. I can't believe I did that. I think that's a pretty big Faux Pas...but whatev. I woulda ended up having to drink the whole bottle by myself since it was just me and Shannon drinking for the most part. I still ended up drinking half the bottle.

So we all chatted a bit, got to know some of the people - everyone was really nice. Turns out that Shannon's hubby is from Bama and went to Tuskegee so we had a lot to talk about! Small world I swear.

By the time we left the restaurant, it got pretty chilly and Shannon wanted her jacket. We were close enough to the hotel that we decided to walk back and grab it real quick. The boys decided that they wanted to stay and hang out in the Square and that they'd just meet us there when we got back. SHOCKER - when we got back to the square 10 mins later, we couldn't find them. We walked around, couldn't see them and then Shannon wanted to hit up an Australian's (ice cream store). We went there, she got a Strawberry ice cream - I had to refrain becuase of my "cold". On our walk back to the square, her ice cream cone broke in half! She caught it in her hand and proceeded to KEEP EATING! It was the funniest thing and I couldn't stop laughing. This pink ice cream got all over her shirt, her jacket and on her hand but she was so engrossed in her ice cream that she kept on at it! See picture below ;-)

She finally finished her ice cream and then we headed to McDonald's (aka - the "universal bathroom" as Shannon called it) so she could clean up. Made another round in the square to look for the guys and after we couldn't find them, decided to head back to the hotel. She was tired and since I was still sick, we decided to save our energy for the weekend's festivities. So that's why it's not almost midnight and I'm in my hotel room about to go to bed. Gotta get up at 7am to hit up the Anne Frank House and then to Mike's Bike Tour at noon. The weather should be great so I'm pumped!!

Goedenacht!

Chillin with the locals

So today was what's going to be my "usual" day of work. My co-worker had to keep reminding me today "Ambika, you're not in public accounting anymore. You have plenty of time to get your work done." You have no idea how great those words sounded to me. I actually had time to take care of other stuff (admin work, life, etc) and not feel guilty about it. I still wasn't feeling 100% today, so I'm gonna head to bed early again and rest up for my big weekend. After work today Rafael and I walked around the local square, checked out the restaurants - some touristy, some not and just checked out the scene. We settled on a pub in the square called Three Sisters so we could sit outside and do some great people watching, one of my favorite past-times...and here in Amsterdam, you'll never get bored of it.

We sat outside and talked a little bit, got acquainted some more and did A LOT of people-watching. Oh, I almost forgot about the bikes....bikes everywhere! and I almost got runover by a few. oops!! It was really interesting to see the different clothing styles, hair styles, every kinda style was there...you name it. No one looked the same, everyone definitely had their own personal look. I thought of my friend Aditi and how she would definitely love it here...she definitely has her own style even though I usually don't agree with it ;-).

Another observation - everyone's chill. People aren't running around looking stressed or rushing to get somewhere. Most people are strolling with friends, riding their bikes or just hanging out after work grabbing a beer with co-workers. It was a great change of pace from what I'm used to. Maybe it'll get me to chill a little bit more, well, hopefully.

Rafael (pictured at right) and I grabbed a couple of burgers (cheeseburger for me) and had a few beers while we talked, watched as people walked by and discussed our observations. It was a great day to sit outside - sunny and 60ish but a little windy. After dinner we needed to digest a little and I wanted to explore, so we went down one of the streets and checked out the other local restaurants and shops. Everything you needed was here. Funny thing about the restaurants - there weren't really any "Dutch" ones. There was Thai, Indian, lots of Italian places, pubs, etc...but I only saw one "Dutch" restaurant. Shopping galore! clothes and soooo many shoe stores!! (again - Aditi, you'd love it here) - pretty dangerous for me, but it's a good thing that I didn't leave much room in my suitcase to bring stuff back.

I did buy myself an orange shirt for Queens Day, but it was fairly cheap so I didn't feel too bad. We walked until we hit a dead end and passed a couple of small canals. One of which apparently had flower shops lined up and down it. They were closed by the time we got there (after dinner), but Rafael told me that they're usually open in the morning. I might try to check it out sometime this weekend.

It started getting a little chilly so we headed back and here I am in my hotel room finishing off this blog as promised. I'm also attaching a couple of pics from today's walk.

Can't figure out this website in Dutch

So I made it to Amsterdam - got through the 8 1/2 hour direct flight from Chicago and came straight to work. My flight left Chicago at 6pm on Tuesday and arrived at 9am (local time) in Amsterdam. We're 7 hours ahead here, so technically - I should still be asleep. Usually I pass out in planes, but I had some work to do and was a little antsy so I only slept about 3 hours.It's now 2 pm here and I'm feeling kinda sickly - I think it's just spring-time allergies, but still...not something I really wanted to deal with today. Just the usual non-stop sneezing and stuffiness, but I'll get some meds when we leave. When I logged into this website to get my blog started, I realized that everything is in Dutch. I'll have to figure out a way to switch it back to English, but for now it's a little confusing. In my usual form, I'm making my list of things to do - but my head's so stuffed up and I'm so exhausted, I'm not really getting much done today. Luckily there isn't much to do. Out here at the Amsterdam location, it's pretty small so there's only 1 other guy and myself. Raphael's pretty nice, moved to Chicago a couple years ago from Mexico so he's still got the accent which causes me to have to think a minute before it registers what he just said. We spent the morning getting me updated with databases, policies, etc and my head is still spinning. So much to take in, but at least I have people here to help me out with everything. It's a good thing that I'm all about the budgeting, cause that's a HUGE part of this job.Anyways, enough about work. Next Monday we have a holiday, Queen's Day, so I get to celebrate it with about 8 other auditor's out here and in the surrounding areas. Should be pretty crazy. Check out this link for more info on what I'll probably be doing this weekend ;-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koninginnedag.

We're also planning to go to the Keukenhof Garden (Tulip Garden) since we're in the middle of Tulip season - it's supposed to be huge and pretty sweet. I'm also trying to get some people to take a bike tour with me since I heard that they're great and the weather is really nice this week. Besides that, I'm sure I'll be hitting up a few museums (Anne Frank, of course, among others) and maybe a couple of beer brewery tours.Alright - I should probably do some sort of work before the end of today...maybe get back to my lists and budgets.I'm pretty much on AIM or GMail chat whenever I'm at work and possibly a little bit when I get back to my hotel at night. SOOOO tired - I'm definitely gonna pass out as soon as I get to my hotel tonight though.

Tot straks!

Procrastination is key

OK, so I've had a week of "vacation" between my last day at PwC and moving to Chicago to take care of everything, yet somehow I feel like I've accomplished NOTHING. Today's my last day to pack and run errands here in DC before my movers come on Monday, and what am I doing? Obviously not what I should be. I definitely work best under pressure, but I think I'm kinda pushing it...I've even gotten a visit from my stress buddy - pimple...gotta love it. So I'm a little overwhelmed right now, typical of how I react to things, but listen to this. I'm moving to a new city (mind you - I won't have my apartment until I get back from Amsterdam in May); I'm going to be car-less in Chicago...HUGE change for me and I'm a little worried about how I'm gonna handle it; I'm starting a new job so I have a million things to do before that; PLUS - my new job involves me leaving for Amsterdam the day after I start.
Pretty exciting huh? Whatever - I'm freaking out! OK, so ranting and raving about it for a minute helped...now I should probably get back to my packing.