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.