I’ve known that we’d have a break between the first and second seasons for a while, so I’ve been planning an amazing vacation to Amsterdam. I’ve never realy been outside of the US – and I just got my passport for the show. Seeing how I didn’t actually need it for the show, I decided to put it to good use and spend a week in Europe.
Monday/Tuesday
I started out in Tampa and flew to New York/JFK to catch my flight overseas. Since I had such a long time between flights, Tammy picked me up and we had a bite to eat and chatted for a while. My international flight was set to leave out Monday night on Aer Lingus – landing in Dublin, Ireland on Tuesday morning. The flight was great, roomy and seemed to fly by once we got started. The plane we were to fly out on was late coming into NY, so we left a good hour and a half late. Normally no big deal, but I had to catch a flight from Dublin to Amsterdam and now only had a grace period of about 30 minutes. Needless to say, I hauled butt through Border Security and Airport Security. Funny thing – in Ireland, they don’t care about checking your shoes or anything like that at the security checkpoint – but they realy want to inspect your umbrella… I ran through Dublin International and JUST made my connection to Amsterdam with minutes before they closed off the flight. Again, the flight was nice – and short – about an hour and we were in Schipol Airport – the main airport in Holland, and right outside of Amsterdam. After retrieving my luggage and breezing through customs, I decided to take an airport express train into Centraal Station and then catch a tram to the area my hotel was in. Somehow I followed the Dutch signs and ended up where I was supposed to be – the Hotel Crystal, in the Liedesplein area of Amsterdam. The hotel itself was very quaint – but still nice – family run. Once I’d checked in, I took a tram back into the center of the city and found a restraunt serving Dutch cuisine and had a wonderfully made dinner. I walked back to the hotel, just sort of taking in the city at night. It is realy an amazing place – overrun with bicycles. In fact, there is an entire bicycle sidewalk built into all the streets – which are not labled as such so watch out on your first visit… The most amazing part of the city is the overall feeling of security and respect – people leave their bikes or baby carriages out on the street, not chained up — and they are perfectly fine. No one even THINKS about stealing them – in fact the entire time I was in this major city, I only heard poliece bells ONCE. Being a NYer, that blew my mind all together – but I digress. Having been a long 2 days of travel, I retired for the night.
Wednesday
When I booked my hotel and flight, I also booked a day long bus tour of the Amsterdam city proper as well as some of the surrounding Dutch cities. After a quick breakfast at the hotel – basically meat and cheese selections with bread in case you wanted to make a sandwich (very European breakfast), I headed over to The Damrak area to catch my tour. Being on the tour realy made me appreciate the educaiton systems over in Europe. Everyone there speaks their home language, English as well as another language of their choice at the very minimun. I felt rather stunted with my American version of English – but was very impressed as our tour guide basically gave her tour script first in English, then French and then in Spanish to make sure that everyone on board was being taken care of. We drove around the major areas of the city, seeing the stunning Dutch buildings (which are so narrow because they are taxed on street frontage), churches, parks, and landmarks. The highlight of this part of the tour was visiting the Gassan Diamond works – where they polish diamonds and use them in absolutely mouth watering jewelry. The second part of our tour took us outside of Amsterdam and into Zans Schaans – a town that still maintains a ‘traditional’ Dutch way of life. We visited a wooden shoe maker, who showed us how the shoes were crafted. Then a cheese farm, where we saw how the cheese was made and were given the opportunity to taste a variety of local cheeses, including Ghouda. Next we went to Volendam – a traditional Dutch fishing village, where we caught a finishing boat that took us across the water to the town of Marken, and back. It was awesome to see things like the Dutch windmills and craftsmen and work.
Thursday
I had planned out where I wanted to go and what I wanted to see the rest of the days using a guide book I had bought many months ago when I decided to take the trip. So the first stop today was the Van Gogh museum. It was actually only a short walk to the museum from my hotel, and I beat the large lines that were forming by the 
time I was ready to leave. The paintings in the museum were absolutely breathtaking – and to actually see the classic Van Gogh’s that I’d only seen in art books before was an immense opportunity. Sunflowers, The Potatoe Eaters, and his many self portraits….seeing them in person, you know why he is considered one of the greats. After my musings at the Van Gogh, I booked a cruise along the canals of the city. There is no better way to see the ‘Venice of Holland’ then by boat. There are three major canals that surround the original boundaries of the city: The Gentleman’s Canal, The Royal Canal and The Prince’s Canal. The other canals were added as the city grew to keep the asthetic of the city’s layout. There is so much history in Amsterdam that I didn’t realize – for example, we floated past the former warehouses of the East India Company, which was started and headquarted in Amsterdam. After my canal cruise, I lunched at the Hardrock Cafe Amsterdam, which is attached to the Holland Casino. When I was done I took a quick stroll down PC Hooftstraat – which is basically the 5th Ave of Amsterdam. All the finest shops were there: Gucci, Armani, Mont Blanc, La Croix and dozens I’d never even heard of. Too rich for my blood (especially in Euros) – so I opted for a stroll in Vondelpark. This is their answer to Central Park in NYC – streams, grassy knolls, hundreds of shady trees, an open air theatre. Very relaxing. At the edge of the park lies the Filmmuseum – which is actually a film institute that restores old films and shows them to the public. This month they were having a tribute to the untouchable Ingrid Bergman. Since all the show times were later that evening, I moved on back to my hotel to have a rest and get ready to go out and see Boom Chicago in Liedesplein. Boom Chicago is an improv company along the lines of Second City or UCB. They were giving a performance of a show they called ‘Upgrade or Die’ that touched on all of the technologies that we depend on so much these days like: Twitter, Facebook, computers, cell phones. Partly scripted and mostly improved, I thought they were hillarious – and strangely enough, all Americans – who spoke almost no Dutch…
Friday
Today was going to be my tour of ‘Alternative’ Amsterdam – however, I wanted to try and see the Anne Frank House (which I had planned to see the day before, but didn’t get around to). So, I took a canal boat over to the area and found that the line to get in was at least 4 hours long. After consulting my tour book, which suggested I return sometime after 4 to beat the lines, I decided to have brunch at a Pancake restruant. The Dutch are known for a number of things: Cheese, Tulips, Chocolate, Paintings – and Pancakes. The Dutch pancakes are very thin – almost crepe like – and can be either savory or 
sweet. I choose a cheese and apple pancake – which was absolutely heaven. I highly reccomend them if you are ever in the city. Next I strolled over the The Ronkin area and visited The Amsterdam Dungeon. This was one of the highlights of my visit. It was part haunted house, part history lesson and part roller coaster. Basically they took you room by room through Amsterdam’s dark history. Superb actors in each room showed you what it was like to be questioned in the Inquisition, sold into slavery on the ships of the East India Company, sentanced by the courts for witchcraft and die gruesomely of the plauge. The whole attraction was very well done – apparently there are sister Dungeon attractions all over Europe, each one focusing on the dark history of the city they are in. After leaving the dungeon, I walked into the Red Light District to find the Erotic Museum. Very interesting place – it featured erotic art, sculptures, cartoons, paintings, drawings, you name it. Complete with a wall mural showing Snow White in a way you’ve never seen her before – in a room devoted to erotic cartoon films. Not too far from the Erotic Museum, was the Sexmuseum. The exhibits here were very similar actually, focusing on Sex throughout the ages. Though here, you will find motion activated animatronics featuring scenes that you ‘accidentially’ walk in on. One showed a flasher, another was a Red Light District prostitue gone wrong, and yet another was a tiny window…if you looked it, a man inside pulled down his pants and peed all over the glass. Very classy – but alot of fun. It just illustrates the nonchallent attitude that they have about sex over there. It was actually very eye opening - in many ways (lol). As the day was coming to an end, I hopped back on my canal boat and rode over to the Rijks Museum to catch it just before it closed. The Rijksmuseum is the national museum of Holland, featuring works of art done by many of the masters as well as furniture, models, sculptures, etc. It is 2/3 of the way under renovation at the moment, but a number of the paintings were still viewable – including some of the brilliant works by Rembrandt. Can I just say that you haven’t seen an amazing work of art until you stood in front of Rembrandts’ Nightwatch or Vermeer’s The Kitchen Maid. The way that these painters captured beauty in such simple things just astounds me. After a quick tour of the paintings – the crowds were much less here at the end of the day as well – I grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed back to the Red Light District. I wanted to see what it was like at night – and it was a very surreal experience indeed. There you are walking down these cobblestone and brick streets, next to buildings that are hundreds and hundreds of years old, at night, with the church bells of the Old Church ringing in the background, and all around is a red neon glow from the windows where the prostitutes are waiting, scantilly clad and tapping on the glass to get your attention. Again, I was hit with such a bizarre mix of modern and olde world – it was like walking in a dream.
Saturday
This was my last day in Amsterdam, as I was starting my trip back home on Sunday morning. I started the day, again, by visiting a different pancake restruant – and, again, I was not disappointed. Next I went on a tour of the Royal Palace in Dam Square. The palace was actually built to be the town hall back in the early 1800s – but was turned into a palace by Louis Bonapart (Napoleon’s brother), when the French occupied the area. Later it became the palace of the House of Orange, who rule Amsterdam to this day – though in recent years, the living quarters of the Queen has moved to De Haag – though she still uses this palace to greet guests and hold important meetings or parties. The inside of the building has been completely renovated to look as it originally would have during the time of the Bonaparts – the outside is still under renovations. For the first time in history, they inside has been opened up to the public (when it is not being used for diplomatic purposes). The building is nothing short of astounding – the details that went into every aspect of every sculpture and painting… Just to stand in the main hall and feel the immensity of the room was a treat. After that, I took a trip to both the New Church and the Olde Church and was again floored by the immesity and craftsmanship that went into these, still working, buildings. Finally, it was time to do my shopping for gifts for people back home, so I took a quick jaunt into the local mall – which is housed in an old renovated building that could have been a castle from what it looks like on the outside. That was followed with one last attempt at the Anne Frank House – but alas, my stomach started to cramp while I was in the (all be it, much shorter) line and I had to vacate. Sadly, no Anne Frank for me this visit – but next time…
Sunday
I jumped in an airport shuttle and started my journey back to the states – with another layover in Dublin. The trip was fairly uneventfull. I made it through customs with all my gifts (even the cheese I had bought – which apparently was in dispute).
All in all – an amazing trip – I can’t say enough about it.
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