After working in London for a week, it was time for my actual vacation to begin! I spent a couple prior days carving out a rough idea of where I wanted to visit over the next few weeks. In 2019, I traveled to Frankfurt for NYE and ended up flying out of Amsterdam to get home. The brief 14 hours I had in the city gave me a taste of Holland, but left me wanting more. It was the obvious choice to me that I needed to revisit this city and give it the amount of time it deserved.
Also, quick background knowledge. Since I only recently learned this while on this trip.
- Cool fact No. 1: Netherlands is a country. Nether or Neder translates to lower. Lands is obviously lands. So putting together Netherlands roughly translates to lower lands or under lands. Now the Nether in Minecraft makes sense, doesn’t it? But this makes sense here too, since over 26% of the Netherlands is below sea level.
- Cool fact No. 2: Holland is not a country. Similar to how places have names for particular provinces, the same holds true here. It’s just a region of the Netherlands where most of the population happens to live. Out of the twelve provinces in the country, Holland only encompasses Noord Holland and Zuid Holland. Might be like how I say I’m from SoCal, even though that’s really just a specific region of California.
A pitstop to visit an old friend
I met Ahmed back in my undergrad days at Utah State University. We were both engineering majors and had multivariable calculus together. As one might imagine, this was a pretty hard class. Ahmed and I would frequent the library where we would often be studying or working on homework well into the night (~10pm). It truly felt like a grind.
The more time I spent with Ahmed, the more I learned about him and his fascinating story. A foreign exchange student from the UAE spending a semester at this small school in Utah.
When I put the word out to friends I would be in the Netherlands, I was shocked when Ahmed reached out to me. But then again, lots of things happen over the years. As my old coworker Louis Ledesma always says, the only constant in life is change. This felt no different. Despite the shock, I was delighted to meet Ahmed in a town called Leiden, just 30 minutes south of Amsterdam, where he lives now. He showed me around, introduced me to some dutch favorites like the potatoes, herring, and of course, stroopwaffles! We walked around and explored the markets. Such a BEAUTIFUL area. I would recommend to anyone if visiting the Netherlands to come and visit Leiden. It was absolutely wonderful.
Amsterdam
After seeing my friend in Leiden, I continued my journey on to Amsterdam. As mentioned earlier, I had been to Amsterdam once before, albeit only for a short overnight layover. This time, I spent three days exploring the city as well as the outskirts. One of my favorite things to do when I travel is ditch the touristy parts and explore residential areas. I feel this gives the best feel for what living in a place is like.
The Netherlands is known as being one of the most bicycle friendly countries in the world. Let me tell you, this was so true. Even compared to Germany and other organized nations in Europe, Netherlands had them all beat. One of my photos below gives a prime example of a sidewalk for pedestrians, lane for bicycles, a lane for cars, and finally a dedicated lane for public transportation. To me, this was living in a dream.
In addition to finding myself off the beaten path, I did some touristy things too. One of the most famous attractions in Amsterdam is the Anne Frank house. You know, that Anne Frank. The famous one. She spent all that time hiding in a house in Amsterdam! Well as it turns out, that house is pretty small and tickets sell out weeks in advance. So unfortunately I didn’t make it in. Instead, I visited the Red Light Secrets Museum, a site of a former brothel. I learned some fascinating facts, but won’t spoil the fun. You’ll just have to visit for yourself. Something else that was cool was the Heineken experience. I love beer and going on a brewery tour is always a fun time. In terms of international beers, Heineken ranks among one of my favorites.
After spending a few days in Amsterdam, it was time to move onto my next destination: Copenhagen
Really enjoyed reading this. I didn’t know the Anne Frank house was in Amsterdam !
Very excited for more people to read your blog!