Fall Break Continued...

Sorry for the delay. Here is Part II…

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Sunday, 21 October 2007

Sunday morning we didn’t really have time to do much before we needed to be at the train station. After checking out of the hostel, we walked to the New Town to explore a bit, including stopping in a very small shopping mall. It might have been a good thing we left Edinburgh when we did; the sky was threateningly gray and I swear I felt a few sprinkles.

We caught the 11:50 train to Newcastle. I spent the majority of the train ride staring out of the window admiring the beautiful countryside. It was all farmland, and the rolling hills were dotted with little woolly white dots. I have never seen so many sheep in my life. Living in London has really made me appreciate the beauty of wide open spaces and greenery.

Upon arrival in Newcastle, we immediately hopped on the Metro. It was an interesting experience. Even though Newcastle is a sizable city, comparing its subway system to London’s is like comparing Syracuse to New York City.

We then had a short walk to the port on the River Tyne, where our ferry awaited. Now, when I think ferry, I think a little boat with paddles. This ship, the M.s. King of Scandinavia, was absolutely huge. It had 11 decks, bottom few of which are just for cars and cargo. The ship holds three restaurants, three bars, a casino, a coffee shop, a kids’ club, and a cinema. Unfortunately, all of these wonderful things were ridiculously expensive. We had stopped at a grocery store in Edinburgh to pick up some bagels, and it was a good thing we did. Otherwise we would have been shelling out €30 (about $45) for a buffet dinner – and that was the cheap restaurant.

We spent a very quiet night on the ferry. After watching the ship sail away from Newcastle and eating our bagel and peanut butter dinner, we browsed through our guides on Amsterdam. We turned in early and let the gentle rocking of the North Sea lull us to sleep.

Monday, 22 October 2007

At 7 a.m. Monday morning, a dreadfully cheery voice announced to the ship it was time to wake up. I, of course, rolled back over, and was just stepping out of the shower when the voice told me we would be docking in 15 minutes. We actually docked in IJmuiden (I don’t know why the I and the J are both capitalized but they are), a port about 30 minutes outside of Amsterdam. The canals and ports in Amsterdam are too shallow for a ship as big as ours.

The ferry company provided coaches to take us to the city center. One of the first sights we saw in Holland was lots and lots of windmills. However, they were not the windmills one usually imagines when picturing Holland. They were the windmills used to generate electricity, massively tall with blades as long as trees. Holland actually gets a comparatively high percentage of its electricity from wind power. There is a lot of debate, both in the U.K. and in the U.S. about using wind power. It is true that windmills are not as efficient as fossil fuels, but new technology is increasing their efficiency every year. Now the main argument against them is that they “ruin the landscape.” To the contrary, I think they are gorgeous and just another symbol of human ingenuity.

But I digress. The bus dropped us off and it took us about 40 minutes to actually find our hostel, but our check-in was delayed even longer. It turned out we needed cash for a key deposit, and having not yet exchanged our money, we se off to find an ATM to get some Euros.

By the time we returned to the hostel, a rather large, rather obnoxious group of Americans had arrived. They didn’t have a reservation, didn’t really know how long they wanted to stay, and kept talking amongst themselves while the poor girl at reception was trying to check them in. After the HALF HOUR it took them to get sorted out, she was very relieved to learn we had a reservation.

We grabbed lunch in a café and set off to explore the city. Amsterdam is a grid of over 100 canals and can be quite confusing to navigate. This was compounded by the fact that, like Sweden, we couldn’t pronounce any of the street or canal names. Also like Sweden, everybody speaks English. In fact, I’m pretty sure I heard English is compulsory in Dutch schools.

One of our explorations was Albert Cuypt market. This was similar to markets we go to in London – a mixture of clothes, produce, meat, and household items – but less expensive. While we had been waiting to check-in earlier in the day, we met two guys from Washington (state, not D.C.) who we spent the evening with, doing absolutely nothing but exploring and relaxing.

Tuesday, 23 October 2007

One of the selling points of our hostel was that it served free breakfast from 8:30 to 10:30 every morning. Rick and I wandered down at about 10:15, only to discover that breakfast had already been cleared away. We shortly realized our phones were still on London time, and that it was actually 11:15. Oops.

That morning we took a boat tour on some of the major canals. It was very sunny out, and the boat provided a great way to see some important points of the city (being an enclosed boat, it also sheltered us from the chilly bite to the air). We saw the wide canal that leads to the North Sea (not wide enough for our ferry though), some historical buildings, and the variety of house boats that line several of the canals. The popularity of houseboats started when Amsterdam had a housing crunch in the 20^th century. In order to live in one, you must have permission from the neighborhood in which you live, and you can then be hooked up to the gas and electricity networks. Some people live in houseboats illegally, and therefore have no power.

Later in the afternoon we went to the “Heineken Experience.” This was the highlight of our Amsterdam trip. It’s funny that a lot of people from home think that Heineken is from Germany, but it was actually brewed right in Amsterdam until a few decades ago. Now the old brewery is used for shameless brand promotion.

This self-guided tour gave a history of the brand and explained the process by which Heineken is made. It also gave us three half-pints of Heineken throughout the tour and promised a “free gift.” Figuring that the free gift would be something cheap, Rick and I had been stealing coasters along the way. So it was a very pleasant surprise when we received a model of the brand’s aluminum bottle which opened to hold a credit card-sized bottle opener.

For dinner that night we went to a tapas bar, not really knowing what tapas was (turns out it just means Spanish appetizers, but they make for good meals too). I don’t know if it was the time of day, day of the week, post-tourist time of year, or a combination of the three, but we were the only ones in the restaurant for the whole meal. The waiter/cook was very nice, and even gave s a card for a 10% discount if we wanted to go back.

After walking around the city some more, we hung out in our hostel’s bar/lounge for a while before bed.

Wednesday, 24 October 2007

Wednesday morning we actually made it to breakfast at the hostel, and had a lovely meal of chocolate cereal and hard-boiled eggs. We then checked out and headed toward the train station in Amsterdam, where we had decided to store our luggage for a few hours, rather than lug it around (we also could have left it at the hostel, but that was the opposite side of the city from where we needed to be for the bus back to the ferry).

We took the long way to the train station so we could pass by the Anne Frank House. For anyone who may not remember, Anne Frank and her family were German Jews who fled to Amsterdam to escape the Nazis. Anne, who was fourteen or fifteen at the time, kept a diary during the whole of their time in hiding, which was on the top floor of a factory (I think). During the day, they could not talk or even move much lest the workers realize people were hiding above them. The family was eventually discovered, split up, and sent to concentration camps. If I remember correctly, only Anne’s father survived, and he decided to publish Anne’s diary after the war. The diary is standard reading in many schools now.

We didn’t actually go in the house – it was expensive and the line seemed miles long – but I was very content to just go to the house and see where it was. Just around the corner there was a small statue of Anne, and someone had recently placed a bouquet of fresh flowers underneath it. Just that little sentiment was very moving.

After stowing our luggage at the train station, we headed just down the road to the NEMO, a science center. Being the geeks that we are, and figured this would be like the Museum of Science and Technology (MOST) in Syracuse, we decided this might be a fun way to end our trip. We arrived to a line of maybe 200 kids under the age of 12 and their parents, but decided to wait anyways because we had nothing else to do anyway. It was in fact similar to the MOST, if you double our tripled its size. Also, I have never seen the MOST as busy as this – we didn’t get to play with all the cool things because there were so many kids. The NEMO also had some exhibits I doubt would ever be found in the MOST – there was one explaining the science behind puberty and giving tips on how to be a good kisser!

We left the NEMO feeling very claustrophobic and having had our fill of small children for the year. The bus back to the ferry picked us up and we set off back to IJmuiden.

Amsterdam would have been nicer to visit earlier in the year, when it was a bit warmer and the tulips were blooming. As much as I enjoyed the city, and especially the canals, I can’t help but feel that we didn’t really do much while there. Being Dutch, I am glad we went – it was funny to see last names even crazier than mine!

If you are not someone who is going to Amsterdam to take part in several activities which are quite illegal in most of the United States, it seemed there was not really much to do inexpensively. It would have been nice to go to some museums, like the Van Gogh Museum, but at $15 a pop they were a little more than I wanted to spend. I think I would have much preferred on one of the days to have seen the countryside and taken the train to Winterswijk, the town where my family is from. Unfortunately, I didn’t find out there was a train station there until our last day.

We were a little more prepared for the ferry on the way back; we had stopped and gotten sandwiches for dinner and some snacks. After spending some time on the deck and eating, we just crashed. We had done so much walking in Amsterdam that it was nice to just sit and stretch out (not that we had a lot of room to stretch out in our cabin).

Thursday, 25 October 2007

We arrived into Newcastle at about 9:30, but the United Kingdom’s stricter customs regulations meant that we had to sit on the ship for a while before disembarking. We took another bus to Newcastle’s city center, and again stored our bag in the train station. Rick and I then went to Castle Garth Keep, the last part of the castle from which Newcastle gets its name (actually the name actually comes from another castle called “New Castle”, but that castle was destroyed and Castle Garth built on the same site).

The “keep” of the castle is the large main tower where the lords and ladies lived. This tower was not as big as those we had visited in York and Edinburgh, but it still had some interesting displays and views from the top. Apparently, the keep is also haunted. There was one display about a professional paranormal activity team which had visited and recorded odd movements and flashes of light.

We spent the rest of our time in Newcastle in Pizza Hut (exciting, huh?). Like most Pizza Huts, it was ridiculously busy and slow, but we had a very good meal and really had nothing else we were dying to do before catching our train back to London.

This was the longest train we took, leaving Newcastle at about 2:15 and arriving back to King’s Cross around 5:45. We spent the time playing travel Scrabble and savoring our last glances into the countryside.

In conclusion…

I am really glad we took the trip that we did. It was nice to not have to worry about getting to airports, and we saw some really cool things. I especially enjoyed York and Edinburgh, and would recommend them to anyone looking for places to go in the U.K. other than London.

I am sorry this is so long. If anyone has any specific questions or anything else – leave a comment on the blog or email me! And remember to look at my pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/deb.oonk.

Now back to the grind. It amazes me that we have less than two months left here! It’s almost November already! As Halloween is not really a big deal here (although it is growing in popularity) and they don’t have Thanksgiving, everyone is already gearing up for Christmas. It’s slightly ridiculous.