Amsterdam & Texel

My Amsterdam host, Marco, gave me easy directions to follow in order to get to his place in the city centre. I didn’t arrive until 10 pm at night. Luckily, he just got home from work... driving a boat for tourists along the canals.
After introductions and setting me up for the night, he took me out for a walk to see a little bit of the city. We walked through the Red Light District. I’ve never seen anything like it before. As we turned off the main road to walk down an alley, I was so engrossed in our conversation that when I heard a window knock to my right I jumped! There was a half-naked girl there. Scared the crap out of me! I wasn’t expecting anyone to be there. I thought it was just more bricks. She thought it was pretty funny as she had a huge smile on her face and waved. I was much more observant after that. How embarrassing. Haha.
All down the alley ways, tons of windows after windows had woman in them. Marco said there are all kinds. As he put it, "Big black mamas, transvestites, regular young woman and even old woman during the day for the elderly men (or for men that like them older)." Wow, quite the selection. I just thought they did private shows, and maybe a bit of… fondling… but they are full service girls. I didn’t realize that prostitution was fully legal here. Wow.
There were sex shows as well. I wasn't sure exactly what that all entailed... but it apparently is exactly just that. You pay to go watch people having sex. Uh… ok, to each their own... but umm, I might skip that one. Word has it, the show is lacking. No drama or story involved. Just two people get on stage and go at it. Sounds a bit boring really. A porno would have more flare I think. So, I’ll take the advice of my host and the group of Argentinians I met in my hostel back in Paris that saw it, and skip it.
The Bulldog café’s (in which there were 3), were where you could buy marijuana and tobacco to smoke. The one in the Red Light District had really neat graffiti on the outside of the shop. Some interesting condom stores too with condoms sporting animal figures at the tips. Comical!
We walked through to Nieuwmarkt, to a couple of his favourite pubs. We had a couple beer and got to know one another. It was great. Marco was very open and easy going. I enjoyed his company. So nice to feel relaxed with someone you just met.
Once we turned in, his roommate Jennifer and her couchsurfer, Johnathan, were home. We all stayed up for another hour or so chatting. By then, it was really late and I was exhausted. A long day.
The next morning, Marco took me out for a walk through the residential area and among some of his favourite spots along the canal. There were some beautiful houses. Many were group houses. All sharing a back yard that had a beautiful garden with a pond or benches. Some even had a kids play area. Really cool to see what is on the other side of the buildings.

Then we went out to a pier out on the estuary. I enjoyed being next to the water. Really cool to see all the different house boats. Some longboats, others like a mobile home on a barge, some with gardens... neat! 
Marco likes photography and took some photos of me as well as the scenery. It was fun. Though, I still get a bit nervous with the camera on me. One photo is okay, but the more you take, the more anxious I get. Don’t know why.

From there, we walked around the city a bit more, near the central station. Couldn't believe the amount of bicycles parked at the station. Incredible! I know the dutch like to bike around, but WOW! Guess that's why they have the saying "you’re a true Dutchman when you can ride a bike with an umbrella in one hand and a sandwich in the other." Ha ha.
We looked at some shops and pubs. Lots of old buildings. Then met a couple of his friends at Dam square. Once we chatted a bit we headed to the flower market. Now that I liked. The shops were along the canal, lined up beside each other. Each shop had similar things, but always a couple differences. The first shop had a ton of dried flowers hanging from the ceiling making the light come through with different hues of colour. Some had cactus that had bloomed their flowers of amazing colours. A couple plants I hadn’t seen before that were very nice. And small carnivorous plants as well.
Of course, the shops also had nick-knacks like wooden dutch shoes, post cards, china, and other souvenir articles. Across from the flower stores were some cheese stores where you can go inside and sample some Gouda. Hmmm, it was delicious! Times like these where I which I had all the money in the world… and the ability to never gain weight!

After more wandering and photography with him and his friends, we ended the day by me making dinner for him.
I took the next day to myself. I got up early to visit the Anne Frank House. The line up already had 100 people 30 mins before they opened. Luckily, they let people in a bit early and it took 15 mins for me to get in. Plus, Marco’s room mate Jennifer gave me her museum pass so I could get in for free. I was really happy with that.
I knew a little of the basic story, a Jewish family that went into hiding from the German army in WWII and then were found and sent off to prison camps. But this museum enlightened me more. The museum tours through the hiding place were Anne Frank, her family and couple friends (total of 8 persons) lived during the war and where she wrote her diary. An annexe hidden by a movable bookcase. Models and photos were displayed to see how the furniture was laid out in their rooms.
And quotes, films and original objects helped give me the atmosphere and feelings of the people involved. What a scary and stressful time. I couldn’t imagine going through what those people did. Surviving in such small quarters, unable to go outside, be heard or be seen. They had some people helping them, bringing food and magazines and notebooks for Anne to write in. The government advised people to write diaries during the war so that people could read about their experiences. Never knew they advertised that.
Eventually, after 2 years in hiding, the family was betrayed by person (s) unknown and the German army found them. They all got separated to different camps, and all died except for Anne’s father, Otto Frank. He was given Anne’s diary from one of the woman that helped hide him and he decided to publish it. 
All the furniture was removed by the army, and Otto left the hiding place as the Germans left it as a reminder of what happened. Only the sink, toilet and some old magazine pictures his daughters left on the wall, were still there. The hiding place became a museum in 1960.
So many emotions ran through me touring through there. I’m looking forward to reading her diary  and learn more of her perspective and hardships.
From there, I went to an arts and craft history museum behind the central station. It didn't actually feel like a museum, it was a tourist shop with 2 TV screens demonstrating a man making a wooden shoe and another of a churning machine for chocolate. Which, by the way, was for Lindt chocolate, a company not even originating in Holland. I was very disappointed in that. I thought it would be something very different. 
Anyways, I walked over to the Maritime museum to visit the ship there. A big ship replica of the Dutch East India Company among a couple other vessels.
I popped into a couple exhibits in the museum. The main one I explored was about the Transatlantic slave trade and how the Netherlands were involved in that. Sending boats to Africa to trade guns and alcohol for the people, then shipped them to South America where they then traded their “cargo” for sugar, cocoa beans and such. One story was of the Leusden ship back in the 1700's. It took on water off the east coat in Suriname... and with the crew nervous of the prisoners below deck, barred them in and let over 600 people die. Grim history. Interesting on an educational point of view... but upsetting as well. Such awful, depressing stories of what man has done to one another. Sigh, no more of the dark history learning for now. Time for me to have some light-hearted exploring.
I popped over to the brewery to see the windmill and saw a market across the street. I love markets! So, I went for a look-see.  Lots of clothing, textiles, jewelry, make-up and food. I ended up buying some fresh fruit and nuts. They had this wonderful mixed nut batch, seasoned with a bit of salt and herbs. It was sooooo gooood! I meant to share some with Marco and Jennifer when I got back, but I ate it all! Whoops!

I then walked to the Rijksmuseum to see the I Amsterdam sign. Of course, it was swarming with people. The pond was nice to soak my feet in for a bit though.
Then, I went to Vondelpark. Nice to see some greenery and ponds. Lots of birds around. The ponds had little fish in them that the heron were happy to indulge themselves on. After a while I started heading out to meet up with a couchsurfing host that had offered to host me after I already accepted my invite from Marco. I had to decline but asked to meet up for dinner or drinks instead. Along the way, I heard this awful squawk. I thought “that sound doesn’t belong here…” and found a bunch of green parakeets flying around. They were so pretty! Sounded terrible, but nice to look at flying around from treetop to treetop.
I met Keiser at Leidseplein.  A busy square with a ton of places to eat. Also a casino nearby, and of course, another Bulldog café. Keiser was originally from Pakistan and was really great. The second we saw each other, the conversation never stopped! We both were chatterboxes, lol.
After pub hopping a bit we eventually met up with my hosts back at Nieumarkt, where we met more people involved in couchsurfing. Good times.
I took a slower morning the next day, just relaxing and looking into where I should stay for my trip north to Texel. Since most of the websites are in Dutch, even after translating them with google, I had trouble understanding and asked Marco to help me. Then we went out for a boat ride around the city. Marco had his own little boat with comfortable cushions to sit on. It was very relaxing, much better than walking around in all the chaos of other people and bikes.

After I made another dinner, we went out to a different part of the city where the locals go for a couple drinks then turned in for the night.
I got up early the next morning to catch my train to Den Helder. From there the ferry took me to the Island of Texel. It wasn’t a long ferry ride, about 20 mins, so I sat outside. Then, it felt like half the passengers were all outside with me. Couldn’t figure out why everyone is crowding one another, bumping into eachother and blocking the view of those sitting on the seats. Then, everyone had their camera out. I thought “oh? Maybe a whale?” Nope. Seagulls. They like to fly with the boat, hovering hoping to get some food that people would toss. Geez, all that for gulls. Well, enough of being stepped all over for me, and inside I went.
The buses left pretty much 5 mins after the ferry let us off in ‘t Horntje, so you need to sort yourself out fairly quickly. Otherwise, you’re stuck waiting for an hour for the next one.
I checked into the Kogerstrand campsite in De Koog. The line up in the afternoon was ridiculous! Super busy. Glad I had called ahead.
The nice thing about the site, was that pretty much all the tent pitches were separated by sand dunes so you could have some privacy. Mine was in a little alcove surrounded by thistle bushes with pink flowers, birds and 2 rabbits. At first I was excited to have the bunnies around… until I started evaluating the best spot to pitch. Rabbit dung everywhere!  Wow, they really liked that spot. Good thing I had a footprint for my tent that can be easily cleaned. I picked the cleanest spot and settled in. Funny, I had over a month of hot sunny weather and now that I go camping, it rains. And rained hard. I was a bit worried that I’d have a pool in my tent. But the wind was strong enough to move the heavy clouds away fast enough to prevent that. 
I didn’t do much my first day. Just walked into the village and looked at the restaurants, bike rental costs and shops and then got some groceries. I spent the evening down along the beach. Such fine soft sand and the water felt pretty warm since the tidal flats went out far enough to allow the sand to really heat up the water. Lots of people swimming.
After breakfast, I went to the Kikkert bike rental shop and hired a 7 speed bike for 2 days. The island is small enough that it’s very easy to get around by bike. Plus, there are a ton of bike paths. 


I headed north first to Vuurtoren to see the lighthouse. It was a small lighthouse, but did the job as many ships had wrecked on the islands in the past. They had to build a fence around the light as the keeper woke up in the morning to find dead birds all around the lighthouse. They were flying into the window drawn to the light at night. He had to use a wheelbarrow to pick up all the dead birds. What a sight that must have been each morning! Luckily, with the fence and extra illumination around the lighthouse, the lighthouse victims decreased considerably.

I walked along the beach. It was sunny, but very windy. So, lots of people flying kites. Also saw a neat sport I hadn’t seen before, the kitebuggy. They used parachutes to pull their buggies across the beach. And they reached some fast speeds! It looked like a ton of fun. After my picnic lunch on the beach, I rode down the east side of the island to Oost. Nice viewpoint out to the sea and a beautiful windmill in the countryside across from the sea. Many sheep, cows, goats, donkeys, ponies and horses on the island. Mostly wheat and corn growth too.











From there I went to Oosterend. It was a storybook looking town. Beautiful old buildings and neat little shops. Felt a bit of a sleepy town. Hardly any people about and the ones I did see were sitting around watching the world go by. The yards were all decorated as well. Little cardboard cut outs of people, dressed up. Some had a Halloween set up, others of fisherman, soldiers from the Napoleon war, traditional Dutch dressed, farmers and many others. It was really neat walking through the residence area. I just wished I could read the Dutch posts to know what or why they had each display.
 I think they had a play 2 days before, re-enacting the old days so it was left over from that.
The wind sure was strong and it was slow riding back to De Koog via De Waal. After 6 hours (40 km) of riding, my body was pretty tired. So I just had dinner, read a little and sat by the beach for a while before going to bed.

The next day, I went riding south through the Dennenbos pine forest towards De Hoorn. One nice thing about Texel, there are maps on plaques showing the whole island. The roads and numbers indicate bicycle junctions. You can plan your whole cycle route around the bike junctions as it also shows the distance in kms between each distance. Once on your way, sign posts indicate which bike path to take to get to which numbered junction you want to go to next. That way, you can orientate yourself around the island very easily. I really liked that.

The forest was pretty. Peaceful as well. Could hear the birds. But, lots of cyclists passing by.
I rode to Den Burg from there. That’s the biggest town on the island. They had a market in the city centre that I enjoyed. Some yummy food like honey waffles, and bakery goods and lots of the usual fabrics, jewellery, clothes and purses.



After, I went to Oudeschild to see a camping store… the only camping store on the island. But, it was very small and was more like hardware than outdoor gear. So, I went to the marina to look at the boats. Many tour boats for seal watching and fishing boats.
My legs were pretty sore after 4 hours so again, fighting the wind to get back to De Koog. I found a sheltered spot in the dunes near my campsite and basked for a while in the sun before going to town to return the bike.

The following day I decided to go for a hike. I walked north to De Muy. A farm land by the dunes with watering holes. Most of this stretch is a bird sanctuary. Lots of ducks and geese around. From there I continued on to De Slufter. I lovely sandy floored, flowered meadow with grass and water channels that lead through the tidal flats to the sea. It was very pretty. The beach was covered in shells. It’s good to keep the sandals on as the broken shells were sharp! I met a nice elderly man  there. We talked a little, enjoying the view, though conversation was tricky since we didn’t speak the same language. But, we got enough across to understand what the other was talking about.

They even had a horse carriage pull tourists along the dunes there as well. The horses sure had a work out!
I jogged back to the campsite and after a refreshing shower, meandered through the shops one last time.
After checking out, I started my journey back to Amsterdam. Marco welcomed me back to his place for the one night as I’m leaving for Germany tomorrow to visit my friend Eva. Once I dropped off my stuff, I took him out to lunch and we talked about our weekends. Marco had bought a new boat, so we spent the rest of the day on the canals through the city.
Now, I just have to pack up so I’ll be ready to catch my rideshare tomorrow morning for Hamburg.