Amsterdam

Ze względu na kilka osób tutaj niektóre wpisy będą po angielsku, no chyba że naprawdę nie będzie mi się chciało męczyć. Wszystkich wrażliwych na punkcie poprawności językowej z góry przepraszam (no i proszę o wytknięcie błędów).
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And again, we made another trip. This weekend we went to Amsterdam, city of channels, bridges, red lights and coffee shops:) After some uncertainty in the matter who is actually going there, we went on nine people. In the first car, together with Tomek, went Merve, Sirin, Yusuf and I. Thibaout took Delphine, Buu and Necip. Quite surpisingly, we managed to depart from Hamburg almost on time. After 6 hours, on 1 o'clock we were in Amsterdam in our Hotel. To be honest we were not quite sure if they will let us do what we did. We booked just 2 double rooms cause it was quite expensive, even in the cheapest place. If we had decided to go earlier it would have been a bit better. Anyway, some of us went through the main door, others through "night door" when it was late enough :> I guess they noticed that there were more of us, but eventhough they were quite nice:P
After arrival we took a bus and went to explore the city.


Obviously it was not possible not to see Red Light District. Contrary to Hamburg, there are no places where prostitution is allowed (like Herbertstrasse or Davidstrasse). It's rather a whole district where there are many places including bars or even churches next to red cabins.


I found it quite unexpectable that it was possible to walk throughout the centre of the city by foot. I mean, it takes a while but in comparison to Hamburg it's much smaller in terms of area. As I have said before, there is a lot of water channels, bridges (about one thousand) so it's quite easy to get lost, especially by car (everything looks so similar in the evening).
While wandering in Amsterdam we came across some unusual toilets.They are just set on the corner of the street. I guess it's a part of Amsterdam's policy, that if something is unavoidable (drunken people pissing on the street), it's better to provide them with appropriate facilities:)


In Amsterdam cars are at lose. On weekdays it costs 3,40 euro to park a car for one hour in the centre of the city. But the amount of bicycles there is just astonishing. People riding bicycles are just everywhere. Surprisingly, these are not state-of-art bikes but just ordinary ones. Often rusty, looking more or less the same. We saw there even three level bikepark (well, since there is carpark, bikepark can exist as well:).


After walking for a couple of hours through the city we ended up in one of the coffee shops.


After having a coffee and a cake we went to Sex Museum. Quite amusing, but frankly it had more to do with porno theater (a lot of porno pics from all over 90s along with first porno movies) than with an ordinary museum.





As you can see on picture above, history of sex toys backs to prehistoric times;)
After visiting the museum we hung around a bit and went back to the hotel.

The next day was kind of better planned cause we knew what we wanted to see:> At first we went to take a boat trip on Amsterdam's channels. On our way there we spoted some unusual views.



On a picture above there is a boat with a lawn planted on a roof. In Amsterdam, due to the prices of land and a lack of area some citizens moved to the boats. One may actually see floating houses. It's officialy permitted by authorities to live on a boat so for those who have registered facilities like water, current and gas are provided.


The trip itself was quite interesting but to be honest I don't remember much of it anymore. It was just a good opportunity to have a look on Amsterdam from another perspective.
Afterwards some of us (actually me and Buu) went to Van Gogh museum.


Unfortunately it was not allowed to make photos inside and we had just one hour to see what's in there. Eventhough it was worth it.
After that we just bought some souvenirs and tried to find the rest of us. And yes, we got lost:> Channels are awful to navigate through. Buu - you did well :)
Just to conclude the trip some thoughts are coming to my mind. First of all, Amsterdam and I believe Netherlands in general are a proof that forbidding something is not a way to get rid of it. Allowing people to smoke marijuhana and to drink alcohol in public places doesn't affect safety in the city. Ofcourse, I spent there just two days so obviously there is a number of issues I have not idea about.
Secondly, Amsterdam is really expensive. After all, not a big surprise I guess. Just to give a slight idea, Hamburger in McDonalds' in Hamburg costs 1 euro. In Amsterdam it's 1,80. Food in general IS expensive.
Amsterdam, despite its channels is quite easy to navigate. Around the city there is a Ring (well, it's not obvious that a city has a ring, Warsaw doesn't have it for instance, Hamburg doesn't need one).
To everyone: if I missed something just let me know. If I made some language mistakes let me know too.