Beda Gracht

Day 3

By the time I woke up, disorientation had definitely set in. This was the third different place I was waking up in in the last 3 days. It was going to be more of the same for the next week and a half. Despite sleeping at close to 4am, we were both up at around 9am, desperate to not let daylight go to waste.

We realized that we had not booked the room at the HEM hotel where the package included breakfast. For €12.50 per person, the breakfast was working to be quite expensive for someone traveling on a shoe string budget. But after facing starvation in the midst of gluttony of so many varieties, there was an urgent need for food in the body, that is if we wanted to avoid fainting in the cold. Breakfast was what you would see in any hotel: scrambled eggs, sausages, fruits, yogurt and assorted meats to stack your plate with. Believe me when I tell you that I made sure I ate my €12.50s worth. We made sure we inquired about leaving our luggage at the hotel the next day so that we would not have to suffer the craziness of check out time.

Then it was back to the Westlandgracht tram station and we were back to Leidseplien. All traces of the madness from last night had been removed and the place didn't look like a combination of a football party, a Vegas casino and a Columbian drug lord's harem any more. Today we had decided not to carry any cameras with us. I had been to Amsterdam before and so just wanted to relive the experience again. Pictures could wait until tomorrow after I had scoped the spots. Today was about walking around. And that is what we started with.

We walked to Koningsplien and the flower market. It was so interesting to see such vibrant colours and finally see the tulips that we had missed in The Hague the previous day. There were also a lot of the souvenir stores that you see everywhere in Amsterdam. I saw a couple of things I liked, but had to keep in mind the space I had in my luggage, not to mention the space that was growing with my wallet emptying faster than anticipated. The walk moved towards Rembrandtplien after we heard the chime of the clock tower announcing it was 2pm. Aah, what a sweet, melodious sound! But we quickly tired of Rembrandtplien and we were both curious to see stuff that was highlighted on the tourist map we were carrying. Again and again, the red light area would pop up on the map as if it was drawing us, so we tried to figure out where we were on the map and see if we can find it. Looked like we had to take a tram, which we did. After about 15 minutes on the tram, we realized that we were heading the wrong way, so the best way was to get back to either Daam or Leidseplien. We let chance decide. From the number of the tram that came first, it had to be Dam. Worked out well for us, cause we had landed about 50 meters from where we wanted to go.

It was a strange experience for me, what with all these scantily clad women making lewd gestures towards you and beckoning you to "come hither" so that they can relieve you of the heavy burden of money you carry around with you. What was also amazing was to see them all in one line, them displaying their wares in tiny windows. It almost made me laugh out loud, but I was quite successful in keeping my chortle down.

All this walking had made me thirsty (read beer time), so we headed into a british pub and had these large glasses of beer while staring across a canal at another set of quite pretty women displaying their flat tummies and surgically enhanced assets to prospective customers. Every once in a while, one or the other  would find success in ensnaring a helpless hormonal tourist and the curtain would close on that window. The weather meant that I did not have to wear too many layers and not zip up, so the beer and the entertainment across the street was just what the doctor told me not to do :D

But this entertainment kind of gets old on you rather quickly and the next destination was the Anne Frank Huis (that's how the Dutch spell the "ow" sound - with something that to me sounds like a "ooee"). This too was close to Daam, and so only a short walk towards Princengracht. While walking toward it, I noticed the Apple store (Praveen wanted to buy the iPhone 4 since his iPhone had conked off), but it was closed for Sunday (Lordag as they would say it).

I was greeted at entrance to the Anne Frank Huis with a big queue, at least 50 people trying to get in. And I later realized the number of people allowed in was based on the number of people leaving the Huis. I waited for my turn (not something I enjoy doing in the cold, but the weather was more my type, so I didn't mind), paid my €8.50 as entrance fee, picked up an information booklet and then proceeded to see what the fuss was about. A disclaimer here: I have read only a little bit of "The Diary of a Little Girl" and so was unfamiliar with a lot of her quotes. But I must say, I was blown away by the experience. How the secret annexe where they hid for so many months was so tiny, how the entrance to the hideaway was behind a bookcase which had been built specifically for that purpose so that it could open. But mostly, it was about the depth of this little girl's thoughts that blew me away. I was so glad my daughter asked me to come for this tour. It was definitely worth it! I bought a poster of Anne Frank for my daughter as a souvenir from the place and I'm quite sure I want to get her here one day so that she can experience what I experienced.

On the walk back to Daam, I was in a pensive mood, thinking about all the atrocities committed against the Jewish people during the Holocaust. How an entire country went mad. We can all blame Hitler for the crimes, and I know that monster deserves it, but an entire country was complicit in committing those crimes. Something terrible must have happened to make normal decent people turn to badly against a race of people and to treat them this way.

It was close to 4pm and my tummy had started to rumble a bit. Back to Leidseplien we went, and this time to the Hard Rock Cafe where we were quite certain we would get veggie food for Praveen. The Aussie stewardess made us comfortable at the table, chatted about how she loved being in Amsterdam and then brought us freshly brewed Heineken while we waited for our food.

There's a canal running right by the HRC (that's where the photo is taken from) and there were ducks and trash (surely from the night before) floating around toward some unknown destination. It was cold enough to not want to be out without our jackets and so back in we went, this time our food had already reached our table. After eating and feeling quite content, we headed to the HRC store to pick up souvenirs of our visit there. Praveen and I both have a penchant for collecting HRC shirts from all the places we have visited, but I already had an HRC shirt from there from my previous trip, so I passed.

By the time we were done, we struck up a conversation about the possibility to go to Rotterdam. It meant that we would probably get there by 8pm (not the best time to go to a European city on a Sunday) and we were ill-prepared for information on the destination. So we decided to give it a pass. More walking around and then we headed to the hotel unsure whether we wanted to have dinner or not.

At around 9ish, Praveen was feeling hungry, so we headed on the #2 tram line looking for an Indian restaurant (Praveen wanted to eat some dal chaval) and we ended up at this place called Moti Mahal. A crappy dinner later, we were both standing at the tram station cursing Indian restaurants for not living up to the standards of food we as Indians are so used to.

Back to the hotel it was, to recharge our phone / camera / laptop batteries, not to mention our own batteries as well. It had been a fairly laid back day with relatively few things actually done, but a lot of places seen which were prime candidates for photos. That would be tomorrow.

Right now, it was slumber time!