In the morning, we got up, said goodbye to Laura and Fabian, and walked to the bus station to catch our Student Agency bus to Amsterdam. When traveling in Europe, I highly recommend Student Agency (you don't have to be a student or even young) whenever that option is available. They tend to be the cheapest, they're buses are more comfortable than any other buses or trains, and they have cute stewardesses that provide free coffee, tea, and water!
The bus dropped us off a ways outside the city center, so we had to take the tram to the train station, where we used the unbelievably slow free wifi to look for a hostel. We settled on Centraal Hostel, which is almost centraally located in a quieter neighborhood just outside the center. It's a family run hostel that's pretty clean but not luxurious by any means. It's got comfy beds though. We met our German-speaking Italian roommates and then I went for my run.
I knew Amsterdam had a lot of bikes. I didn't know it had that many bikes, though, until I ran around the city center. There were bikes chained to lightposts, railings, and street signs. There were bikes strewn idly on the sidewalk. And of course there were rows and rows of bikes parked in bike racks. Within any given city-block's length of street (or canal), there were hundreds and hundreds of bikes lying around, and dozens more zipping to and fro under the direction of the bored Amsterdamites carrying out their two-wheeled evening commute. Bikes are king in Amsterdam. It's hard to find any streets without 3-plus foot wide bike lanes on both sides, and instead of the bike lanes and sidewalks dipping down to meet the level of the streets they cross, oftentimes the streets rise up flush with the level of the bike lanes and sidewalks, creating a seamless, smooth ride/walk for bikes and pedestrians and providing a psychological signal to drivers that they are the second-class commuters.
Amsterdam also has lots of canals - more canals than Venice, in fact, although Amsterdam's a lot bigger so it's not really a fair comparison. Still, it has a lot of canals. The city center is surrounded by four main canals that loop around it in a horseshoe shape. For today's run, I followed the three inner canals. At some point on my run, I decided I really liked Amsterdam. It's kind of an aspiring urban planner's dream city. It's medieval/renaissance layout and pre-20th century forms of transportation (biking,, boating, and walking) combine with new urban design ideas that make it a generally pleasant, unique, and easy-to-get-around place (so long as you're good at dodging bikes).
After running, we went to Rembrandt Square, near the university, to find some cheap food. Amsterdam is expensive, and it seems there is only one street in the city center that caters to poor university students. We then went to a bar across the street from the hostel, where we met some Americans from Minnesota and Iowa who were also staying in our hostel (small world).
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| Train Station |
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| Not-at-all awkward statue at a park near our hostel |
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