October 11th: Amsterdam, Day 6

It's been over a year since this happened and I still haven't finished writing about this trip, I am very bad at this and am now itching for another solo adventure. Anyways, on to the good stuff!

Train to Amsterdam

Amsterdam Centraal

I got on a train to Amsterdam at 8:30 in the morning. It was a relatively short ride from Paris Nord to Amsterdam Centraal at only around 3 hours, which was a lot shorter than I had expected. The station was gorgeous and I went out to find my hotel, dodging bikes along the way.

I stayed at the Old Nickel hotel, only a short ways away from the train station. I had to check in at a pub under the same name, and since I was early, I just left my luggage in the galley area which was essentially just a room with a sink and a large jar of trail mix.

Albert Cyup Market

After leaving my things, I decided to try and figure out public transportation. There are a lot of trolleys and a metro system for public travel around the city if you didn't want to bike around. I wandered around the canal for a bit, people watching, before I got hungry. I remembered wanting to go to the Albert Cyup Market so I looked up the metro line to get there and hopped on the 52 Metro in Centraal to De Pijp You can just use ApplePay for the metro which was a huge plus for me, not having to download yet another transportation card to throw more money on to. It took me a minute to figure out where I was going in the station but luckily, almost everyone there spoke English and signs had English on them as well. I got off at the De Pijp station and followed Google Maps to the street I wanted. There were several blocks worth of vendors with clothing and food and art, and I knew I hit the travel jackpot. I avoid buying clothes when I go abroad because it's just disappointing (lol), but it was nice to see the different fashions in the city. I took a look at the local artists and purchased a small watercolor painting of one of the canals before taking a look at the food options. I wandered the entire length of the market before making my choices and I went with a couple classics, the stroopwafel and a cone of fries with some not-so-classic spicy mayo.

Pro tip: do not go to the Van Wonderen stroopwafel shop. It is not worth it. Go here to the market for a GIANT stroopwafel the size of your hand and freshly made in front of you. It's warm and gooey and not mass made for show. It's also almost half the price for double the size. SO worth it. I would have eaten 10 of them.

The stroopwafel I had was delicious and the fries were also very good. Both were freshly made and totally worth the trip. While I was walking the streets, I found an Asian grocery store and knew I had to stop in. I actually ended up helping out one of the customers who was looking for a can of water chestnuts. He was attempting to make a stir fry for his girlfriend and couldn't find them anywhere. They had a cute little restaurant inside the grocery store but I saw that they carried cans of Diet Coke and immediately grabbed one. I was in dire need of one and I kept walking around the market. After I did an up and down of the street, I decided to go to the Anne Frank house.

Anne Frank House and Statue

I took the trolley from the market to the Anne Frank house and just stood outside it for a minute. Sadly, tickets were sold out when I was planning this trip so I definitely recommend ordering them as soon as possible! They have both English and Dutch tours which was a nice accommodation. I read some of the fact sheets they had on the building and some info boards they had standing outside just to get some more of the history and the stories told. It was kind of an emotional thing to see because you can always imagine what things look like and how things could have played out but it's completely different to see where all these stories really took place. I sat outside of the house and went through the virtual tour on my phone, just to get at least a little bit of a look inside. After finishing the virtual tour, I found the statue of Anne Frank and ended up going back to my room before the canal tour.

I went back to the pub to grab my things before going to my room (which happened to be like a block away). The young man working the bar was very nice and helped me with my gigantic suitcase and showed me where I was staying. I insisted on doing it myself but he said that he would do it for me because of the stairs. Before coming to Amsterdam, I was not warned of the stair situation. Bless that young man because those stairs were STEEP and NARROW and he was so kind to take my suitcase up for me. The room was quite literally like a 5ft by 6ft room with a tiny bathroom attached. It made sense for how much the room ended up being. But, I was just sleeping there so I had no issue with it. I grabbed a light jacket out of my suitcase before heading out to the canal tour and braving going down the stairs.

Canal Tour

The canal tour wasn't far but it took me a minute to find the boat. Google Maps wasn't good to me on that one. Once I actually found the boat, I was seated at a table for one before being moved to a table with a very nice man who was also on a solo trip. We were the only two people there solo but it was nice meeting someone I wouldn't have otherwise interacted with. We got pizzas along with our tour and they were okay, but the ride on the boat was the best part. We got some facts about the city and the canals and got to see how close people park to the canals along with the amount of bikes that fall in.

Victoria Hotel

After the tour, I walked around, enjoying the night for a little, before heading back to my room. I showered in the smallest shower in the world and listened to the night life pass by under my window.