XXX: Part 1

Before you get the wrong idea, the triple X does not mean anything lewd or lascivious.  This was one of the more important things I learned from my handy-dandy Amsterdam and the Netherlands Fodor's guidebook.  The XXX you see everywhere is simply because they are "part of Amsterdam's official coat of arms--three St. Andrew's crosses, believed to represent the three dangers that have traditionally plagued the city: flood, fire and pestilence."  Of course, with Amsterdam's reputation you may tend to believe otherwise. 

On Saturday, I took a trip to the infamous city of Amsterdam with five other exchange students:  Wendy, Blake, Jane, and Ada, all from Illinois; and Sam, who is from Canada.  We kind of threw the excursion together at the last minute, seeing as we met each other Tuesday and sort of discussed it, then met again on Thursday and finally decided on it.  We considered spending the night, but most hostels require at least a 2 night stay so that was nixed due to (thanks to Josh and Chip) the 4 P's: Piss Poor Prior Planning.   This wasn't exactly piss poor, but I would still say poor prior planning played a part (haha I love alliteration!).

After a failed Friday (I accidentally shut off my alarm without resetting it, resulting in me sleeping in until 9:30 am when class starts at 8:30), I was definitely looking forward to taking a fun trip and exploring my new surroundings.

Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I woke up at 8:15 so I could trudge into town with my bike and meet up with everyone.  Mind you, it's a good 20-30 minute walk depending on how fast you go and I was running late.  Of course.  The reason I didn't ride my bike is because the back tire is currently flat and doesn't hold air--far from ideal in a place where the motto is "No bike--no life."

I had a minor freak out because I managed to miss the group of people I was going with (they all live in the Brink Residence, which is temporary housing for international students) but thankfully found them at the bus station.   We had to take a bus to Ede (pronounced "aide-ah") where there is a train station.  Upon getting to the train station, we thought there wasn't any way to buy train tickets because all we saw were machines that didn't take our cards.  Some kind security guard man informed us that there was a ticket office and that we had to go down the stairs and then up them to get by the platforms.  Then we got confused and went up the wrong stairs to get to the ticket office.  Needless to say, the day was off to a great start.

The minute we stepped outside of the Centraal Station in Amsterdam, we all stopped, stared, gawked, pointed and snapped pictures.  There was so much to take in! People were everywhere, trams were whizzing around, birds were flying, it was windy and then it started to rain.  Blake was quick to point out that we were acting exactly like tourists, which made us all laugh.  One thing to note is that Amsterdam really is a tourist town, so I personally don't think it is anything to be ashamed of.

I was inadvertently made the navigator of the day because I had my guidebook out and was immediately trying to figure out in which direction we should walk to start seeing the sights.  We walked down a main road, Damrak, and were able to see the Royal Palace and the National Monument in Dam Square.  Unfortunately for us, the Royal Palace was/has been under construction, so you can't see the front because it's all covered with scaffolding and plastic.  Apparently, Queen Beatrix stays here sometimes but she's had rather poor encounters with Amsterdam in the past, i.e. student groups interrupting her wedding carriage ride with smoke bombs and riots interrupting her coronation.  Quite unfortunate for a Queen, really.

Royal Palace (covered by construction)

The National Monument is in honor of all the Dutch who died in World War II.  In it are 12 urns: 11 with soil from each of the Dutch provinces and 1 with soil from each of the former Dutch colonies (Suriname, the Antilles, Indonesia).  My guidebook poked fun at how it looks...I'll let you use your imagination and read my caption.

For the record, it's very useful to actually READ a guidebook before you go to the place it is guiding you through.  I got a lot more out of seeing everything in Amsterdam by reading about the places and then recognizing them than I would have had I just gone and looked at everything.  You can also spout off useful/less facts about the various places of note and sound like a twit, but at least you learn something.

National Monument (in all its phallic glory)

And here, with this wonderful picture of me standing in a wooden shoe, is where I leave you today.  It's past my bed time here in Tulip-a-go-go-land, as Olivia calls it.  I promise the rest of my XXX adventure very soon!

Wendy, myself and Sam in the necessary wooden shoe