48 hours in Amsterdam - What's Our End Game?

What European city would be best to host Jimfest? Suitable for both a birthday and a final bender before fatherhood.

Hmmm...Amsterdam, here we come.

A prudent decision to celebrate an imprudent binge. Our friends hoped a short flight from Norway and we stuck with the terrestrial convenience of driving. Everyone arrived late Friday evening and due to our establishments being in opposite districts of the city - we called it a night and would rest up for the next day and a half.

Saturday morning we met up for brunch at Bakers and Roasters, a New Zealand owned establishment with delicious breakfast comfort foods. Here, we were introduced to the remaining Jimfest attendees - adding to the Norwegian invasion, although; only one member of our horde was officially from Norge. After brunch, we made our way to a street festival a few blocks away and continued to explore the city. Note, walking around Amsterdam is dangerous, the bicycles are bipedal battering rams and have complete disregard for all foot and vehicular traffic.

For the afternoon, we planned to tour the House of Bols and learn about the history of Genever - a local liquor specialty, followed with appropriate indulgences. Unfortunately, Julie hates gin (similar to Genever) and I was in the waning stages of my involuntarily imposed Salmonella diet - therefore, we couldn't stomach the event. Instead, we walked around the area near the Rijksmuseum - relaxing at a local cafe before heading back to the House of Bols.

Park in front of Rijksmuseum

When we returned, the employees of the House of A-holes (Bols) treated us like we were street rats. We asked if we could go into their bar to look for our friends who just completed their tour. Of course we could, but for the price of a tour ticket. No drifter access - even if you are just trying to reconnect with friends (or if you just want to get a drink at their bar). Eventually, the employees high-browed us out of their establishment once they realized we weren't going to be making any purchases. After being asked to leave the House of A-holes, we sat on a stoop and watched the line at the Van Gough museum slowly stagnate. Twenty minutes had passed by the time we were able to reconnect with our group using Viber on the local wireless internet. Our friends still had some drinks to finish and would be a little longer.

Canal and Westerkerk

Admiring house boats

While we waited, Nature beckoned, but we had no where to go - so why not annoy the House of A-Holes employees. To do so, we walked back in and were greeted with Dutch snarls - however, we disregarded their existence and walked to the bathrooms. A rather classless gesture, but the ends justified the means. Once our reconnaissance mission was complete and we still had some time to fill before going out to dinner - a perfect time to voyage the canals of Amsterdam.

One of many canals

Bikes:Amsterdam as A-Holes:House of Bols

Canal behind Rijksmuseum

Our friends were full of Genever and I was highly-caffeinated on coffee - what better way to exhaust our energy than paddle boat through the canals. Before we boarded our vessels, a family just disembarked on theirs. The parents seated in the back and three young children in the front - a cute, but incredibly ill-conceived decision. They drifted their way into the middle of the canal, but weren't moving anywhere. Then, a 40-foot tour boat maintained a collision course through the middle of the canal periodically blowing their horn. The children feverishly pedaled, but the boat remained idle due to the dead weight in the back seats. The boat sounded its horn a few more times as it approached and it appeared to have no intention of stopping. As if it all happened in slow motion - the boat hit the family in the paddle boat head on, a most scaring experience for the screaming children. A few minutes later the family was able to move their paddle boat to the far side of the canal.

Family being terrorized by large boat

And we're off

Commence beer hand-off

Maneuvering canal with ease

Let's keep going...you sure?

Another large boat

After our literal crash course on canal safety and priorities, we boarded our boat and were on our way. We had no trouble maneuvering our man-powered water chariot - circumventing boats, other paddle boaters - even completing precise beer hand-offs of between boats. We even took on a bridge underpass side by side - hand in hand, Thelma and Louise to the end. We explored the canals for an hour before returning to paddling headquarters, where we would dock and return to land. Strangely enough, while observing the struggles of newly disembarking paddlers, we saw two boats hit each other. The two captains yelled at each other, but we didn't stick around for the conclusion.

Westerkerk, burial site of Rembrandt

Maybe a better location for paddle boating families

The rest of the afternoon was spent exploring the city and canals from a safer distance. We enjoyed dinner downtown where I got another Dutch jeer while ordering a meal. Being that I was on the tail end of my Salmonella diet, I wasn't going to risk getting any meals other than plain rice or noodles. When asking for the blandest of meals, the waitress did her best to treat me like a xenophobe afraid to try bread. Our group would split up after dinner, the more lively half went to a concert while the boring married couples went to see Boom Chicago - an improv group based in Amsterdam the last twenty years.

The feature show we saw was called, "What's up with those Beards?" a very entertaining production and the performers didn't have to pull any teeth to get the audience to participate. We left the theater around 22:00 and the night was still young, the air was fresh and it was time to see the other half of Amsterdam.

We headed to the famous Red Light District, an area that needs no further description unless you were raised in a Puritan household. No pictures are allowed in the district, but you would need to Purell your eyes after witnessing such depravity in action. There were hordes of men lining the streets, mostly window shopping, but of course, there were customers out there. We saw an elderly Asian man standing alone, stark naked for reasons unknown, but could be inferred.

Those wanting to conceal their shame employed a noticeable exit strategy - stare at the ground and quickly abscond into the crowd. As time wore on, the quote of our weekend trip was coined when walking through the district longer than most married couples presumably visit. Jim drunkenly quiped, "sooo, what's our end game here?" A humorous way of putting how each of us probably felt at the time. We had overstayed our welcome and we all needed to undergo decontamination procedures after visiting. The next day we would stimulate our art and cultural sides with a visit to the Rijksmuseum.

Day Two

The next morning we met up in the Museum Square before heading into the Rijksmuseum. The building is massive and is home to numerous exhibits. The Rijksmuseum had a wonderful featured exhibit, "Art is Therapy,"

We walked through each room, reading the different exhibit exposes and also admired the more famous works. We saw a Van Gough self-portrait, a four-meter long model of the William Rex , ending with the very impressive works of Rembrandt. Everyone enjoyed our visit and each of us spoke of our collective fascination with "Art is Therapy." We all seemed to be most impressed with the "therapy" of Rembrandt's The Jewish Bride - a perspective that may have easily been overlooked to our untrained interpretation of art.

Famous sign as seen from inside Rijksmuseum

The Jewish Bride

Blurry Art is Therapy interpretation of The Jewish Bride

More "Art is Therapy"

BAT Bantam fighter biplane, on the top floor of all places

Van Gough Self-Portrait, would probably cut both ears off if he heard the word, "selfie."

Large model of the William Rex

The Night Watch

Perspective on size of painting

Unfortunately, this was the end of the line for Julie and myself - Jimfest was a wild success, but we had a long drive home. Julie and I wanted to stop in Belgium along the way for dinner and to purchase beer. We found a small restaurant and grocery store off the main road where we had dinner and shopped at the store. Lucky for us, the store was open until 18:00, leaving us 8 minutes and the store was still packed with customers. We grabbed a shopping cart and loaded it up with beer - not sure how the public viewed this, but Belgians make the best beer in the world - it was a necessity. The weekend went by too quick, but was an incredibly memorable one. We will most definitely be returning to explore the other attractions and museums of Amsterdam.