The City of Sin & Freedom • Amsterdam Travel Diary

by Unknown - July 23, 2017

One of my first holidays aboard since 2011 and I was lucky enough to spend 4 days with my friends in the most beloved and liberal cities in the world, Amsterdam, the capital city of the Netherlands. There was so much to do and I think 4 days was a good amount of days to explore and experience the city.

Me and my friends travelled with KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines) and we stayed with ibis Hotel near the airport (I recommend staying at a hotel which gives a free shuttle buses towards your hotel and the airport.)

We did various of things around Amsterdam, mainly walked for hours cause most things are of walking distance, but from what I experienced in Amsterdam is that everyone is so diverse. The number of bikes people utilise was overwhelming, I’ve never seen a city with so many bikes. The transportation in the city is very accessible and can vary from buses, trams, trains and boats, may I add on to the fact that their transportation and roads were very clean compared to the ones in England. I think that it’s such a genius idea to have bicycle roads.

One of the main touristy things to do was go to museums, we visited the ‘Iam Amsterdam’ sign in Leidseplein, it's also a good social club hub and the Magna Plaza is great for a shopping spree.

We also got to take pictures inside the Rijksmuseum. Unfortunately, we were unable to visit the Van Gogh Museum or the NEMO science museum because we were such broke university students. One of the most exciting museums to walk around was the Sex Museum in Amsterdam Centraal, it was a good laugh and I’ve never seen the idea of sex in a form of a museum, really shows how Amsterdam is so liberal and casual with the whole idea of sex, let's just say that me and my friends were so immature about the whole situation we saw a lot of dicks, boobs, positions and vaginas that day hahah. I really do recommend going to the sex museum its only 5 euros.

In the topic of sex, me and my friends visited the infamous Red Light district. During the day it was very quiet but during the night the area becomes awash with drunk, gawking tourist moving slowly down the streets as very beautiful girls show off inside a clear doored room. It was packed when I went and there were a lot of thirsty men staring at these girls. It was my first time experiencing prostitution like this.

Amsterdam is a city tied to the water, it grew around its canals and rivers, the canals of Amsterdam are incredibly beautiful so another fun activity we did was go canal cruising, we didn't opt for the traditional sit seeing tour boats which a lady speaks in a monotone voice narrating everything we see from left to right. We decided to go for an open air peddle boat, it was engine by peddling it was only 9 euros for an hour and it was the most fun yet scariest things we’ve done. The people of Amsterdam waved at us and we even got stuck and lost most of the time.

There are so many places to eat in Amsterdam one places I love eating was Foodhallen, it's a basically what the name implies – a food hall! This is an in for food market which has various vendors serving a variety of delicious food and drinks. It’s also neighbours with an art and film exhibition hall. I don't know about you but most of the restaurants and shops I've visited there was a cat inside, like literally cats walked around freely in the restaurants! As a cat lover I loved the idea of a cat sitting next to me while I eat. We also got to do Glow in the dark golf!

We have to talk about the coffeeshops, as weed is legal in Holland we had to experience the coffee shops, you’ll find them everywhere and the smell of weed literally lingers. Now I didn’t smoke it because I don't smoke but we did eat weed brownies, we also went to a lot of weed convenient stores where we saw different forms of weed such as weed lollipop, drink, ice cream, and cookies. I warn you just don’t take it too much it was my first encounter of weed and I pretty much lost the plot.

The city deserves more than just the few (and often smoke filled) days travelers give it, but if a few days is all you have and you want to make the most of it, this is the itinerary I would give to someone looking to get a good overview and feel for what makes Amsterdam so special.