Yesterday, I took a train from Antwerp to Amsterdam....it was not as simple as it sounds. We got to the train station in Antwerp, and could not determine which train we were one because the names were different in Flemish than in English. The security guards told us that our train was on platform 22. We got to platform 22, but there was already a train there. We asked a woman if that was our train, and she said it wasn't. We watched that train leave, and then asked another woman who worked there if we were at the correct platform. She said that we were, and then once we would get to Roosendaal, we would have to change trains. We waited for our train to come, and a Thalys train came. We asked the ticket man if this was our train, and it wasn't. We waited for the next train, and we got on. A man came around to check out tickets. He told us that we got on the wrong train because it made several stops before Roosendaal. However, our tickets were inner-city tickets, so we did get on the correct train.
Anyways, we got to Roosendaal and waited for our train to Amsterdam. Well, our train switched platforms, so we went to the new platform. Then there was an announcement saying that it was not the correct train, so we got off the train and asked people who worked there. They did not know what was going on, so we got back on the train. We met a woman from Massachusetts, and she was also going to Amsterdam; this made us feel better! We passed a lot of cows on our way to Amsterdam. I also saw a couple windmills, so that was very exciting.
We got to Amsterdam, and it was dark and gloomy outside. We wanted to go to the Anne Frank House first because it often has a long line, so we headed that way (for more info, see the Anne Frank House post). After the Anne Frank House, we wanted to get some lunch because we were really hungry. We knew that the Benelux countries were famous for steak and potatoes, so we sought out a place that served steak. We found a place, and it ended up being an Argentinean restaurant (might as well practice their food before we get there)! They had a lot of different murals, but my favorite was of a cow and dolphin jumping out of water.
We both ordered schnitzel with a baked potato and garlic butter bread. It was pretty good!
After lunch, we headed towards the Red Light District. We stopped in a souvenir shop along the way, and everything in it referred to different kinds of pot. There were different kinds of bongs everywhere. It was very distasteful. There was even a t-shirt that said "Amsterdam" with a traffic light on it. The red light was the silhouette of a naked woman, the yellow was of beer, and the green was of pot. It was very sad to see this because Amsterdam is such a beautiful city with canals and flowers everywhere. I did not like what people turned the city into. Needless to say, we left this shop and went to another one. I found some postcards, and I asked the woman behind the counter where her spoons were. They were right in front of me. Then I asked her where her pins were, and they were also right in front of me. I apologized, and she asked me if I had been smoking... nice. After we left this shop, we continued on to the Red Light District.
We could not find it; it was so frustrating! We were located in what seemed to be their version of Chinatown, but the map said that it was the Red Light District. I saw a red canopy down an alley, so we went through it to the next street. Let me just say that we found the Red Light District real fast! There were windows in the alley with red canopies and red lanterns. In the windows, there were either women in different forms of lingerie, or the curtains were drawn. In these tiny little rooms, there were stairs that led to their rooms. It was very startling! We walked to the next street which had many different kinds of sex shops. There were also live sex shows, just like in Hamburg. It was not overwhelming like Hamburg however, because there weren't any brothels or paintings on walls of naked women. The windows with the women were in all of the alleys that led off this street.
After we left the Red Light District, we headed back towards the train station. It had started to rain heavier. Many of the museums that we would have wanted to go to were pretty far away. We did not want to walk there in the rain, and we had to watch the time because of our train back. We decided that we would try to take an earlier train, and we did. On this train, somehow, there was a parrot. It kept squawking because a group of guys kept agitating it. It was horrible. We changed trains at Roosendaal again. On that train back to Antwerp, there were people who kept taking pictures of themselves with their wine bottle the WHOLE ride home! We made it back to Antwerp safe, although it was raining there too.
I really liked the Antwerp train station because of its architecture. Also, i thought it was amazing to have three different levels on top of each other that trains could be on. It amazed me that the floors could hold up that much weight.
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