Solo In Amsterdam

I’ve just returned from a week spent in Amsterdam. The notoriously fickle Dutch weather put on a splendid display for me while I was there – sunny, temps in the mid to high teens (going up to 21C a couple of days).

Arriving sleepless and tired after an overnight flight, I took a train to my hotel. Let me say here how great the transportation is in Amsterdam and the Netherlands. Trains every few minutes into the city centre; trains that will get you anywhere and everywhere; and plenty of methods of public transportation around the city. You don’t even need to purchase a ticket/OV card, just tap your debit/credit card in and out. Seamless, easy. Whenever I travel to Europe I always marvel at:

a)   Their public transportation

b)   How Europeans speak two or more languages (sometimes four or five) with such ease, sometimes switching fluidly from one language to the next in the same breath.

I travelled solo (as I frequently do) and, if you’ve followed me here for a while, you know that I’m often torn between straddling my two selves: my home self and my away self.

If you’re interested in the highlights, I did a series of Instagram posts. But here in this blog (with fewer readers and who are willing to read longer ramblings), I can write and reflect differently. I did spend my birthday solo in Amsterdam (it wasn’t intended to be a birthday trip, it happened that the flights I chose had the best rates on those days that coincided with my schedule).

So, here are some random things I observed/did or didn’t do/reflected upon:

• Lots of young Dutch women (teens/twenties) are very natural and fresh-faced, unlike the majority of their counterparts in North American cities who seem to favour heavily made-up visages. No judgements, just an observation that struck me as I rode the trains and trams.
• While Amsterdam is a pretty city (how can it not be with those lovely canals), what I enjoyed more were the day trips outside Amsterdam. Delft was absolutely picture-postcard perfect. Utrecht was lovely too, both easy to get to by train. I wish I’d been able to visit Gouda as well as Haarlem. An online friend (originally Dutch) told me to get outside Amsterdam and she was right.
  
  
  
• The guided tour I took to the countryside and the small towns of Edam, Marken, Volendam and the preserved windmills at Zaanse Schans was another highlight away from the bustle of Amsterdam. The group was larger than I’d have liked (about 50 people) and of course there are always the stragglers who do not return to the meeting point at the appointed time after a free spell to wander.  I had to silently concur when the guide gave a stern lecture about respecting the time of others. I do not understand these people. As the guide said, everyone has a phone/smartwatch etc., so there’s no excuse. People, please don’t be the one others have to stand around waiting for on a group tour.
  
  
  
• On this same tour, I was sitting on the bus next to an American woman who was travelling with friends (12 women on a cruise ending in Amsterdam). We both pointedly avoided talking politics or U.S./Canada relations. She was from New Jersey, so I had a feeling she might be on the right (as in correct) side, but I wasn’t going to try and verify that.
  
  
  
•  If you’re using Google to navigate streets to a certain destination (like a tram stop to return to the hotel), Google will sometimes lie to you. You have arrived! No, I haven’t.
  
  
  
• The Rijks Museum was superb. I love visiting art museums but I also find it tiring and sometimes overwhelming, so I found it best to pace myself and include frequent sitting breaks. There can be such a thing as too much art all at once! I did not make it to the Van Gogh Museum (the only day tickets were available was the day I had a ticket to the Anne Frank house. I chose the latter).
  
  
  
•  Anne Frank house. Somber, sobering, moving, with a superb audio guide. After the tour I had to sit quietly for a while. When we went up to the secret annex of the house, there were quite a few people in the first small, dark room we entered, and I initially panicked, feeling the lack of air. But I calmed down and reminded myself of the 8 people (including Anne) who shared the secret annex for two years! The annex is divided up into three floors and one tiny bathroom which they had to be very careful using lest the noise of the water give them away to anyone who might be at the house looking for Jews. I read The Diary of Anne Frank many years ago. I have it on my bookshelves at home and have pulled it out for a re-read.
  
  
  
•  Location, location, location is what I always look for when booking a hotel. But Amsterdam is an expensive city and I had booked my flight only a month before I left, my accommodation even later. And so I stayed in an area, which, even though just 5 minutes by train into Amsterdam Centraal, and 20 minutes by Tram 19 to the museum neighbourhood, was mostly just a commuter district without the charm of the city. There was a big conference centre and casino (not my thing) nearby, but a lack of places to walk to for dinner. Although, one of the best dinners I had was at a snazzy Japanese restaurant across from the casino.
  
• Speaking of food, my trips usually have a focus on food. The Dutch, however, are not known for their cuisine and so, apart from a few delicious items, this trip wasn’t really a ‘food’ experience. My favourites were the stroopwafel, the apple pie, and the poffertjes (mini pancakes). I had the poffertjes from a little stall in Marken (on the bus tour) and the husband-wife team made them right in front of me, hot, delicious, smothered in butter and powdered sugar. The wife communicated with me in English, the next woman in Spanish, and the next in Dutch. When I asked her how many languages she spoke, she said, nonchalantly, as if it was no big deal, “Five.” This is such an advantage, to have that power of languages which widens the possibility of connection to so many more people.
• You can pack a resistance band and tell yourself you will use it. You won’t.
  
  
  
•  I travel light (one tiny carry-on, one small backpack), and in my pics you will see me in the same clothes over and over. I don’t care. I wash and wear because I absolutely loathe lugging a bulky case around. But even so, I usually return having not worn one or two things. This time was no exception, there was one top I didn’t wear and the dress I took I wore only once. Lesson learned, because on my previous trip I also wore a dress only once. No more dresses.
  
  
  
• If you spend a birthday alone in a foreign city, it’s not a big deal, not when you’ve already had a LOT of birthdays (and hopefully a lot more). After a day spent on a walking tour, then wandering on my own (including through the Red Light district which I found quite poignant and sad), when I got back to my hotel room there was a small bottle of prosecco and two flute glasses (I only needed one) awaiting me. I poured a glass of bubbly and wished myself a happy birthday. I video-chatted with my daughter as well as a close friend and poured myself the last of the bubbly.
  
  
  
• Which brings me to: solo travel and the two selves. I ponder this often when I travel. I love being home, enjoy my routines and activities, and when I’m away I sometimes wonder why I extricate myself from one comfortable zone and plonk myself into an unfamiliar one, alone. And yet, I do it over and over, because wanderlust continues to tug at me. Not only do I learn about the places I travel to and immerse myself in, but I also realize small, sometimes inconsequential, things about myself. I much prefer smaller towns to most big cities, although I love many of the things that big cities offer (like art museums). The hotel can have amenities like a gym, sauna, rooftop terrace and launderette (which my hotel did), and I’ll never use them (I wash my clothes by hand). The hotel location is far more important than its amenities.
• I love day-tripping. I am confident in my ability (and my phone, although see prior reference to Google) to navigate public transportation in a foreign city. I’m okay with being alone at home (I’ve known this for a long time), but when I’m travelling solo, I do enjoy the occasional tour with people (maybe not 50 of them) and getting a feel for who they are, where they come from, and what brought them there. Small connections can serve as substitutes for the deeper ones at home.
  
  
  
  
• When I’m away from home I sometimes miss my ‘home’ self, the one that reads and thinks and writes and paints. But I know I will return to her. She is always there, waiting.