The Non-Stoners Amsterdam

Quick Tips:

For a good source of info try http://www.amsterdamagenda.info/ it is a website sponsored by Flying Pig Hostels, and has information on nightlife, coffee shops, museums, food, shopping, and events.

Best Way To Get Around:

Walking is cheapest, bring a map because the streets can be confusing. Everything is less than 30 minutes away by foot. Amsterdam is a city of bikes, if walking isn't your style try renting a bike from Mac Bikes, you can find them online at http://www.macbike.nl/
There are trams that run around the city for €1.60, but listen carefully to the PA system for your stop because the trams only stop if you press the button.

This hostel is a wonderful place to stay! Free sheets and breakfast, and a travelers bar downstairs that is a great place to hear stories and find something to do for the next day. The staff can be helpful, but don't trust their directions, always look at a map. Full kitchen, decent showers that are always hot and moderately clean. Dorms of 6-14 people and single and double rooms. The Flying Pig has it's own newspaper that gives suggested walking tours, up-dates on places to go and museums to see, as well as a map of the city with key locations which is very helpful in a city where streets don't go straight.

The atmosphere is very lade-back, but you don't have to be stoned to get along the people. AND, they have a hostel cat that is great and always wanting to be pet by travelers missing their pets at home.

On a beautiful canal-facing road is a massive tulip market with 2 blocks of booths selling every kind of tulip, in bulb form as well as fresh flowers. The sight of all the different kinds of tulips is amazing. On the other side of the street are tourist shops with everything you could imagine with Amsterdam printed on it: clothes, bags, lighters, pins, and magnets, as well as Holland's famous wooden shoes.

This is a excerpt from a e-mail I wrote home...

In Amsterdam you either ride a bike or walk everywhere, driving sucks and the trams are expensive.

I walked so much that my new pants bought so that I didn't need a belt now need a belt.

I walked so much that my shoe lace broke.

I walked so much that I have crossed every canal in Amsterdam.

I walked so much that my poor map is falling apart from being used to get my unlost.


Amsterdam has been a blast, and because I don't smoke and I don't really drink, cheap!
I have done so well on my budget that I went out to dinner last night with a girl from my hostel that for the first time in her life had the munchies. We had amazing tai food..Oh the spring rolls in peanut sauce... oh the green curry with fresh veggies... OK now i am hungry again.

The tulips here are amazing, not many are bluming because they have had a particularly cold and long winter, but I went to a tulip market and saw hundreds of varieties that would blow your mind. Black ones with white speckles that looks more like an orchid. The tulip market lined a canal and the boats in the canals doing tours stopped to point it out.

Yesterday I adventured from the far side of town that I live on all the way to the Red Light District in the heart of the city. It is a bazaar sight to stand on a bridge and see a 1500's church to the left and a sex show house to the right. The church in this area is breath taking. It has amazing tall spires with gold tops and stained glass windows. The prostitutes in the window were not so breath taking. But seems to draw a crowed of 20 something boys on break from University for Easter.