Well I fell a bit behind on all this! Since I last posted, I’ve visited Edinburgh (where I met up with my old friend Cayt and her partner!), Manchester (attended a Pud Club hosted by my former research advisor), Dublin, Doolin (a tiny town on the west coast of Ireland that may be my favorite stop yet), and now find myself in Amsterdam. The past two nights I was in a hostel that had absolutely terrible wifi, but it seems like my new hostel is a little better in this regard.
It does seem that, different from hostels in other cities, the ones in Amsterdam seem to be populated with tourists over travelers. I didn’t know there was such a big distinction, but it’s something I’m noticing. A lot of people are here just to party, which is fine and all, but don’t yeild as strong of conversations and connections as I’ve found thus far in my travels. I’d planned to spend about a week in Amsterdam, but I think after my current hostel stay is up on Monday, I’ll head to a smaller city in the Netherlands, or maybe Bruges, or maybe even a few days in Paris, since I haven’t been since I was 11.
I did manage to find one area of Amsterdam my first night that I utterly loved. It’s an abandoned shipyard north of the river, accessible by a free ferry from Amsterdam Central Station. There is a three-bedroom hotel built vertically in an abandoned crane, an old shipping warehouse-turned-office building for a few dozen startups, and a couple of very cool bars; one with a fire circle in front of a tiny stage and one with dozens of giant cushions leaning against rocks on a gravelly area, perfect for stargazing while sipping “organic” beer. I met some locals here and had some truly excellent conversation about the work culture of the Netherlands.
I’ll get my tourism on a little bit today; I found out yesterday that there’s a microbiology museum here! It sounds fascinating and I’m looking forward to geeking out there for a bit.
Apparently the wifi’s not quite good enough for photo upload, but I’ll try to get some up later.
Kate T. Snyder, Ph.D. 