oh this cute Amsterdam (weekend)

 

Basiliek van de Heilige Nicolaas

As spontaneous as it was, the trip to Amsterdam turned out to be not - as expected - just a weekend sketching journey - but simply the state of mind! 

 This time couchsurfing was nothing else but helpful. It was when my host Arthur and his dog took me out from the Amsterdam Centraal train station, when I have noticed that beautiful church. I resit drawing it later on. The catholic Basiliek van de Heilige Nicolaas has simply enchanted me with its beautiful rose window and bourgeois surrounding! I sat on the marina in this autumn sun while some Asian tourists were taking photos of the church, my drawing and obviously me.

Water everywhere

 For some reason, I was really ignorant about this trip. Although I read that Amsterdam counts about 818,000 people and about 880,000 bikes, I forgot to read that it has plenty of channels, bridges and obviously the house boats! It was enough to spend there 10 minutes to notice that water is certainly extremely important in this city (just as much as for me!). The endless number of bridges makes it difficult to provide a reasonable network of public transport or streets suitable for cars - no wonder that having a bike (or two) is just as normal as having a haircut. Apparently the bottom of the Amsterdam's channels contains three layers: mud, bikes and water.

Red light district

Although the presence of channels was a nice surprise, I have totally forgotten that prostitution is here legal too. Quite relaxed, I went out from my host's place (what was exactly in the city centre) to eat something, when I looked left and ... oh-my-god -- naked woman! Absolutely shocked, I went further confused as hell, and there was another glass window with another one!!! And another one! Don't take me wrong - I know how women look like, but it was absolutely nothing that I expected! Of course later on, I simply got used to it and walked that street without stress, but first time was quite adventurous.

Cannabis

 When I told my friend Monika that I am going to Amsterdam, she asked me straight away - could you buy there something for me? My answer was immediate: "No!". Of course I knew that marijuana is legal there. However I was very surprised to see sooo many coffee shops there. I could sniff the smell of weed simply everywhere on the streets. All those groups of blokes who were sitting there all day long with absent looks or who walked the streets like zombies made quite miserable impression. My host had also some other couchsurfer who has smoked the whole day and I am not surprised that he asked her to leave his place. Admittedly, I did not smoke there (although I was seriously tempted to eat some vegan cannabi ice cream! I guess it was more about vegan ice cream that are seriously difficult to get anywhere you are and not about cannabis). Although I believe in people's freedom and I fully understand the ideas behind legalisation of marijuana, I was quite happy to walk somewhere, where I am not forced to sniff this smoke constantly. Adding to that the cigarette addiction of my host, who smoked a lot in his flat, I felt my lungs crave for fresh air.

Couchsurfing


 Do you want to meet interesting people in the city you do not know? Well, you are in the right place! Couchsurfing. At the train station I was looking for a meeting point that my host creatively sent me over whatsapp. Well - difficult to miss, but I still needed to ask someone for the direction...

Then, at home, I realised that I am definitely not going to get bored there! In the flat were another 3 travelling girls and a dog! Although my host was about 30 years older than me and girls (no idea how old is his doggy tough) , I felt with him and with girls that we caught some cool connection. Roberta was from Italy, Alexa from Colombia, Karen from Peru and me from Poland, living currently in Cologne. Our food choices (me - vegan and Roberta gluten-allergic) were the constant source of jokes for our host, who looked for "glutenfrei" everything :). We had lots of fun at the CS weekly event on Saturday and at the Winston club later on (ultimately, it was the last night in Europe for Karen!). On the way home, we managed even to meet a group of Spaniards who were looking for the address of their bike rent store. After while, they realised that they also do not know the address of their own hostel.... at 5 at the morning...  How sweet...

Although I love  cats more than dogs, Misty was exceptional! 

Hansa city

 I must admit I fell in love with this architecture of the city. 

 On Sunday I decided to actually stick to my resolutions. In the end, I came to Amsterdam with a plan to sketch a bridge! But which one? The choice was difficult, because in the city you can find over 100 bridges! I was a bit tired after party (of course Arthur and girls were laughing at me that I slept so long, just as a baby!), so I was going to compromise a nice outlook for a bridge and a cosy place to sit and have a coffee (and hopefully internet). This place's name is Eet cafe de Magere Brug, what is just next to the oldest bridge in Amsterdam - Magere Brug, also known as the skinny bridge. You can see it in plenty of movies from which the most well known is Diamonds are forever (James Bond). My coffee served me a company only for a moment. Then I cherished some nice conversation with Timo and bubbly talking of Alexa. As a result the use of lines in the sketch remained a bit sparing, but I still like it. Hopefully I will have possibility to sketch it once from a different perspective. Maybe on four hands the next time!

To be continued...

Time in Amsterdam was really chilled and relaxed Who would have expected, that one of the girls - Alexa  - will come to visit me already in three days and online conversations with people met there will continue for days!!! (My dear, you left your bracelet at my place!) Although I left Amsterdam, the week after I couldn't help having the feeling that I really did not.

This city has a lot too offer and if you happen to go there, plan definitely more than 2 days.

 

Ps. I found some lovely bookstore over there and a surprising confession of one sketcher in an interview for the magazin of contemporary drawing (I couldn't help laughing of this kind of honesty!):