I recently came across an article about lesser-known towns, "off the beaten path" locations that are overshadowed by their well-known neighbors. Though I generally end up being a city slicker for ease of planning, Utrecht has definitely opened my mind to expanding my travel options.
After doing nearly all of my traveling via bus, it was a nice change to take a train to Utrecht. In fact, the train ride was only about 35 minutes long. I noticed that immediately as the train started moving, people frantically switched around their seats to face the forward-moving direction. I can totally relate though. Any time I'm riding backwards on a train, I might as well stick my head in a garbage can, because it feels like I'm trying to watch a 3D movie in a washing machine while drunk.
Immediately after leaving Utrecht Centraal, I encountered a massive parked-bike bonanza. Little did I know that this foreshadowed a day of constantly dodging parades of bicycles coming at me at 50 bajillion km/hr. I didn't think I'd find a place more inundated with bikes than Rotterdam, but Utrecht makes Rotterdam look like a slow-motion tortoise race, if the two tortoise participants were already dead. This city has some serious Formula-1 bikers. Even Lance Armstrong on steroids would be like WTF.
I made my way to Stone Hotel & Hostel, which I recommend if you ever make your way to Utrecht. After checking in and speaking with the front desk staff about places to visit in a day, I started my tour around town with Domtoren (Dom Tower). Domtoren is the tallest church tower in the Netherlands, at 368 ft/112 m high. You can only ascend the tower as part of a guided tour, so I ended up with some time to kill and decided to grab a quick lunch. I kept hearing the locals talking about the "broodje Mario" (the Mario sandwich). Lesson #1 about traveling: trust the locals when they recommend something. The excitement with which I heard about the Mario sandwich made me imagine a sandwich that travels through green pipes, has mushrooms in it, sits on the back of a green dinosaur, and gives you coins. Unfortunately, you'll have to settle for a pretty-good salami sandwich:
After lunch, I met up with the tour and ascended Domtoren, which was built over a 60 year period in the 1300s. I didn't grab a picture, but the steepness of the stairs is an even more near-vertical ascent than my apartment in Rotterdam. My favorite part of the experience was that the tour guide had to conduct the tour in both Dutch and English. The Dutch part would take about 10 minutes to explain while his English version was condensed to about 1 minute. I couldn't help but wonder what was being lost in translation, so I kept imagining him recounting his epic bike conquests. I assume that these things are passed down from generation to generation, perpetuating the Dutch biking epidemic. Anyways, pictures:
Across the street is the Dom Church which, if you don't know, is a place where people worship a God named Jesus H. Christ. It's a church; church things happen there presumably. I always find it funny how Europeans get really excited about the grandeur of their local churches. For instance, the people I spoke with in Utrecht bragged about how awesome their church is compared to other places in the Netherlands. This while statistically speaking, half of the country is non-religious. I guess everyone really likes architecture? Or they've adopted Bike as their new lord and savior (okay, I'm enrolling in Bike Jokes Anonymous right now...).
My ticket for the Domtoren tour came with admission to the Speelklok Museum. I had no clue what Speelklok meant, so expectations were non-existent. As I came to find out, the museum displays automatic musical instruments from throughout the ages. Simply put, this was one of the better museums I've been to during my travels. It gives you a great overview of why they're historically important (short version: they brought music to the masses), how they developed, and how they were progressively killed off by new technologies. One of the main highlights of the exhibit was a giant carnival organ that the museum programmed to play Gangnam Style (a video of which can be found here). Another highlight was the "Phonoliszt violina," which combines a player piano with automatic violins. They also had a great special exhibit on automatic music in the 1920s. Moreover, you get a good idea of how integrated automatic music became in the household, from grandfather clocks to pre-phonograph record players and even decorative musical bird cages. However, I have no explanation for this:
After Speelklok, I ran over to the Utrecht Centraal Musem. Buying a ticket to it lets you access the main museum as well as the Dick Bruna house (more on that in a minute). The Centraal Museum portion represents an odd mix of various art forms, ranging from classical to modern art as well as "applied art." It has 11 or so rooms that revolve around a certain theme. Since I was short on time (everything seems to close at 5pm), I picked the ones that sounded the most interesting. The most notable exhibit was called "ARRRGH! Monsters in Mode (Fashion)" which sounded suspiciously like Aaahh!!! Real Monsters. I generally don't "get" fashion, but the Nickelodeon-esque naming piqued my interest enough to try it out. Let's just say I don't expect a "Who wore it best?" segment on these articles of clothing...Here's a sampling (note also the strange face decals on the floor):
To be fair, I might be amenable to watching Joan Rivers critique these outfits. I personally think the purple sponge suit would flatter anyone's figure, but I'm more partial to the orange puffball. However, I got a little creeped out thinking I was surrounded by dozens of Lady Gagas. As a result, when I noticed it was 4:45pm I decided to take a quick run through the Dick Bruna house across the street. Dick Bruna created a popular Dutch children's book character, Miffy, and the house chronicles Bruna's career. Most of the exhibit is situated in the attic of the house, and includes little kid stuff like a McDonalds-esque tube slide and a comfy reading perch. Between that and the Centraal Museum, I'd say 5 euros well spent. Yet, I find the best part to be how I went from creepy needle man (second picture, on the left) to small child land within the span of an hour. Hooray, adulthood!
This would generally be the point where I say since everything shuts down at 5pm, that's the end of my story. First of all, I still have the Amsterdam story to tell. Second, (I guess technically first because I'm going to talk about it first), I must tell you the tale of the most amazing urban planning success story of the modern era: Trajectum Lumen. Whoever came up with this idea is my hero and must be a legend in the city planning world. I hope you have strapped yourself in to whatever comfortable study space and/or chair and/or car seat while driving and using a cell phone, because this will blow your mind...
Trajectum Lumen is essentially a city-wide, nighttime treasure hunt. Someone had the brilliant idea to build color-changing lights into the sidewalks. These colorful lights are interspersed with illuminated arrows to guide you through the walking tour of the city center. At certain points throughout the walking tour, you'll come across blue lights with an eye design, letting you know to look around and see something cool. For example, at one point you encounter a sidewalk lined with trees that light up according to a pre-programmed melody. This tree pathway leads you to the side of a church which is glowing with various shades of purple and blue. If you have a smartphone, you can even download an app that gives you details about the landmarks you see along the way. Ultimately, you end up walking throughout the entire city center, all the while seeing the city light up like a psychedelic show. Quite awesome.
Trajectum Lumen happens to provide the perfect segue to my next adventure: a return to Amsterdam. Specifically, Electric Ladyland...
After searching online for places to stay in Dusseldorf or Cologne (my original second-day destinations), I realized that for some odd reason all of the places were booked. I immediately remembered that I had unfinished business in Amsterdam, Electric Ladyland, so I made a last-minute change of plans and caught the train there. I got in around 12:30pm, and with a 25 minute walk from the train station to Electric Ladyland, I figured I'd make it just in time for the opening. However, when I had been standing around for about 15 minutes and it got to 1:10pm, I noticed a sign on the door that said "Summer hours: 1:30pm-6pm." For some reason, running on summer hours seemed like a normal Amsterdam thing to do, so I grabbed a quick lunch to kill some time. I got back precisely at 1:30pm but there were three people waiting outside. They also were confounded about the lack-of-being-open. We rang the door bell, knocked, called, nothing. I was getting pretty upset that this would become the second time I unsuccessfully attempted to see this place. Then suddenly, at 1:45pm, a guy with a long gray beard, long hair, and a vest that identified him as a stereotypical hippie that never in his mind left the 1960s, casually showed up to let us in. This all seemed very normal, at least as justified in my head, because Amsterdam.
Electric Ladyland is a two-part "attraction." On the first level, the owner/CEO/chief resident hippie/artist stuck in another time like Owen Wilson in Midnight in Paris - runs a fluorescent art gallery. This room gives you an introduction into the psychedelic eye sex you're about to have in his basement. He constructed small models of the "museum" and displays them alongside numerous fluorescent artworks which he does in fact sell (if he understands the concept of money).
The museum itself is like a mini (and by mini, I mean one basement room) theme park of black-light inspired psychedelia. Like the overall structure, the downstairs area is divided into two main segments. When you first enter, you can check out all sorts of neat fluorescence-related things, ranging from science hobby kits to luminescent stones to the special glow paint the owner uses to do his work to pictures of animals that have been genetically modified to glow. He explains everything in great detail and gives presentations on the different color effects of long-wave and short-wave UV lights. He makes it very clear, through examples, that the standard black-light cannot capture all of the potential colors embedded in stones. He even has "paintings" that are meticulously constructed out of stones that glow different colors based on the type of UV light. One really cool example was a painting by an artist named John Ludlum, who made the normal light version look like a sunny day on the beach, but when you turn the lights off and put UV lights over it, you can see a sunset which quickly turns into a nighttime scene. Another cool point was the law enforcement application of black lights. If you run a black light over your driver's license (or a residence permit), certain credit cards, or money, you will see an invisible watermark that can be used to identify forgeries.
The rest of the museum is best told through pictures:
After passing the Electric Ladyland Amsterdam test, I started heading to the train station to make my way to Haarlem, a similar town to Utrecht from what I've read. However, I got significantly delayed by the fact that I found the Amsterdam Christmas market.
It had all of the Christmas market standards: gluhwein, handicrafts, fried food, etc. Most importantly, it had a stand that was selling churros y chocolate. I took it as a sign that I made the right decision in skipping Germany and in going to Spain next week.
Today's Dutch lesson: kleuren (colors).
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