I recently took a little trip to one of my new favorite places: Amsterdam! The city was beautiful, the architecture is awesome and since I’m a California girl, gone Hawaii, I finally got to experience fall! The different color leaves, the COLD weather, and the chance to bundle up in my three layers. Since this happened I figured I give a few tips for those traveling to Amsterdam or planning on eventually traveling to Amsterdam.

1) Learn a few Dutch words.

Similar to every foreign place you visit it is handy to learn some common phrases in the dominant language spoken. Everything in Amsterdam is in Dutch. The people all speak Dutch, however, many also speak English. In Holland, everyone learns Dutch (their primary language) and English. So luckily if you need help and need to ask a local a question, don’t fret because they’ll most likely speak English. However, all billboards, signs, directions aka everything else, is written in Dutch. In some instances, there are the English translation, but don’t count on it.

2) Dress WARM!

If you are traveling in the fall or winter extra prepare for cold weather. Like I said I am from California where winter is considered, probably, 60’s and then I moved to Hawaii for school where cold is considered any temperature below 75 degrees. Hence, I am not used to real winters which is anything below 60 degrees. I was in Amsterdam at the end of October and it was about 40-50 degrees and that for me is considered freezing. I had only packed leggings, t-shirts, flannels, a scarf and a coat; I wasn’t completely prepared but I survived when I layered up. My legs would initially be freezing due to the single layer the leggings provided but I still had 3 layers on my top half so that helped me.

3) Rent Bikes!!

If you can ride a bike amongst other moving traffic then I highly recommend it. This was so much fun (except for my last day there which I will explain in a minute). So Amsterdam is considered to have one of the largest biking cultures, everyone bikes around town and it’s great. My friends and I were staying about a 20-minute bike ride out of the city so we decided to rent bikes for the 3 days we would need them rather than paying for public transportation daily. Renting the bikes was also cheaper than the public transportation so it was perfect. However, I must warn, Amsterdam being a big biking culture means that many people are on bikes so you kind of have to know what you’re doing on a bike in order to be able to maneuver it around the city. If you are a beginner I would suggest practicing riding around a calmer area first so you get comfortable with the bike. I say this because the people here are pretty serious when it comes to biking. If you are in someone's way, swerving throughout the lane, or cut pedestrians off then be prepared for someone to say something to you. This leads me to pedestrians and my only bad experience in Amsterdam. So I’m a rather experienced biker, I had no problems keeping up with the flow of bike traffic however at one point I was approaching a crosswalk and pedestrians were walking, I had enough room to squeeze through some of the gaps so I chose to do so. Wrong move, Brooke. I guess I chose to squeeze through right in front of an angry grown troll of an old man who as I was passing through began screaming at me in Dutch then as I passed he hit me in the back of the head. I was shocked because nothing like that has ever happened to me. Now I was probably in the wrong however in my defense it is easier for a pedestrian to pause for five seconds as a bike crosses through than it is for a bike to screech to a stop. Maybe he was just having a bad day, I’m not sure but nothing like that has ever happened to me before. No matter how bad of a day someone is having or how angry a stranger has been with me, I have never been smacked upside the head. The only person to have ever done that to me before that incidence was my mother and she has the right to do so because she gave birth to me!

SO, just beware of the pedestrians as well as other bikers.

4) Take a boat ride through the canals!

There are many different boats and companies that offer this. My friends and I chose a boat, on the spot, that cost 15 euros and it was an hour long and came with unlimited drinks including: white wine, red wine, beer, and soft drinks. We took the ride at night and it was so calm and pretty and delightful. I highly recommend it because it was a fun time! We met some very nice English people and they filled us in on some fun facts about the properties along some of the canals.

Take advantage of everything Amsterdam has to offer. It has beautiful architecture, (mostly) kind people, and is overall a great place to visit!