Dutch & international stand-up acts, plus open mike nights at a buzzing comedy club with restaurant.
Open mike nights are just 7.50 euros, stand up comedy acts are 17.50 euros.
Comedy Cafe
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Category Archives: Amsterdam Tips
Blokker
The popular Blokker chain of stores can be found in most every shopping district in Holland. They sell a good range of household items, focusing on kitchenware, house cleaning utensils, small electronics, plastic goods, seasonal items, gifts and various sundries.
Check out their weekly flyers for specials.
Prices are good but be prepared for crowded tight aisles jammed packed with merchandise and shoppers.
There’s a big three story Blokker on the Nieuwendyke, but most are smaller neighborhood stores like the photo above.
One of my favorite Blokker’s is on Beethovenstraat, in Amsterdam, it is located in the map below, and also found everywhere through Holland.
Tjin’s Toko
The three very narrow aisles stock a wide range of products that will remind you of home. Or perhaps some exotic place you wish you could be. Like a good selection of Patak’s curry pastes and condiments, soy sauces including light and mushroom flavored, canned hummous and tahini, real hot jalapeño peppers from Mexico (not the mild Old El Paso ones, which they also carry), Betty Crocker cake mixes and frostings, Mrs. Dash salt-free seasonings, Phad Thai noodles, a good selection of beans, chocolate chips (very difficult to find in Holland, despite so much chocolate everywhere), and too much more to mention. You really need to see this place to believe it.
The manager is very good about locating and stocking items that you can’t find. My request for hummous was filled by my next visit!
The biggest drawback to this place is how cramped it is. You can barely work your way down these short aisles before someone tries to squeeze by. And the lack of space doesn’t leave much room for fresh produce, and the selection in the one cooler isn’t much.
Perhaps success will enable them to expand and increase their selection further. While the prices on some items are very reasonable, others like the cake mixes are expensive (7.50 euros is a lot for a mix that’s around $2.50 or less in the states). But if you’re jonesin’ for that special treat to remind you of home, you just might find it here!
I haven’t yet ventured into the take-away yet, but judging by how busy it is, I’d say it’s a good value.
Update: You might want to check the expiration dates on items before you purchase them, as I’ve noticed certain things that don’t sell remaining on the shelves for a very long time.
Phone: 020-671-7708
Anne Frank House
The actual hiding place where Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazis during World War II.
Eerie and ghostly, with lots of lessons for everyone about hatred and war. This should be visited by all who come to Amsterdam so that you understand the things that have happened here in the past, and why Amsterdam is what it is today.
Info:
Open daily from 9 am to 7 pm. Admission is € 6,50 for adults. Children less.
You can walk to the Anne Frank House from Centraal Station, Amsterdam’s main train station, in 20 minutes. You can also board tram (streetcar) number 13, 17, or 20 as well as buses number 21, 170, 171, or 172 which all go to the tram/bus stop called Westermarkt, located about a block (300 feet) from the museum’s entrance.
Visit the website: Anne Frank House
Museum Het Rembrandthuis
The Rembrandthuis Museum is where the famous painter established his own studios here in Amsterdam, and lived with his family from 1639 to 1658.
He eventually left after declaring bankruptcy, and the home has been restored with approximations of it’s original furnishings based on an inventory of his possessions from that time.
Most of the building is devoted to his daily life from the time, and is of course, filled with paintings and art.
Part two of the museum is the new museum wing, where you will find exhibition rooms. The museum shop, the entrance to the museum café, the auditorium and the Rembrandt Information Centre are also located in the new wing.
On the fifth floor is the Rembrandt Information Center, where you can research on DC-rom, in books and other publications. By appointment only.
Tropenmuseum
Our visit coincided with the Batik exhibit showcasing the art form’s techniques, history and styles through the ages. Hundreds of examples of fine Batik, antique photos and dozens of displays showcase the regional origins of patterns, the different uses of Batik cloth, and more modern interpretations using the batik method.
I really appreciate the attitude of the museum and many exhibits, which review the negative impacts of human development upon these regions, and offer useful suggestions for preserving and restoring these ecosystems. This museum is highly recommended for tourists, students and children. In fact there’s a Children’s (Kinder) Museum too!
The Tropen Theater has excellent productions, showcasing ethnic music and culture from around the world, but like the museum, highlighting the former Dutch colonies of Indonesia, Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles.
Stedelijk Museum
The Museum is in a new beautiful building!
The Stedelijk Museum was founded in 1874 by a group of private citizens in Amsterdam, led by C.P. van Eeghen, who donated funds and their art collections to establish a museum in the capital of the Netherlands that would be devoted to modern art. The collection, housed at first at the Rijksmuseum, was moved in 1895 into the Museum’s own building, designed by A.W. Weissman.
For its first decades, the Stedelijk maintained a diverse collection, which included works of contemporary Dutch and French masters but also period rooms and even the banners of citizens’ militias. Beginning around 1920, however, the collection was culled and the focus concentrated more rigorously on modern and contemporary art, including pioneering collections and exhibitions of design and photography.
Already known to visitors from around the world because of its paintings by Vincent van Gogh (many of them later transferred to the Van Gogh Museum upon its creation), the Stedelijk began its rise to international prominence after 1945, when curator and designer Willem Sandberg became the Director. In addition to expanding the collection and working directly with many artists, Sandberg initiated an ambitious and farsighted exhibition program that put the Stedelijk at the forefront of contemporary art institutions—a program that continued under Edy de Wilde (Director 1963– 1985), Wim Beeren (1985–1993), Rudi Fuchs (1993–2003) and Gijs van Tuyl (2005–2009) and that contributed greatly to the development of the Stedelijk’s collection.
Info:
The Stedelijk Museum is open daily from 11.00 am to 5.00 pm, and is closed on January 1.
Take the #5 or the Circle Tram from Centraal Station.
Underground parking and an underground Albert Hein (supermarket) are located next door.
NEMO Science Museum
New Metropolis is the huge greenish hulk arising over the entrance to the Ij Tunnel leading north out under Amstedam’s harbor. N.E.M.O. as it is called here, is a technology museum, exhibition space, meeting center and venue for events. The building was designed by the Italian Renzo Piano, and it does look like some futuristic ship’s hull rising from the harbor of Amsterdam.
The highlight is the high technology museum, with an amazing display of interactive scientific wonders to delight all ages. Other exhibits come and go in the large interior.
Also here are a number of rooms for use by public and private organizations for conferences, parties, etc. The Glass Ballroom can hold up to 800 people, the NEMO theater seats 300, the Lumiere Filmhall seats 199, the Da Vinci Hall holds 80, the Columbus Foyer holds a maximum of 500 people, and the ultimately swanky “Captain’s Cabin” with it’s brass trim and nautical decor holds 25 very special guests. (They are currently asking around $1,000 per day to rent just this one room.) Of course, they’ll rent you the roof as well! Which I gather could hold up to 2000 revelers.
Scheepvaart Museum
>The Scheepvaart Museum is the Netherlands Maritime Museum, located on Amsterdam’s harbor in the National Naval Depot, a former arsenal of the Dutch Navy that is over 300 years old.
The collection within tells the story of the maritime past of the Netherlands. Outside the Museum is a permanent berth for a replica of the Dutch East Indiaman “Amsterdam,” which is great fun to explore with guides in period costumes telling you about life aboard ship in the old days.
If you’ve got a binnacle at home, or a ship’s bell mounted somewhere, you’d be happy to spend hours wandering through this place. It’s fun even if you don’t have one.
Info:
Easy access by public transport: from Amsterdam Central Station 5 minutes by bus, line 22 or 32; or only a 15 minute walk.
Vakbondmuseum or the Stichting De Burcht
The Vakbondmuseum is also known as the Stichting De Burcht. You’re asking why?
Well this building is so interesting that if you have any interest in architecture that you must visit.
Designed by the founder of the Amsterdam school of Architecture, Hendrik Petrus Berlage (1856- 1934), who was a forceful figure on reshaping Amsterdam into what we see now in the 21st Century. The building was created for the thriving diamond industry whose capital was in Amsterdam at the time. Now the National Trade Unions Museum (or Stichting De Burcht) has its home here.
The museum’s website offers the following description: “Inside, you’re under the illusion that you have entered the covered courtyard of a Mediterranean palace. Sunlight streams down through a double roof of yellow and white glass and, passing through glass floor tiles, penetrates as far as the basement. The walls are of yellow, white and blue glazed brick and are relieved by vaults, columns and balustrades. An enormous hanging lamp high in the glass cupola, dominates the most beautiful of Amsterdam’s staircases. In the stylish rooms, you can enjoy paintings by Richard Roland Holst, stained glass windows, wooden panelling and furniture designed by Berlage himself. You can explore as high as the tower room that offers a view of the impressive cupola construction. In the high tower, you will see a lighted window pane in the form of a diamond.”