Travel Diary

Saturday

Daylight was upon us as we flew upon the Netherlands.

After exiting the plane, I found myself in Amsterdam for the first time in 12 years. The airport was a little tricky though. I had no clue how to exit and each time I asked (THREE times!) I was told to go the opposite way down the long corridor. Turns out that they weren’t wrong. I just kept missing the exit for Passport Control. Finally, I found it and got out of the gate area and into the train area. The Mohr’s, the family I was meeting, had already landed earlier and they were heading to their hotel. I bought a train ticket and headed to Centraal Station.

Oh yeah, I did have to get cash first. You see, at work, a coworker had just returned from Europe and had 500 euros to exchange. Rather than both of us lose money with the exchange rate and fees, I said that I would buy them from her at the current rate. It was $1.10 per euro then and that’s what it ended up being when I was there. (Though it had dipped to $1.04 for a brief spell--and I would bring up the new price each day at work before the trip.)

The problem was that she had given me a 500-euro note. And just like in the US, people don’t like to give change for a $500 bill when you’re only buying $4 worth of stuff. It would be a nightmare finding a way to break that down.

Thus, I put that mission off by just withdrawing 150 euros to walk around with.

I also noticed a tulip stand selling ... well, tulips. As I had been asked to buy tulips for my mom, I bought them then and there, not knowing when the chance would come again.

I would later realize that since my return flight was through Amsterdam, I could have purchased them at that later time and avoided carrying around the extra weight for nine days.

At Centraal Station, my hotel would be south of the terminal (most of the city is south of it). I started walking south. I wasn’t sure exactly where it was, but figured I did have Google Maps. Absentmindedly, I started with Apple Maps and that was a mistake. (It’s always a mistake. Mark my words: using Apple Maps will always lead you astray. Pardon the pun.) I believe after “Mapgate” and Apple’s huge failure to overtake Google in the map arena, that they pretty much gave up even trying. They keep the lousy app around for those that foolishly use it, but it’s junk. Always use Google Maps.

For a while, I did not follow that advice and it made my trip to the hotel considerably longer.

It was a long walk. Things don’t seem far away on maps, but then you’re at street level and it’s a arduous trek. And when the map app is leading you down the wrong streets... all bad. But I did take photos wherever I could. I don’t mind walking if the scenery is picturesque.

And most of Europe is.

At the hotel, I checked in. Now, it wasn’t a bad place, but not great either. By far, it was the least nice hotel during my trip. But I had booked late for Easter weekend and the prices were already quite inflated everywhere else. Beggars can’t be choosers. They can only pay more for less.

Then I started walking again. I was using Google Maps now and it led me directly to the Anne Frank House.

This area was packed and the line to get in was probably one to two hours long. My friends wanted to visit there (I had been before). It’s a worthwhile thing to do once, but only if the line isn’t crazy long. The tour is pretty short after all.

My friends decided the same thing and we opted for having lunch nearby. I had a tuna sandwich and a pint of Grolsh, where I quickly remembered how poor that beer is.

And this would begin the beer enlightenment. Since I don’t believe Native Americans drank much beer before the Europeans came over, I would surmise that our beer began with Europe. And whereas they haven’t improved on it much, we have. I’ve been spoiled by great tasting microbrew craft beers, which have a unique style and rich taste. Grolsh might as well be labeled Budweiser or Coors. And most of the beers over there that I tried have the same problem. Guinness of course is a huge exception.

After lunch, we all parted for more rest. I returned to the hotel, unpacked, closed the drapes (which happily made the room very dark) and plopped into bed. It was a great two hours of sleep.

Our meet up time was 7pm so I walked back north to meet up. Along the way, I got a text saying the meet up was pushed to 7:30pm. Cool, more time for photos. Then it became 8pm, so my direction turned northeast, where I saw new parts of the city (for me at least). I hadn’t bought a metro card, so walking was my only option. This is normal. If I can walk something, it’s usually my first choice.

The time was moved to 8:30, and I headed up to this large building called Nemo. It looked like some entertainment area, but had stairs leading up to the stands. The gates were certainly locked, but if I climbed up to the gates, I’d have a fantastic view of the city. And sure enough, I did. The sun was setting over the town and I got to witness a wonderful sunset.

And take photos.

Then I headed west along the main canal and joined up with my friends. Our meetup with Rebecca wasn’t due for a few minutes so we visited the Starbucks at the station. It’s on the track level and is very fancy inside. Terry tried to take a photo and they yelled out, “No photos!”

Odd. I guess they didn’t want it becoming a tourist place for photos or something. People needed to drink their Americanized tourist coffee in peace. But it was a good example of what to do if you really want a photo. Take the first one fast and then stop after getting told not to. In extreme cases, they may require deleting the photo, but not for a coffee shop.

An actual coffee shop, I should say.

When Rebecca came, she toured around the city with us. She had been there a couple of months as a student so she was a little more familiar with the area. We got on a tram, which was a little bit of an issue since I didn’t have a card. But I did have money so I tried to buy a ticket. The driver had no more single tickets, so he said to just get on anyway. Wahoo! Free ride. As this whole European trip was going to run me about $5,000, a little savings here and there was nice.

In the busier part of town, we had a nice dinner and then some ice cream. After that we all returned back and crashed.

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