We had a very easy day on Tuesday, the 15th. The Bensons picked us up and drove us to SFO for our 9:00 flight. We used our United miles to buy business class tickets, so we flew in semi-luxury. We waited for our flight in the business class lounge where we supplemented our meager breakfast at home. Our plane to O'Hare was very new and did not have amenities added yet. There were no entertainment pods and no fold-down seats. The seats looked nice and smelled like real leather, but they had no lumbar support and the the seat pads were uncomfortable. The food was good - eggs, cinnamon rolls, etc.
We arrived in Chicago on time and hung out in United's business class lounge.
Our next leg took us to Amsterdam. This time we had entertainment pods, fold-down seats and very good service. Dinner and a breakfast snack were included. We watched a movie and managed to get a little sleep.
We landed in Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, went through passport control, picked up our bags and rode the train into Centraal train station. I had memorized the directions to our hotel and managed to get us there without too much trouble.
We are staying at Hotel Brouwer alongside a quiet canal. Our room is on the second and third floors. We get to it by climbing two very narrow and windy staircases. Our big feet do not fit on the stairs so we have to be very careful. The bathroom is on the first level, the bedroom is a half level up and the sitting room is on the next level. We have antique furniture along with a modern TV which we have yet to turn on. Tiles on the sitting room floor are cracked and loose. The parquet floor in the bedroom is loose and squeaks. There is a pocket bed in the sitting room which is much too small for either of us to use. WIFI is free and fast. If you look at the hotel's website, you can see the views from our room. Our breakfast consists of orange juice, pressed coffee, three kinds of rolls and a hard boiled egg.
When we reached the hotel on Wednesday morning, it was too early to check in. We decided to go on one of Rick Steves walking tours around our neighborhood. The Jordaan Walk took us from Dam Square out to St Andrew's Courtyard. Along the way we passed several canals with a variety of boats - some hauling tourists, some transporting goods, some tied up as houseboats and some abandoned and rotting. The tall, narrow buildings and houses that we saw have settled in various degrees and are leaning in different directions. They are all built atop a foundation of pilings and have sunk into the soft ground. The major sights that we saw were the Torensluis Bridge (where we had lunch at
Villa Zeezicht - tomato soup for Ann and a smoked fish sandwich for me), lots of shops, marihuana cafés, the Homomonument, Westerkerk, herring kiosks, French fires kiosks, the outside of Anne Frank's house, more shops, more cafés, more crooked buildings and finally St Andrew's Courtyard which is a behind-the-door courtyard surrounded by subsidized housing. We stopped here and sat on a bench in the garden to rest our legs.
The weather was sunny and a little cool for the entire walk.
We strolled back to our hotel and checked into our room. Because of jet lag, whenever we sat down we would fall asleep. Because of this we decided to have an early dinner. After a short stroll to see where we are meeting our boat on Saturday we went for dinner at Tales And Spirits which is around the corner from our hotel. This was an excellent choice. Although it is advertised as a cocktail bar, its dinner menu is very inventive and tasty. We split four items - Green Asparagus Tempura
planted in a parsley hummus with rye-sesame crumble, baby red chard and papadums; Red Beet Gazpacho with crayfish tails, herring roe, cucumber and garlic croutons; Artichoke Barigoule
with a poached egg, smoked potato cream, and crispy chicken crackling; and Truffle Risotto
with sautéed wild mushrooms & rocket lettuce, topped with shaved Parmesan. Yum.
Bed time was early.
Thursday breakfast started at 8:30, a reasonable time. We decided to go on Rick Steves city walk. It starts at the central train station and ends at the Rijksmuseum. Before starting the walk we detoured to shop for some items that we left at home. We walked past the Stock Exchange, the Royal Palace, the New Church, the National Monument and into the De Papegaal Hidden Church. At the Amsterdam Museum, we walked through the courtyard and the Civic Guard Gallery. Next it was into Begijnhof, a quiet courtyard lined with houses that have sheltered women since 1346. In the courtyard are an English Reformed Church, a Catholic Church and the oldest house in Amsterdam (1477). Our next stop was at Spui Square where we had lunch at Esprit in its outdoor cafe.
Mint Tower was next and then a huge flower market (Bloemenmatkt). At Koningsplein we watched people buying raw herring from a popular outdoor food stand. Then we peered through the windows of a smartshop where it sells drugs, many of them illegal at home and not all of them harmless. Then it was on to the Rijksmuseum where we spent a couple of hours looking at paintings of the Dutch masters along with several hundred other art lovers. The paintings were spectacular but there were a lot of rude photographers who stood in front of the paintings blocking others.
When we left the museum, we hopped onto a tram that took us to the train station. We walked back to our hotel from there.
Dinner was at a tapas restaurant where we ordered too much good food. Then it was bed time.
We had the same breakfast this morning. We met some of the other guests who were going on another bike and barge trip. Their trip is a week longer than ours.
Our major visit today was at Anne Frank's house. When we go there, the line was about two hours long. After inching along for about an hour, a nicely dressed man approached us and started asking Ann questions about how long we were in line and how we were holding up. He asked us to follow him and he would get us in at the special entrance. Ann asked him incredulously if he could so that and he said yes, he was the boss. It turns out that he was Ronald Leopold, the Executive Director of the Anne Frank House and a very nice person. Sometimes getting older has its advantage.
The tour of the house was both fascinating and emotional. How two families could live and survive in close quarters for as long as they did was remarkable. And what happened to them was tragic.
Walking back to our room, we stopped at Cafe 't Smalle for salads and drinks. A light rain had started so we ate inside at the bar. This was the best place to sit because we could watch all of the action going on behind the bar including a cute little 4-year-old girl washing and drying glasses. She could barley see over the bar.
We walked back to our room for a rest.
Dinner was at Winkel where we had three appetizers and the best apple pie/cake in Amsterdam. It had real whipped cream, too.
The weather today turned cold and windy. We also had a few rain showers. We expect variable weather on our cruise which starts tomorrow afternoon.
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