Day 14: Amsterdam, Netherlands

June 17, 2013

Today we finished checking off everything we wanted to do in Amsterdam. We got a late start and then spent 1 1/2 hours in the train station waiting to book tickets to London tomorrow. We had wanted to ride a ferry across, but we could never get the website to do what we wanted and then it was too late. Now we will be taking a high-speed train that goes under the English Channel from Brussels, Belgium to London, England so we will be getting there 9 hours sooner than planned which is good.

Once we took care of logistics, we had a late lunch on the top floor of the library. Our houseboat B&B owners recommended it to us not because of the food, but because of the view of the city from the 7th floor. We had a very nice view of the small harbor below us and of part of the city.

The harbor area below us

The view of the city from the restaurant

We still had our bikes that we rented yesterday, so our plan was to bike through the city to go to a park on the south side of town about 3.5 miles from where we are staying. Biking through the city was crazy!! You had to basically have a swivel-head to watch for all the people, other bikes/mopeds, the trams, and the cars and buses. It was pretty fast-paced especially for people who didn't know the city. There were lots of rules that we didn't know such as who yields to whom because it seemed different at every intersection. It felt like complete chaos and we literally got laughed at a few times by locals when we were ran off the road by a car and when we hit the curb. We also got yelled at by locals, when we were going the wrong way and once a guy walking on the sidewalk shouted "Boo!" and kind of jumped at me. It took us about an hour to get to the park. It was a beautiful park! The park was an attraction that was posted online and someone commented that it was a good place to smoke weed. We actually saw a guy smoking a joint on the bench next to us. Interesting culture to say the least. After we rode around the park some, we biked back the way we had come to turn in our bikes. We tried to stay on smaller side streets so the way back was a little less chaotic. We are still sore from our bike ride yesterday, but we enjoyed our Amsterdam city bike-riding adventure.

Picturesque Amsterdam with canal and houseboats

Guy smoking weed in the park = weird

Fountain in the park

Many people come to the park with their bike to enjoy the grass apparently

Once we got back, we went back to the boat to do laundry and get things ready to go for tomorrow. We went back out to eat supper and found a restaurant nearby. As you walked in they handed you cards. You were supposed to go to whatever counter you wanted to order something at (They had separate drink, pasta, pizza, salad, and dessert counters) and they would fix it fresh for you, then they scanned your card so it recorded what you ate on it. You sat yourself wherever you wanted and ate and drank as much as you wanted and then as you leave they scan your card and you pay. It was much cheaper than most of the restaurants we have seen. We both tried a Heineken beer (they are brewed in Amsterdam, had a large bowl of spaghetti carbonara, and each had a dessert (chocolate cake for me and tiramisu for Clayton) for only 24.50 Euros ($32.69) which is a lot cheaper than most places we have ate over here.

The restaurant was very European: Clean, with greenery and lots of natural light

After dinner, we walked back to the boat to dry our clothes and pack.

We have really liked the Netherlands. The countryside is beautiful and the people are so nice! We have had people apologize to us a couple times for speaking to us in Dutch instead of English whereas in Germany we were always apologizing for not knowing German. At the train station in Halfweg, the ticke machine wouldn't take our coin so we could get back to Amsterdam. I asked a woman if I could switch her coins, her and her husband came over to help us, tried it and when it didn't work they voluntarily paid with their credit card (we gave them cash) so we could get tickets. When you ask for directions etc. the people are always very nice and helpful. It has been a very nice country to visit!

We leave at 9am tomorrow morning and will be in London around 2 pm. You may see the blog posted earlier now since London is only 5 hours ahead of EST instead of 6 hours. Goodnight (for the last time) from Amsterdam!