My friend, Paula, and I had been in Amsterdam for 3 days. The other two days the weather was gloriously beautiful. That third day? It was more typical Dutch weather - pouring rain.
We had checked out of the hostel, because that night we were taking the ferry back to England. We had agreed to meet at the train station at about 6:00 p.m.
So there I was, wandering around the streets of Amsterdam in the pouring rain, with my backpack on my back. AND I was coming down with the flu (courtesy of Paula, who had survived it the previous week).
Cold, sick and wet, as I wandered around I noticed that everywhere I went, all I heard was Elvis Presley music. I am NOT an Elvis fan. At all.
Cold, sick, wet and totally annoyed beyond belief with the umpteenth rendition of "Blue Suede Shoes".
Once we were on the ferry, other Americans told us that Elvis had died. Ah hah. That explains it.
The date: August 16, 1977.
Here I am, still not an Elvis fan, but every year I remember his death-day like it was yesterday.
Anyway, this now August 10, 2012 and the weather was perfect as we were unceremoniously vomited off the ship. It's amazing how that happens. One minute your every whim is catered to; the next minute you're playing the "where the heck are all the suitcases?" game on the dock.
Since our room at the hotel wasn't ready, we took a canal cruise.
And a last look at our ship before it left dock:
Our room was ready before noon. This was the view from our window:
After lunch, we visited the Rijksmuseum - most of the building was undergoing renovation, so we did not see the entire collection. That's ok. We got to see the important stuff - all Rembrandt, all the time. Here's the main attraction, "The Night Watch" :
One of the best features of our hotel was its location - walking distance of absolutely everything. We had enough time to walk to the flower market. I bought two packages of tulips (certified to bring into the U.S.). The following was NOT certified to bring back to the U.S.:
The biggest challenge to walking around Amsterdam is figuring out exactly what part of the pavement is actually the sidewalk. The bicycles were truly alarming - they stopped for nothing at all. Cars would stop for pedestrians in crosswalks; bikes would not.
After dinner, Andy headed off to Anne Frank's house and I headed back to the hotel with the hopes of working on my blog via the hotel's free internet. Except that the free internet was even worse than the ship's expensive internet. So, instead, I fell asleep while watching some obscure Olympic sport that I never see because it's not one the US is good at. So obscure that I can't even remember what it was.
Andy saw these street performers on the way back from Anne Frank's house:
Though it was late, we wanted to get some dessert. A quick easy lesson on how to make yourself feel old? Walk through the streets of Amsterdam on a Friday night. Around the corner from our hotel were cafes and "coffee shops" (with bongs prominently displayed in the front window - but just take a deep breath and you KNOW they're not selling coffee in there), and clubs blasting pounding music.
Yeah ok, we didn't exactly fit in. We had Ben & Jerry's.
One more full day of vacation left.....
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