15th
Amsterdam - now with pictures
We flew and we flew and we flew and I didn’t sleep. I messed around with this shiny camera Mom loaned me so the pictures will be decent, which means I have about 100 pictures of clouds:
We landed in Amsterdam for our 12-hour layover at 8am and hopped a bus to the city and started walking. It was beautiful, full of tourists, and crossing the street is complicated, but we managed to not get run over by cars, buses, trams, or bicycles.
We found the Richsmuseum, but it’s under construction on the outside so here is a pretty bad consolation picture of the gate.
(it’s an artistic angle or something)
We set off in search of food. I was unaware that a traditional English breakfast consists of fried eggs, baked beans, undercooked bacon, sausage links, and toast. It was delicious, just odd.
Since we had no particular plan of attack we figured the red light district was as good a goal as any, so I googled and we set out. I had no idea that the city was full of canals, all lined with boats and houses and shops.
I started noticing that lots of people were wearing orange shirts, and then more people were wearing orange hats and other accessories, and there were flags decorating the streets and signs in windows and oh yeah it’s the World Cup - Go Oranje!
So we wandered and we walked and we didn’t find the red light district but we found shops and alleyways and courtyards and old churches and they were distinctly European and beautiful.
As we started getting deliriously tired (it was now around 8am for us and no sleep) and headed back to the airport, we stopped and went into the Van Gogh museum (no photos allowed) and took some random pictures.
I am a tourist!
Also we found hipsters. They were American.
Now, to clarify, I thought all the people wearing orange were just being festive because this weekend is World Cup and all that (sorry, I haven’t really been paying attention to it), so we were rather surprised when we got back to the airport and saw on the big screen that there was a game playing, and furthermore that there were thousands, THOUSANDS of people standing outside watching. The airport was basically empty.
So I solved my no-jacket problem by buying a bright orange Holland football jacket. It seemed appropriate.
Hours early for our layover, we napped in the airport before finding our plane to Warsaw, and after bus and hotel finding and sleep I’m now in a coffee shop on Nowy Swiat and about to go hit up some touristy things. More as it develops!
