Ode to Amsterdam

I just accidentally erased my post about Amsterdam and I am not happy. I was almost done and had been working on it for an hour! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. So, like it or not, this may not be as good as I was. I guess no one will really know the difference, but I will. It was good. And it was witty. Probably the best post I have ever written, but now you will never know.

So, this is what you are going to get. I am so mad at my clipboard right now. But mostly because It was totally my fault. GRRRRRRRRRRRRR again.

Many of you, well probably all of you know that Dane and I decided to skip town this weekend and hop on a direct flight to Amsterdam from Houston. Why Amsterdam you may ask? Well, it was pretty much the only place that was wide open, we knew we could get back, it is a small enough town we thought we could see it in a day, and we had been dying to try our hands at first class. We had not really planned on going anywhere last weekend and so much like our trip to Boston, it was very last minute.

We got onto a flight out of IAH about 3:00 pm, flew 10 hours and arrived in Holland about 8:00 am. We made our way by train and then tram to our hotel, resisted the bed and headed out to see the city and make the most of our time there. After all, we would be jumping back onto the same flight to head home in 26 hours. So if you do the math it is easy to see that almost half of our trip was on the plane. This may sound awful, but looking back this may have been the highlight. First class is sweet!


We came to enjoy it all. Everything from the pillows and blankets, to the personalized TV's in our armrests, to the wide cushy seats--complete with footrests--that reclineback farther than I thought possible on an airplane.


Would you like a newspaper publication? Yes please! Let's see, how are the Winter Olympics going in Vancouver?


Please select your main course from this amazing menu while enjoying some warmed nuts. Oh, and just in case you don't read English, it is also in Dutch.


Warm dinner rolls and appetizers: coconut chicken with a mango chutney, vegetable spring roll and (not pictured below because this is what Dane had) a warm lobster bisque. Also not pictured below, an amazing salad. Notice the indavidualized butter and salt 'n pepper shakers, so cute!


Dane's dinner: some mustard, bbq chicken thing that was way good with grilled veggies and rice.


My dinner: mushroom ravioli bowl with veggies and a cream sauce. And yes, that is a pretzel roll!


And just in case you aren't already stuffed, the flight attendants brought around a cart of assorted cheeses, European crackers and grapes. And last but not least, ice cream sundaes!


When I woke up, it was time for breakfast. Yum, right? I was still way full from dinner and not really ready to eat, but I knew it would be good and we figured that the more we ate on the plane we would not have to eat in Amsterdam. Breakfast was just as good and beautiful as dinner, but sorry, no good pics.

So, about Amsterdam:
I had been to this town before under similar circumstances a few years ago with my parents. I think we had a 17 or 18 hour layover. So with my parents we had seen a little bit of the city. Dane's sister also visited the Netherlands last year at this same time, so we had a few ideas of things that we wanted to see before jumping on the plane. I did a little research and needless to say found a lot more things to do than we had time.

The weather was forecast to be about 3o degrees with a good chance of snow. Ikk. But we went anyway, and in fact it was quite nice. There was a little wind, but actually ended up being a little sunny, so that made the cold a little more bearable.


Our hotel was just a short walk from a lot of great sites. Our first stop, the Rijksmuseum. We didn't actually go in because we didn't want to get warn out on art all day, but took a picture instead. This museum is on of the most famous in Holland and houses many famous works by Rembrandt and Vermeer.


We did go into the Van Gogh Museum, however. It was lovely, and fun to give Dane a little lesson on the beginning movements of modern art. Here we are in the gift shop after because we couldn't take pictures inside the museum. Can you tell I am trying to look not tired? he he.


Next we went to go see the "Anne Frank House". This is the appartment that has the annex where she and her family hid for two years during WWII. Unfortunately by the time we got there, the line had wrapped around the building and was about 2 blocks long. There was no way that we were going to stand in line for who knows how long in the cold. So, we just took a picture in front of the building. (sorry it's so over exposed...)


We stopped in at a little cafe next to the Anne Frank house to get warm and share a hot cocoa and a chocolate croissant. You know we couldn't have gone to Europe without eating one of these :).


Walking along the canals. The sun came out and I just had to capture the way it bounced off of the buildings here.


Amsterdam would not be Amsterdam without the canals. It is so beautiful. We walked around the for a while longer, debated renting bikes but opted to go on a canal tour. It was warm, and nice to have somewhere to sit.

Here are a couple shots we took from the canal tour:







This mobile-home-looking thing is just that--but the Dutch version. I think on the tour they said there were over 2500 of these homes that just float along the edges of the canals. Talk about a water bed :).


Oh, yeah, and I took this picture too. Poor Dane he was so tired.


Again, us trying not to look tired :).


This is a parking garage near Centraal Station just for bikes. Can you see them all packed in there? There has got to be thousands of them in there.


So, in spite of being tired, we had an amazing trip! It was a ton fun, and definitely worth it. We have finally recovered from the loss of sleep, and I guess time will tell where we go next.




Louis waving goodbye to Amsterdam on the train back to the airport. He had a great time too. For some reason, lobsters don't experience jet lag the same way we do.