Staying awake last night to compensate for the 5 hour time change was not as tough as I thought it would be. However, getting up this morning for breakfast was difficult. Breakfast is from 7 to 10 at our hotel and so waking up at 9:30 (4:30 am at home) meant jumping out of bed to get to the breakfast room before the doors closed. It was worth the rush as the great coffee, eggs, cheese, fruit and yogurt made for a great start to the day.
One of the things we like to do in a foreign, big city is buy tickets for a hop on, hop on bus as the audio tour, numerous stops and unlimited use for 24 hours makes for a great way to get an overview of the city. We caught the bus at around 10:30 and got off and on for the rest of the day, stopping at numerous locations and doing lots and lots of walking.
We visited Dam square, walked along zillions of canals, found ourselves in the Red Light District where we saw women sitting in their windows, had coffee at one of the many coffee shops, saw other coffee shops where the aroma of marijuana wafted out of the doors, spent time in the ultra modern library, ate fish and chips (chips are served with mayonnaise here), walked through Vondelpark and returned to our hotel around 8:30
The sound of bike bells are everywhere. It is truly amazing to see a woman driving her bike with two kids on board; one in a kid car type seat, in front of the handlebars and one in another seat behind her, and no one is wearing a helmet. We learned today bike theft with over 60,000 stolen each year is the number one crime in Amsterdam.
Tomorrow: Anne Frank House for sure.
1 comment:
Wow..bikes, and bikes,and bikes..perhaps stolen by mistaken identity. Look at them all.
be good
BB
Post a Comment