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Mar. 15th, 2014 01:09 pmAmsterdam was great. The Schiphol airport experience, not so much. When I went through there on the way back from India, I got VERY thoroughly patted down; this time I got the third degree from a security guy. I guess the lesson is Never throw anything away before you leave the Netherlands, because he wanted my hotel bill and receipts for museum tickets so I could prove I'd been on vacation for four days. I found that rather disturbing, because I did keep the actual ticket for the Rijksmuseum, but what if I had only had the hotel bill and miscellaneous brochures, but no tickets? He also asked what I did for work and asked for my work ID or a business card. I told him I hadn't brought those. But why would they even ask for it? As I said, disturbing.
Anyway, for the four days I was there, the weather behaved itself and I walked all over the place and took a lot of pictures. I went to the Rijksmuseum, the zoo and aquarium, the Maritime Museum, the Diamant Museum (waste of time, that one; it exists to try to sell you jewelry) and the Hermitage Museum, took a canal tour by boat, took a city tour by bus, explored the Albert Heijn grocery stores (it's fun to do that in foreign countries if you can find a grocery store to begin with), lost an entire church for two days (it wasn't where I thought it was), went past but not into the Anne Frank house, and generally hiked around Amsterdam seeing it and enjoying myself.
Wednesday was probably the best day. That was the day I ended up eating vlaamse frites in the Rembrandtsplein for lunch, which made me ridiculously happy for no reason other than the sun was shining and there were french fries. I think that was also the day I discovered Ben & Jerry's single-serving Greek frozen yogurt with vanilla caramel swirls, which I probably ought to forget about immediately. Especially if it only comes in pints on this side of the Atlantic.
I tried to continue the tradition of buying earrings in whatever country I'm in (I bought some in India and in Ireland), but I couldn't find any in Amsterdam that weren't horribly tacky souvenir-type things, so didn't buy any. I didn't particularly notice if Dutch women tend to have pierced ears, either. Maybe if they don't, that would explain it?
Anyway, for the four days I was there, the weather behaved itself and I walked all over the place and took a lot of pictures. I went to the Rijksmuseum, the zoo and aquarium, the Maritime Museum, the Diamant Museum (waste of time, that one; it exists to try to sell you jewelry) and the Hermitage Museum, took a canal tour by boat, took a city tour by bus, explored the Albert Heijn grocery stores (it's fun to do that in foreign countries if you can find a grocery store to begin with), lost an entire church for two days (it wasn't where I thought it was), went past but not into the Anne Frank house, and generally hiked around Amsterdam seeing it and enjoying myself.
Wednesday was probably the best day. That was the day I ended up eating vlaamse frites in the Rembrandtsplein for lunch, which made me ridiculously happy for no reason other than the sun was shining and there were french fries. I think that was also the day I discovered Ben & Jerry's single-serving Greek frozen yogurt with vanilla caramel swirls, which I probably ought to forget about immediately. Especially if it only comes in pints on this side of the Atlantic.
I tried to continue the tradition of buying earrings in whatever country I'm in (I bought some in India and in Ireland), but I couldn't find any in Amsterdam that weren't horribly tacky souvenir-type things, so didn't buy any. I didn't particularly notice if Dutch women tend to have pierced ears, either. Maybe if they don't, that would explain it?
