The Final Leg, Amsterdam

After two days in Leiden we took a late afternoon train to Amsterdam where we would spend the last day and a half of our European trip. Before we could take off though, we had another test of our patience at the hotel. We called for a cab. Thirty minutes later, it hadn't arrived yet. We had just decided to cancel the cab as the free shuttle from the hotel was going to start running in 20 minutes when the cab pulled up. He wanted to grab our luggage and go, but I said wait a minute, you took so long we're deciding whether to go with you or not. After a solid minute of debating the merits, we hopped in the cab and took off. Had to make him sweat a little at least.

We bought our tickets and hopped on a train to Central Station in Amsterdam, which cost more than just going to the airport because it's further. Makes sense. Then we cabbed it from the train station to the hotel, which you wouldn't think would be meaningful except this guy was a NY cab driver in a sea of Des Moines drivers. It was fun and scary at the same time as we almost took out several bikers along the way. Amsterdam, though there are bikes a plenty, seems to have adopted bikes as an afterthought instead of planning the roads for them as we saw in Berlin and Leiden. For instance, when I got out of the cab in front of my hotel and was waiting for LL to exit, two mopeds whipped past my back at about 30 mph. WTH? There's a bike path down the middle of the sidewalk! There's pedestrian space, a bike path and then more pedestrian space! Crazy.

If you're not familiar with Amsterdam, you can visualize it in your head by starting with a train station at the north end of the town behind which is water. Emanating to the south are a series of semi-circles that have the train station at the center. Each semi-circle is accented by a canal and there's about six of them that span the semi-circle. Pretty interesting.

Anyway, we got there and instead of going straight to dinner with Alexis and Rob, we were welcomed with a private canal cruise with their friends first!! How awesome is that??It was probably 90 minutes on the canals just puttering up and down them and looking at the buildings, eating cheese, chips and drinking wine. Good stuff!! Dinner then was awesome too, in no small part due to the company but also the ostrich I had was amazing and we had not one but two PITCHERS of water with just a little bit of ice. You bet we drank all of that water too!! Good fun. Time for some pictures:

The captain and boat owner, David, his buddy to the right and Rob to the left. LL snuck in on the left as well.

Not sure what Alexis is doing in this picture....maybe skeptically considering a point Rob made. Co-boat owner, Claire(?) is on the right. Very fun folks were the boat owners!

Some typical homes along the canal. I think I liked the hooks at the top of these buildings which are used to haul stuff up through the top windows. Sweet.

A cool tower shot from the boat.

Some more canal pictures:

This was our vantage from the bar across the street from the hotel. Not bad.

A fairly typical intersection of sorts.

Not sure why, but the Europeans are big on charging you to go to the bathroom. Those that don't actually charge have a tip plate where they want you to leave money. I took this picture in a McDonald's! Yes a McDonald's!! They were charging to use the bathroom and had an attendant collecting the money. Unbelievable.

We ate these bad boys at a street market. They are olives wrapped by anchovies. Pretty damn tasty! We also had chicken satay (on a stick with peanut sauce). Good eating.

Some shout outs to my boy Benny Baseball!! Scenes from the red light district. Oh, did I not mention the red light district? We walked around there twice, once in the afternoon and once at night. The smell of cannabis is pungent as you walk the streets. This fine "coffee shop" is one of those that sells mostly pot, but maybe some coffee too.

The district gets it's name from the lights surrounding the windows that house the many prostitutes who work in the area. Here's a video that shows the area (SFW).

Businesses there either sell: women, food, pot or a bed. That's pretty much it.

Benny Baseball!! They have a hotel for you!

Ok, there are some other things sold in the red light district, like this.....T-shirt. Ha! The area is not for the feint of heart but I'd go back in a heartbeat.