Amsterdam and Rotterdam

I've managed to wait too long to write this blog post, so it is going to be rather brief and somewhat lame. Hopefully, the pictures will make it worth it.

Our arrival in Amsterdam started off well; both our flights were on time. I arrived about an hour before Greg and had plenty of time to brush my teeth and get to his gate in time to meet him. We made our way to baggage claim, grabbed my bags, and went to go find a locker to store my suitcase in for the time we were there. While we found lockers, they were almost US$7.50 per day, so we decided they weren't worth it, especially since our hotel was fairly close to a metro station.

We headed off to the train station to head into Amsterdam, but were delayed by trying to buy our tickets. The machines only took credit cards with the little smart chips in them and it took us a bit to round up enough coins to feed into the machine. Despite this, we did somehow manage to make the next train leaving the airport for central Amsterdam.

Once we arrived at our hotel, we locked up our bags in their storage room and headed out to explore and find lunch while we waited for our room to be ready.

Our hotel

The view from what would become our room, not too shabby.

A church near our hotel that we passed regularly

After we were able to get into our room and get settled, we headed back out into the city, this time in search of the flower market. It turns out it was really close to our hotel.

Pictures from the flower market.

Not all of the flowers at the flower market were real. I'm actually guessing that the ones that were real were not grown in The Netherlands. It was quite flower season anymore there. They were probably grown, ironically, in Kenya.

Over the next few days, Greg and I spent a lot of time walking through the city. It is a really beautiful city. We visited a few museums along the way, including the Van Gogh Museum and the Rijksmuseum, as well as a couple of less culturally stimulating places like the Torture Museum and the Sex Museum (not as good as the one in NYC). We also went to the Ann Frank House. It was hands down the most moving museum experience I've ever had. During the evenings, we went in search of good food. Our first night in the city was met with so, so food, but we were tired and didn't put a ton of effort into it. On our second night, we went on a canal sinner cruise. It was really nice. The food was pretty good too, although not as good as the meal I had in Mombasa on the Tamarind Dhow Cruise. It's hard to compete with lobster. On our third night, we went in search of Indonesian cuisine. We found a great place, but I'm totally blanking on the name of it. Greg's got the Lonely Planet and it is in there. It is the one listed as just as good as the "best" one. Our final night, I was craving Indian cuisine. It was okay, but not anywhere as good as the Indian food I had in Nairobi. We also made sure we had some Dutch pancakes for breakfast. They were tasty. All in all, the food in Amsterdam was pretty good. The coffee was great. We steered clear of the raw herring.

Views from out wanderings through Amsterdam

Me and Greg standing outside the palace. The palace itself was under renovation and nearly completed obscured by scaffolding and tarps.

Vondelpark

Parking deck for bikes

Since we had done a pretty good job of exploring Amsterdam, we decided to take our final full day in The Netherlands and head down to Rotterdam. Rotterdam was leveled during World War II, so it has a completely different look than Amsterdam. Architects apparently like to try to outdo each other with unique building designs.

A park we encountered after heading out of the train station in the wrong direction.

Correcting our path and officially heading out on the walking tour of the city provided in the Lonely Planet.

Statue in the town square: Santa with Butt Plug

The Haven Museum - you can't beat free entry!

We encountered a shipping container that was completely covered in graffiti art. I liked the close up pictures better then the whole thing.

I vote this building the most unique. From this angle, it is not entirely clear to me how to get from the bottom half to the top half. I'm sure there is a way though.

Rain clouds - boo!
As we were starting to think about stopping for lunch, the rain started falling. We were hoping that we could hang out at a restaurant for a while and the rain would let up. Unfortunately this was not the case. After a couple of hours, we decided to continue our walking tour.

After cutting off much of the route and getting decently wet, we decided it was time to take public transit back to the train station and head back to Amsterdam. Naturally, the rain stopped and the skies cleared up right as we arrived at the train station. We were tired and decided we were still interested in going back to Amsterdam. Despite the rain, I'm really glad we made the detour to Rotterdam. It is a cool city.