Breakfast in Amsterdam

How I let this one slip by I don't know, but our flight to Amsterdam was at 5am which meant we had to leave at 3 am. Despite efforts to change it to a more reasonable hour, it actually turned out to be a great opportunity to spend the day visiting a place we'd never been to before.

We arrived at 7:30 am, and at the airport there is a train system right there at the terminal that takes you to the city center in 17 minutes. It was too bloody cold at 4C and too foggy to be wandering around aimlessly so we high tailed it to a corner restaurant for breakfast and to keep warm. From there, (where eggs and bacon came with fries) we watched the Dutch people hustling and bustling the start of their day 99% of them on a bicycle. Whereas everyone in Greece drives either a scooter or motorcycle, here it's strictly one gear pedal bikes. So much so, that next to the train station was a 3 level parking lot strictly full of bikes!

Not dressed for the weather but figuring we can't hide in the restaurant all day, we decided to venture out down the side street as there appeared to be some shops. And shops there were - mostly pertaining to sex and pot paraphanalia . Nothing hidden in these streets - whatever your desire is at your disposal and this wasn't even the reputed Red Light District. Hmm, OK a little early for all this, so after a few curious tourist-like peeks, with camera forever hanging from my neck, we sought further refuge by taking a tour boat ride along the canals that wind throughout the city. Definately somewhat more educational!

It was a beautiful 1.5 hour cruise during which time the fog lifted to reveal a very
European city with narrow 3 story 18th century row housing lining the endless canals. One building was reputed to be the narrowest of all - only 2 meters wide. The interesting thing about these building is that because they're so narrow it makes moving in and out very difficult so what they did to solve the problem is that at the gable of each building there is a beam sticking out with a hoisting cable attached. When you move house, as they call it, the cable is lowered to street level where crates can then be hooked on and hoisted up through the picture window each flat has. One thing that really appealed to us was that not only were the streets lined with buildings but so was the canal side with endless lines of float homes and house boats either one level bungalows or one level boats where moorage is no longer available.

Although the sun was shining and it was warming up, our time in Amsterdam was very short-lived, albeit somewhat educational in more ways than one! But alas, we had to hop the train back to the airport to catch that 10 hour flight home, thus marking the finale to our '09 winter escape.

Thanks for dropping in on my travel journal, and if interested, check back to see if I managed to get the pictures uploaded. Each week I had corresponding pictures to post but was unable to get Picassa program to cooperate. But we're home safe and sound now and help is on the way!

Happy Travels

KnR