OAHU Hawaii USA 2009

OAHU, Hawaii, USA: September 7 - September 19, 2009

A few pictures are sprinkled throughout this travelogue, but click here for the full picture gallery for this trip!

Introduction

I got a paper accepted as part of a symposium to the EARLI 2009 conference being held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in late summer. It had been two years since Isaac and I traveled abroad, so he decided to come with me. It was my first real vacation since I started my job last November and I was looking forward to a break.

Day 1 – Saturday 08/22

Our flight left from the international terminal at PHL at 6:35pm; we had been lucky enough to get a direct flight, so I was hoping one or both of us would actually sleep on the plane. We boarded on time, and kicked back from the gate, but unfortunately, thunderstorms that evening along the East Coast was backing up traffic. Although Philly was clear, since we were due to head over the northeast of the country, we had to wait our turn, due to the narrowness of the East Coast flying corridor. I think we sat on the runway for two hours. It's really annoying how airlines force you to sit on planes, because once they board you, close the doors and push back, they get to count it as an on-time departure, and the delay is due to air traffic control, so they give you nothing for it. Ultimately, we left. Our flight was very empty, so many people had rows to themselves and could stretch out. Isaac and I had a rough time sleeping; I took two sleeping pills and found they just drove me nuts with antsiness - I was too uncomfortable to sleep but the pills were trying to put me to sleep and it was giving me weird sensations in my legs and arms. It was extremely uncomfortable, and I won't be trying that again! The only time I have successfully had a good night's sleep on an airplane is when I took a Valium and a sleeping pill coming back from Brazil, on the recommendation of a friend. He had said the Valium relaxes you enough not to care you are uncomfortable and the sleeping pill can do its work. It worked like a charm for me. Unfortunately, I can't easily get Valium to replicate it!

We arrived quite early the next morning (though a bit delayed due to the night before, we had made up some time). We didn't check any bags - an amazing feat for two people traveling for 10 days - but it saved us a line at immigration / customs / baggage claim. We took the Connexxion bus to the hotel; it was a little hard to find the desk in the airport, but I blame that on lack of sleep and jetlag. The bus is a little pricey (22 euro round trip per person), but it goes door to door both ways, so it seemed worth it. The airport is actually really accessible from the city - it only took us about 15 minutes to get to our hotel. We were staying just outside the outer canal belt, across from the Rijksmuseum and near Vondelpark, a place called Hotel Museumzicht. We chose that place due to a variety of factors - it was sort of in between the downtown old Amsterdam sights to see and the conference venue; it was near to the park and I thought Isaac might like that; it had free wifi and an ensuite bathroom (neither of which are very common in budget hotels in Europe); and my travel book recommended them.

Luckily when we arrived our room was already ready. We checked in with the nice woman who owns and runs the place, Larissa, who somehow seemed just as jet-lagged as we felt. It was probably around 10:30am by then. Anyway I always try to stay awake the first full day, to help jumpstart the adjustment to jetlag by going to bed earlyish on the first night. We each showered and took a one hour nap but then forced ourselves to get up and go out. I'm actually not sure anymore that this is the best way - perhaps if we had slept till about 3 or 4pm, we would have gotten up and had dinner and then went to sleep again. Instead, we sort of wandered around Vondelpark like zombies trying not to be snappish at each other, and without a real agenda. We stopped at a café for lunch almost immediately, and had relatively decent baguette sandwiches - Isaac had tomato, basil and pesto (ubiquitous) and I had a smoked salmon with greens. The service was extremely slow, something the guidebooks warned us about, but which you have to see to really believe. Suffice to say, by the end of our trip, we never ate at a restaurant unless we had at least 1 ½ hours to spare, and we always asked for the check immediately when they came to clear our plates, or we might not see the waiter again for a while.

We tried to find the tourist office so I could buy some public transportation tickets to get to and from the conference, but it was impossible - either the book I had was really out of date, or the office was just really well-hidden. Ultimately we did not end up buying any at all. We wandered some more and sat in the park - enjoying the absolutely beautiful weather on a sunny and warm Saturday afternoon. The weather was unseasonably nice for our trip to Amsterdam - 70-75 degrees each day and sunny every day but the last two. We decided to eat again around 6pm, and had some pannekoeken, which are basically Dutch crepes (pancakes). Instead of the pancake being wrapped around the fillings, the fillings are baked into the pancake itself. They were very delicious. Afterward we retired to the hotel and watched In Bruges, in preparation for our day trip to Belgium later in the week, and barely managed to stay awake through it, passing out afterward around 8pm.

All would have been well afterward, but we both woke around 1am and couldn't get back to sleep till about 3am. Since we had to be up somewhat early for our first excursion, this was annoying. However, ultimately we were able to get back to sleep, and from then on I think we were reasonably adjusted to the time change.

Day 2 – Sunday 08/23

Breakfast was included with the hotel, and we were served a traditional Dutch breakfast each morning in a beautiful little breakfast nook overlooking the gorgeous Rijksmuseum. This breakfast consisted of tea or coffee, a soft-boiled egg you eat with a spoon out of the half shell, ham [which we skipped] and / or cheese, and brown or white toast with lots of options for spreads, such as butter, honey, peanut butter, Nutella, and jams. It was very filling, but tiresome to eat the same thing every single day! If I don't have another soft-boiled egg for a while, I will be fine with that.

We had to meet our bus at 10am so we left the hotel around 9:20am and followed the #5 tram line toward the bus tourism office, Lindbergh travels. We booked our tours through Viator.com. I often like to just forego the public transit and walk through a city if possible, to see more of the sights and really immerse myself in the atmosphere. Of course, bring a good pair of walking shoes. And if you're American, and thinking of wearing sneakers, be prepared to be the only one doing so, except other American tourists. Europeans do not wear athletic sneakers except to do athletics. Many women sightsee in heels, and even if they are wearing comfortable shoes, the most casual they go is fashion sneakers like Converse. We stood out but at least our feet didn't hurt! Speaking of American tourists, we actually did not see very many on our trip. One of our tour guides said it was not a popular place for Americans to go, but I am still not really sure why. It's really a beautiful city with a rich history. I suppose it's more well-known for other things, which may make it seem seedy and unsafe, but in reality it is really just a laid-back fresh European city with beautiful canals and architecture.

When we arrived at the bus stop, we were informed that the tour we booked (only a few days before) was no longer offered [a trip to Naarden, a medieval walled city], but that they still did the same general thing, which was a half-day bus ride through the Amsterdam countryside and a stop at a local castle. The castle was first, a beautiful medieval castle that the owner still lives in today. We did not have time on the tour to go in, but we took pictures from the outside and walked around outside in the beautiful weather for a little while before getting back on the bus to drive around the countryside. We saw many small towns along the Vecht River area, and many canals - the Netherlands is of course full of them. We stopped at a small restaurant where we had traditional Dutch apple pie. We saw many many horses, sheeps, and cows grazing on farmlands along the roads. It looked just like the pretty pictures of countryside farming you imagine American farms look like, but those are actually few and far between. In the Netherlands, I saw them everywhere. One thing in Europe is there really aren't any such things as suburbs to speak of. It's a town centre surrounded by farmland. Of course, their way of life gradually changes, and now some suburbs do exist, but they are not as highly prized in terms of development and living style in Europe as they are in America.

On the countryside tour, we passed along many canals, which people were out on boats; there were also several locks and the 16th century estates were gorgeous. Many of them had what are known as "teahouses", small little one-room buildings with elaborate architecture - much like an elaborate enclosed gazebo - that sat right along the water, so their rich owners could sit out and have tea looking at the canals.

On our way back from the lazy countryside ride, we hit a horrendous traffic jam, so we were about an hour and a half later getting back than we were supposed to. We had not had any major plans so the delay was fine, but a little doze-inducing.

We wandered around the northern part of central Amsterdam, walking past and through Amsterdam Centraal, the train station, again looking for public transportation tickets. While we were unable to find any, we did find a woman from the GVB (the public transit company) who was standing around giving help; and she said that you can actually pay the driver of the trams and they will give you change etc. So I decided to just pay onboard for what I used and call it done.

One thing we saw at Amsterdam Centraal which was really a culture shock were the rows upon rows of bikes locked up there by commuters. Amsterdam, and the Netherlands itself, is very bicycle-centric. Almost everyone, it seems, bikes, from little old ladies doing their weekday shopping to young hip kids heading out on the town. Most bikes have no gears, but all have a small bell, because bicycles in Amsterdam have the right of way over all other traffic, including pedestrians! It was crazy to see a wide city avenue, just as wide as any American avenue, but paved completely differently: one lane for bikes, one lane for buses, one lane for cars (going only one way), two lanes for trams, and another bike lane. Cars are highly de-emphasized in the city, and so the air is fresh and clean and there isn't a problem with traffic jams or noise. Cars stop for pedestrians waiting at cross-walks (even without lights). Don't cross in front of a bicycle though! The only negative I found in the whole arrangement was that moped riders, of which there were a fair amount (not nearly as many as in Florence, though), could use the bicycle lanes, which I thought wasn't quite in the spirit.

We threaded our way through the twisting, winding canal streets of Amsterdam for a while, seeing sights like houseboats up and down the canals, and the special gabled Dutch architecture of the canal houses. We stopped at a small pastry shop to grab something to eat. Isaac got a chocolate-covered Belgian waffle (I know!), and I got a cheese-filled flaky pastry. Both were delicious. We wandered some more, seeing some of the things Amsterdam is more well-known for, including the Red Light District and the coffeeshops, which yes, do serve coffee, but no alcohol - instead they serve another intoxicating substance you cannot buy legally anywhere else in the world. More on that later.

Hard to navigate Red light district Leaning houses

We decided to regroup at the hotel before heading out to dinner. We had read and been told that Indonesian is a major ethnic cuisine in the Netherlands, because Indonesia (or the Dutch East Indies) is a former colony. We almost always have better luck finding vegetarian options by eating ethnic cuisines so we were absolutely game to try it out. We went to a place called De Orient a few blocks from our hotel and had an Indonesian rijfstaffel for two ("rice table"). Apparently, the Dutch pioneered the rice table idea - serving a little bit of everything at once, in case your guest(s) do not like too much of a particular thing. The meal was absolutely delicious. We were served many small entrees to eat with rice and toasted coconut. There was a lot of tofu, some cabbage, green beans, tempeh, and seitan. Many were flavored with peanut sauce, soy sauce or a combination of both. It was a lot of food but we finished every last bit, including the odd fried rice crisps and the toasted coconut garnish. After dinner, we wandered a bit through the canals for scenery and then went to the hotel and slept.

Day 3 – Monday 08/24

Another gorgeous day dawned, which was perfect, because we planned to go to the Wadden Islands today. There are a few islands jutting out over the North Sea to the north of Amsterdam, which are all farmland and forest and beach. Knowing Isaac, I thought this would be a perfect side trip for him. We took the train then ferry to Texel, the biggest and closest island to the mainland. It is about an hour and a half by train to get to Den Holder, then a short bus ride (but it was probably walkable if you had about 20-30 minutes to spare) to the ferry terminal. Then the ferry ride was about 20 minutes to cross the water to Texel. The ferry was a gigantic boat, with lots of space for drive-on passengers. Isaac and I rode on the top deck, and there were swarms of seagulls all around the boat, encouraged perhaps by the tourists tossing bread into the air for the seagulls to catch mid-swoop. We also saw, completely unexpectedly, myriads of jellyfish in the water as we plowed through. These were not beautiful graceful jellyfish, but squat, fat little gray things. But there they were, floating all around the ferry. It was pretty cool.

Note that we had a little trouble getting all our transportation together. Because we slept a little late today, we missed the first train we wanted to catch, and then at the train station, where all is mass chaos, we missed the next train we wanted [which would have timed us properly to catch a ferry immediately on the other side]. Word to the wise: know your credit card PIN # before going. Many American debit cards are not accepted by automatic ticket machines or other pay-for-service kiosks, because they are on a different debit card network (you should have little trouble at actual ATMs, though). I have never had trouble paying with credit card before in Europe, but in the Netherlands, I found they would not accept my credit card without me entering my PIN. So we had to buy tickets from a person, and we ended up a little too late for the train and had to wait 30 more minutes for the next one.

Immediately upon arriving at the island, we rented bikes from the shop just across from the ferry terminal. It was probably a little more expensive than going into the town to rent them, but then you'd have to pay for the bus anyway and wait more and we felt we'd done enough waiting for one day. We both got bikes without gears - the Dutch style! - which were actually easier to ride than I expected. It helps that the entire country is so very flat, being below sea level and all. We rode around the countryside of Texel for the better part of 4 hours. We considered staying longer, but there was a 3 hour gap between trains and we decided to err on the side of getting back earlier and eating dinner in Amsterdam, since I had to get up early and go to the conference the next day. And it turned out that 4 hours of bike riding is quite enough, thankyouverymuch! I need to get more exercise at home to prepare for trips like this! We figure, all told, we rode about 8km, or 16 or 17 miles, which kind of boggles my mind.

We saw lots of sheep, cows, horses, and tiny ponies! Plus some sleepy villages and church steeples. We rode also through some forest paths, very beautiful, and highly bike accessible, being mostly paved. We tried for a while to find the beach but found the map we were given at the bike rental shop to be less than helpful. Eventually we did find the beach, after riding through some heathery dunes, the only hills worth mentioning in all of the trip. So Isaac and I both stuck our feet in the North Sea, so we could say we had, and boy was it cold. The Dutch didn't seem to mind, though; many of them were out swimming like it was the Caribbean.

Exhausted, we ferried and trained home. By the time we got back, it was dark, so we walked through the Red Light District at night-time for the first time. Hearing church bells ring from the Oude Kerk (Old Church) while seeing prostitutes nearly naked in the windows was an odd cultural juxtaposition, for sure. We saw many more women, and many more people in the area since it was night-time. It was hard to tell, but we think most of the passersby were tourists, which must make business pretty difficult. We did not see any gay prostitution on offer, just gay sex shows etc. We ended up eating at a small pizza place in the District, ordering entirely too much food, and I had some Dutch beer.

Got allergies out on Texel and got sick the next day. Everyone speaks English. Bring a water bottle Buy tickets on the bus On the train ride we saw lots of great things: hot air balloons, black sheep.

Day 4 – Tuesday 08/25

This morning I woke up with an allergy-induced cold. Luckily with some rest I kicked it rather quickly. Today was the first day of the conference. While I was out, Isaac went to the Van Gogh museum. He said it did not take too much time.

The city seems quite busy all the time, although it is small and has only 750,000 inhabitants, making it approximately a little larger than Pittsburgh. It's a bit more fast-paced I think. I did find it hard to find places to eat, however. There were so many Argentinian steakhouses, which basically have nothing Isaac and I can eat. We ended up never really eating a traditional Dutch dinner, because of the meat issue. We mostly ate ethnic foods. We had Nepalese/Tibetan this evening, just off the Leidesplein, which is the city's nightlife focal hotspot, and not far from our hotel. The food was….

We wandered a bit after eating but Isaac was still getting over his cold, we were both still very tired from the bike ride, and I wanted to give my cold time to recover, so we grabbed two elaborate pastries for dessert from an open patisserie, and went home to rest and relax.

Day 5 – Wednesday 08/26

Today was our day trip to Belgium. Having never been there, I was excited; we had decided to do this trip because Isaac wanted to squeeze in another country on the same trip. Belgium is quite close and not too difficult to get to and from, so we settled on that. Isaac was disappointed he did not get another stamp in his passport when we crossed the border, though!

We did another tour by bus via Viator.com / Lindbergh Excursions. Normally I might have tried to arrange our trip myself, but the weeks leading up to Amsterdam were extremely busy for me and I didn't have time to plan like I might have liked. So we went the tour route. I don't think we were dissatisfied, but it was a lot of time on buses, and I am not sure I'd want to do that again. Trains seem somehow more comfortable, plus they do not fall prey to the frequent European highway traffic jams.

Anyway we departed at the same time - around 10am - for this trip. Speaking of which, how much nicer a 10am start time than a 7 or 8am. The Dutch like to get started late. We were on the bus for about 2 and a half hours to Ghent, the first Belgian city on our tour. We had only about an hour and a half there, which at first I was upset about, but actually there was not much to see and the city was all under construction. It also was not kept up that well from the medieval times. Personally, I did not like it much. We did buy Belgian chocolate there, yum. And we saw the main church and St. Michael's bridge and castle from the outside, so we basically walked through the city and that was it. We also got another chocolate covered waffle to go and a hand-sized vegetarian pizza to snack on.

We then drove another 45 minutes to Bruges, where we had about 3 hours. This city was extremely beautiful, much more well-kept up and more crowded than Ghent, which had been something of a ghost town. The first thing we did, on the advice of the tour guide, was take a boat cruise through the canals of Bruges. Very beautiful water and buildings, and the boat guide was humorous in all the expected ways (i.e., "don't worry the alligators in the canals only eat small children"). There were some lovely swans resting on one of the banks, near the so-called Lake of Love.

The bell tower is one of the more well-known sights in Bruges, but after the bike ride and being sick for a day, I decided not to climb it and opted to wait for Isaac instead. However, Isaac found it closed, which was a shame. The bell tower is the same one in the movie In Bruges, and we even recognized the small inner courtyard from the movie itself. As we walked around the main square, with a really gorgeous town hall, we tried to decide on a place to eat, but most places were the sit-down-slow-service type of places. We chose a small eetcafe called De Vuyst on the Simon Stevinplein, which turned out wonderfully. The service was so-so, and we had by now learned to be fairly aggressive. I had a traditional Belgian waffle with real chocolate melted over it - no Hershey's syrup thankyouverymuch - and a local Bruges beer, and Isaac had cheese croquettes (basically deep fried cheese balls) and Belgian frites, with a local Bruges beer as well. This meal was extremely simple but exceedingly delicious and satisfying.

It was then time to leave, around 6pm. We had a very nice ride out of Bruges through the residential areas (no subdivisions of course) instead of along the highway, bound to be jampacked. One thing I noticed about Dutch and Belgian houses of this are is that many windows were open straight through the house, with no curtains. It was about a 4 hour ride home, because of a half hour stop at a boring European rest stop with a boring restaurant, "AC Restaurant". All I got were Pringles; Isaac got a strawberry cake. As we rode back, the landscape was dotted with windmills, both of the modern kind and of the traditional kind. We saw one emerge up out of the coming dark that came and went too fast for me to take a picture, but its looming silhouette was one of the perfect memories of our trip. It comes up about 15 minutes after the stop, if you ever take that tour yourself, so you can be prepared to s nap a photo. We also saw one double windmill, two windmills about 50 yards apart, looking perfect in the countryside. We even actually saw one moving one, the only active traditional windmill I think I saw the whole time. There were also many medieval defense towers dotting the land, which was an unusual sight. Towers built in the 1400s or 1500s to ward off attackers from the medieval walled cities, have lasted all this time barely looking like they have aged at all. Something else I noticed was that as we rode home and it became darker and darker, all the animals were still out in the pastures. I don't know if it was due to the summer or not, but I had expected to see some sheep and cow herders bringing the animals in for the night and was a bit disappointed to see them all still standing around without any humans around. We saw very few signs of human presence on the farms, actually. One set of sheep was standing in a circle all facing outward. There was a late sunset, too, about 9:45pm till it was completely dark.

On our walk home, we cu through the Red Light District again and saw many more people out - it was a bit later than before. The place was really hopping!

PS Bruge means bridges. I did notice that there were not as many bikes in the Belgian cities as we had seen in Holland. On the road, we saw many cornfields lining the highways, which I had not really expected. The countryside was very similar to the Netherlands, cows, sheep, horses, etc. In fact, even the language was generally the same; we did not go far enough south to hit French Belgium, unfortunately for me.

Day 6 – Thursday 08/27

Another city day. I planned to go to the conference in the afternoon so we started the day by heading to the Heineken Experience, a museum in an old brewery. They do not brew beer there anymore, but it was the site of the first Heineken brewery many years ago. We got there around opening time, 11am, and went through the whole thing, including having two free beers (smallish), by 12:45pm. It was a fun thing to do, but very touristy, kind of like a big Heineken commercial. In fact they were playing Heineken commercials or product placement reels in several of the rooms. There were these odd space pods you could lie in and choose your favorite Heineken commercials from the decades. There was some history and science of beer making and the Heineken brand, but it was short-lived. I gathered the real focus of the tour was to get you to the bar at the end quickly. One item of note was that there was a "Brew You the Ride", which is basically an immersive theatre that is supposed to make you feel what it is like to be brewed into beer. It was a bit too gimmicky for me. Oh, also note that the whole thing was in English, and all the guides spoke English only. Word to the wise: there's no bathroom on the way out, so be careful after drinking your two free beers!

Afterward, we walked around central Amsterdam some more and it was starting to be rather yucky weather - raining irregularly and a bit chilly. It did warm up later and clear up, but the weather forecast turned out not to be very reliable for our trip from day to day.

Again, we had trouble finding a lunch place. From my reading of our tour books, I think it's just because the Dutch don't prioritize lunch very much - they grab and go. To that end, there is any number of takeout Chinese ("Wok to Walk"), vending machine food, and McDonald's. I'd recommend taking the first place you see that is reasonable to you, waiting doesn't help if you're just wandering and hungry or short on time. We ended up at Westerkerk by way of the statue of Multatuli, and had some fries with mayonnaise in the Westermarkt square near the Homomonument. We had planned to climb the Westerkerk tower so we arrived and asked about tickets; they said there was a guided climb with a limit of 6 people every 30 minutes, and the next available one was an hour and a half from then. The tour guide said that usually in fact it would have been full up already, but the weather was deterring some people (although it had really stopped raining by then). Our guidebook said nothing about any of these details, so that was a big negative mark for the book. Luckily we were able to get tickets for the 4:30 climb, but we had to figure out what to do with that time. First I had a tea and we shared a chocolate mousse cake at a small café called Jennifer's near the Westerkerk. Isaac had wanted to try to do the Anne Frank House, which is right next door, in the meantime, but I was worried with the long line that we would not make it back in time; plus I didn't want to be rushed through that place. Instead we saw Multatuli's statue, the widest bridge, and the shortest canal.

We eventually started the tour to climb the tower. Warning: not for the claustrophobic! The stairs and ladders were extremely small, steep and tight. I am amazed I made it up all the way. It was about a 46 meter climb, or 150 feet. We had a very good guide for our tour, who gave us quite a number of interesting facts about Amsterdam history and the glory days when Amsterdam was the trading capital of the world and the richest city ever.

Leaning houses Biggest warehouse

The view from the top has some beautiful views, which highlights what an attractive and green city Amsterdam is. Note that this is not actually a church tower, but a city tower. Amsterdam has always been a city of religious tolerance and separation of church and state was not just lip service.

We then did the Anne Frank House around 4:45pm. There are long lines to get in almost all the time, so go early or late (it's open till 9pm). It is quite a sobering experience, but very nicely done museum, and the people touring it were quiet and respectful. It's actually a fairly quick visit, we were done by 6pm, so keep that in mind. We saw the actual diary Anne wrote in, pictures she hung on the walls, and lines marking the growth of the children during the two years the families hid in the house. We saw the tiny window that Franz and Anne looked out of from their small attic room, the only window that was not covered all day and night. You can see it from the Westerkerk, and in fact Anne wrote about the bells keeping her up.

We had Surinamese for dinner, walking through the western part of the city, which we had not really explored before. Surinamese food is like…

We ended up at the hotel a bit early this evening so I could finish preparing for my talk at the conference the next day.

Day 7 – Friday 08/28

Today I had my talk at the conference. That reminds me to mention how easy it was to ride the tram. You can indeed pay the driver and he will give you change - such a novel concept! Then you get these cards that are good for a certain amount of time (mine was an hour) which you swipe when you enter and leave the car. The talk went well and I got to see a lot of my old colleagues from CMU who are working in educational technology. Unfortunately I missed my advisor because he was only there for a short time. The conference was held at VU.

While I was gone, Isaac walked up to the Nemo…

After the conference was over for the day, I headed back into town to meet Isaac. We had planned to finally take a canal tour. We decided on the 75 minutes cruise with the Blue Boat company.

Hop on hop off Computerized guide

Some highlights from the tour: - Amsterdam once had 26000 warehouses - The whole city is built on pikes in the ground going 120m down It was a bit cold out on the water, but there were many pretty sights and the 75 minute tour was a really nice length. I'd recommend sitting outside for pictures if you can - when we boarded, the outside was taken. The guide said the people used to drink beer because the water was polluted, and they didn't have coffee or tea until they began trading with the tropics.

Isaac really wanted to have Indonesian dinner one more time so we went to a place called BOJO, which was supposedly very popular. Actually inside it was quite empty, which we were surprised about until we realized we had accidentally entered the half that did not serve alcohol. The other half was hopping.

We wandered some more and then got stuck in a terrible thunderstorm with incredible rain.

Coffeeshop - loud, bad music, milky coffee, bring your own lighter Lasagna - doughdish from the oven

Home Favorite memory: swan procession amid the red light district Open air festival all weekend

Day 8 – Saturday 08/29

Today was our last full day in Amsterdam! Although I was starting to be ready to return home, there was certainly more we could have seen. We started the day by doing the Diamond tour at Coster Diamonds, just around the corner from our hotel. It was a bit of a short and rushed tour, which seemed mainly designed to get us into the shops to buy expensive diamond things, but what do you expect from a free tour? Word to the wise: take pictures before the tour begins, or you won't have time.

We wandered north through central Amsterdam again and walked past the Bloemenmarkt, the mostly-floating flower market, selling all kinds of tulips, amaryllis, etc. Anything grown from a bulb. Also, pot seeds and grow-your-own starter kits. I thought about buying some bulbs to bring back home but I hadn't done any research on what was allowed to import to the US so I decided against it. We ate lunch at a small café near the Bloemenmarkt, having pannekoeken one last time. It was about this time I noticed my memory card had become full. I had taken more than 500 pictures already. We sat for a little bit and deleted repeats or ones that hadn't come out, but I was a conservative deleter because I like to save all my raw photos. I bought us enough space to take pictures the last day at least.

We went to the torture museum, after rejecting the Amsterdam Dungeon, which was going to be 50 euros for both of us and seemed exceedingly steep for such a touristy place. The torture museum was more low-key and had actual implements as well as sketches of how they were used. Surprisingly my camera took very good pictures of the dark rooms.

We wandered then up the single, the biggest canal, and saw the smallest house -- #7, no wider than a door - back in the day, taxes were levied based on canal frontage. The house itself angled back so there was a bit more room behind the canal itself.

Isaac was too chicken to try haring

We went on the Poezenboot.

Cannabis shop selling cannabis lollipops

Awesome grading glassware

More wandering Coffeeshop Wandered around stoned - very confusing anyway and then worse while stoned - got turned around a few times and got separated from Isaac. Went back to the hotel and had sex three times. Relaxed at the hotel for several afternoon hours. Pretty sunset. Gift from hotel staff. Dinner at golden temple - meals with flat bread: middle eastern, Mexican, pizza and Indian.

Leidseplein beer. Chocolates in our room.

Packing - always accumulate items; had to check on the way home. Lots of rain outside - bus at 8am tomorrow morning.

Day 9 – Sunday 08/30

The return trip was long and tiring, again. We had arranged for the Connexxion bus to come for us at 8am (our flight was around 10:30am), and it did. - people overbooked - check in to security at gate - delay in Bangor ME for fuel stop - people so rude on the plane - arrived in Philadelphia about 2 hours later than we expected - home! Andrew - unpacked, showered, rested, work the next day - fell asleep somewhat early, but adjusting the other way is easier. I was still jet lagged and exhausted the next two days at work

I really enjoyed my time in Germany – I wish I could have stayed longer and seen more of Munich and Bavaria. To say nothing of seeing places like Berlin and Frankfurt. I also felt a bit guilty for not visiting any Holocaust sites like Dachau (which is right near Munich) – I felt sort of selfish saying I didn’t want to prioritize that, when so many people suffered. I feel I almost owed it to them to go and pay respects. Perhaps next time I go I will have more time to make sure I can do that. Another thing I regret not having had a chance to do in Augsburg was see the marionettes show, which apparently has quite a history in Bavaria and Germany and is very popular. On the way to the train station, though, we did see a street performer who was making a marionette play the violin. So I at least got to see a little puppet action while we were there, but if I ever got to go back, the Puppenkiste would be my first stop.

All the people we met in Germany were quite friendly. I’ve lost track of our ratio of English-speakers to non but we had a lot of success everywhere we went when I just said either “Sprechen Sie Englisch?” ("Do you speak English?") or “Ich spreche kein Deutsch” (I don't speak any German). Of course, our sample was representative of the city dwellers only.

We ended the trip with €2,45 (euros) in coins, which Isaac will keep for his knickknack collection (I already have a few euro coins myself).

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it and reminiscing about the trip! I would highly recommend visiting Germany and traveling the countryside of Bavaria especially. Super charming and picture-book perfect with the Alps for a backdrop. Auf weidersehn! Till next time!

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