It is only the second time in
three years of travelling that I have left the country I reside in and head for
outside adventures, but this one made it all worthwhile. I awoke bright and early to glorious sunshine
on Monday morning, eagerly anticipating my journey to Amsterdam. I walked down to the bus stop, and made my
way to Malatya airport for my first flight.
I luckily had the emergency exit seat(e.e.s), so full leg room. I easily killed four hours in Istanbul with a
couple of beers and my book, and then landed another e.e.s. for the four hours
to Amsterdam. I made small talk with the
older Turkish gentleman beside me (I am continually grateful for Michael Jordan
as he makes explaining the pronunciation of my name infinitely easier), watched
some T.V., dozed and arrived about 5pm.
I cleared customs with no problems, and then went to wait for Caitlin
and her friend Eric to arrive. I was
quite pleased with their delay, as I was a titch shell shocked wandering the
airport and looking at the tall, blonde people, the variety in the markets and
the fact that everyone spoke English. I
managed to get my bearings by the time they arrived, and we headed to the
train.
We missed ours by a minute, and
Eric saw a sign for Central that was leaving sooner than on the platform we
were waiting for. Thinking he knew what
he saw, and not reading Dutch, we agreed and ended up on a train to the Hague-
not the direction we were hoping for.
With the help of a nice Estonian traveller, we managed to get off and
reoriented back in the correct direction.
We let our Airbnb hosts know we would be a little late, and enjoyed the
scenery as the stress ebbed. We found
our bus from there and made it to our location in West Amsterdam by about
10pm. We rang our host, and he came down
to show us the ropes.
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| Rijks Museum |
We headed back out to locate the
grocery store (it was closed) and then relaxed by the canal before calling it a
night. The next morning was windy and
cold with a drizzle pelting down in the wind.
Eric and I headed to the store to pick up some breakfast stuff, and then
we had a lazy morning. Since the weather
was so miserable, we caught the tram to the Rijks Museum and spent a couple
hours enjoying the art.
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| Caitlin and I |
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| Eric and Caitlin |
We wandered out
and as the rain had died down (although the wind was still wickedly cold) and
walked into the center, meandering the canals, and stopped for lunch on a patio
with a heat lamp. From there we wandered
into the Red Light District to see the Erotica museum and check out a couple
tattoo shops (for Caitlin and Eric) but they were all quite pricey.
From there we headed to the Amsterdam
Dungeons- an underground interactive history lesson on some of the darker times
in Amsterdam’s history. It was really
interesting to have actors tell the story and enjoy the ‘live’ telling of
history.
By this point we were a little
tired, so we caught the bus home, stopping to pick up supplies for dinner, and
then relaxing with a movie and an early bedtime.
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