Amsterdam




Amsterdam was the third place that I visited on my trip to Europe in 2016, after Madrid and Paris. I arrived late at my Airbnb, due to weather-related flight delays flying from Paris. There was stormy weather over Europe at around that time. While I was in Amsterdam a storm hit Paris and the Seine flooded. They had to remove artwork from the basement of the Louvre. I saw a photo of a walkway along the Seine, where I had just been a week ago, underwater.

Keeping my Airbnb host in Amsterdam waiting was not something that I wanted to do. Research that I had done before my trip indicated that Dutch culture values punctuality, so I was sorry to be late. I wanted to participate in life there, as it is lived there, as much as I could manage. My decision not to have cell phone service when I was in Europe, since I use the phone so little, was not helpful at that point. My sporadic communication about when I would arrive, when I had a chance to send an email, would have been quicker and better by phone. But when I finally arrived my host was very nice about it.

It was sunny for much of the two weeks that I was in Amsterdam, which is not the type of weather I was told to expect. The apartment in which I was staying is near Vondelpark, a large, pleasant public park on the west side of the city, not far from the museum area. The first evening I was there, after my day of travel delays, I went out for a walk, and managed to find the Rijksmuseum, although I got very lost and confused about directions, then got caught in a sudden storm, waiting it out in the doorway of a store on Hobbemastraat near the museum. Eventually I found my way back to the apartment, and ate some of the food that I got at the Albert Heijn market.

Amsterdam is a wonderful city. The city was crowded, but somehow very pleasant. In the city center people seem to deal with each other well, as more bikes per capita than I have ever seen whiz around you. The canals, and all the red brick building construction, add tranquility. On one of the few days that I didn’t make it to the Rijksmuseum, I stopped to sketch at a canal. Now I think it would be nice if I had recorded where I was, when I did the drawing posted above. Finding that spot again would be a fun thing to do on a return trip there.

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