Trip 46

April 22. 2024

We arrived about 8:30am at Schiphol Airport after a 7 hour flight from Philadelphia. While we “rolled on” our luggage, there’s the sometimes dreaded immigration queue. Having read in the last few years of enormous lines, we were relieved to see nothing like that today. Breakfast on board the plane was really just something to hold back the hunger pangs, so we stopped at a cafe inside the airport for a snack before buying train tickets into Centraal Station in Amsterdam ($12.60). It’s a 20 minute ride into Amsterdam, where we then bought two metro cards (tap in/out type) with $10€ each on them. The Metro ride was only 3 stops and a few blocks walk to the hotel. Arriving about 11:30, the room was not ready so we camped out in the lounge, but ended up staying there longer than hoped because the staff never came back up to tell us our room was ready 😠. The mostly cloudy day with light rain sprinkles gave way to blue skies and no rain by noon.

Not having much sleep on the plane, we crashed out for a few hours before heading out in the early evening for a walk towards De Hortus Botanicus . We didn’t expect it to be open this time of day (though we have visited before), it was just a destination to walk towards. Along the way, we walked past the University of Amsterdam Law School and Business School, located along (surprise!) a canal. The walkways are littered with the fallen white petals of the blooming trees.

Nature calls?

Even more modern structures have the hoists at the top, since they build up, not out.

Even though it’s getting dark (now after 9pm), there are still a good number of bicyclists peddling along the dedicated paths, so you have to look out more for them, than cars.

Parking garages are rare, except for bicycles (more bicycles in Amsterdam than people).