Amsterdam - Day one

The wife* and I arrived in Amsterdam on the second Tuesday of this month. Why Amsterdam? It may be the easiest city to visit across all of Western Europe. We didn't know that when we were first making travel plans, but we did know we had friends in nearby areas of Germany and could visit them easily in the same trip.**

We stayed at the Qbic. It's almost unbelievably convenient, sitting right at the end of an 8 minute ride from the airport. The rooms aren't easy to take photos of.

Perhaps we could have opened the curtains.

It's a bit like staying in a compact RV parked in a new neighborhood brunch place you've been willing to visit for a week or two but you've just been too intimidated by the colored neon and eclectic decor. That's a good thing here - it's a fun place to stay!

Plane delays left us with limited time for museum visits so we explored the local neighborhood. South Amsterdam (Zuid) is bucolic and distant from the noisy attractions of the central city neighborhoods. We found some parks to explore instead.

These stone lions guard the Beatrixpark.

The lions aren't very vigilant.

Yarn-bombed canals. They aren't all like that yet.

Not far away from the last photo, two stately balconies overlook the canal.

Having successfully explored the South, we found noodles at Wagamama.***

The next day and the next post: Masters of the Dutch Arts!

*She doesn't really like being referred to as "the wife." I just asked her and she expressed a preference for the phrase "my lady." I'll refer to her as D instead.

**Many of the times when I would mention traveling to Amsterdam to colleagues and acquaintances, they'd ask me if I was going there for the marijuana. I wasn't and we didn't. The popular connection between Amsterdam and weed is a unique one, though it will be interesting to see how that changes as more areas legalize consuming the stuff.

***There are US locations of this noodle-centric establishment but they are all in Massachusetts.