Amsterdam with a Train on a boat!

Post date: Aug 04, 2019 5:49:24 PM

One of the great things about living in Berlin is meeting up with old friends at various places on the continent.

So when my friend Andrius (who used to be called A-Train, but hasn’t in a long time) said he and his wife (the VERY lovely Nina) were coming to visit his sister in Amsterdam, and I should join them for the weekend! I booked a train ticket (I love a good, long train ride) and headed north.

Because I was only there to see friends, I was entirely ambivalent about the schedule/plan. I was there to follow along.

Which meant, I was happy when we rented bikes and road them around the city. Honestly it was one of the cooler things I’ve done lately.

And I have big news: I’ve added Amsterdam to the list of places I’m willing to move after I leave Berlin. It’s a short list (currently, only containing Amsterdam, London and Paris) so this is a monumental addition.

Speak of the Train and he shall appear! Somehow, I’ve aged, but Train has not at all.

Everyone I know from Amsterdam is a bit of a foody, so it is no surprise that I wanted to quickly brunch. Scone, with clotted cream (a bit more whipped than is my taste), but they were delightful. None of the food I had in Amsterdam stood out as mind blowingly good, but none of it was bad. All of it was good. Will be back to explore more.

It was the perfect temperature, lightly cloudy and cool, but not too cool, but not too warm. And we were early enough in the summer that there weren’t very many people wandering about. And there were the occasional god rays (see above).

We only did two touristy things: the Van Gogh Museum (which I had seen before) and the Heinken experience. I would strongly recommend the first and strongly recommend skipping the second.

But the company was good, so it was worth the wander around the old brewery. Would skip the free drink room. The floor is stickier than most of the college bars I have ever been in.

The last day, I had a later train than the flight Train and Nina took back to the Bay area. Since I couldn’t drop my bags at the train station (it was full) I took my bag and wandered to a park nearby. Which was a nice way to spend the afternoon. Reading in a park, watching happy dutch people wander by and reading. It was a very german thing to do on a Sunday afternoon, and I reveled in doing it in a Dutch park.

The wander back to the train station cemented my love for Amsterdam. It’s the big windows and the stark colors. The romance of the canals and the old cobblestones through the older parts of the city.

I’ll be back Amsterdam. And depending on how my life goes, maybe for awhile.

And hopefully I’ll see this guy soon.

Train on a boat