Vacation day 9-11: Amsterdam and Finale

We have good German friends that we really only get to see every few years. It just seems ridiculous to fly all the way to Europe and not at least try to hook up with Axel. 

One thing Europe has really gotten right and I wish we had is a train network that essentially allows you to get anywhere in Europe in less than a day. (Thank you car manufacturers for derailing and true rail system in America)

It's also amazing to see these gigantic train stations in the middle of these cities. Just buildings every where, then you see this several story tall tunnel containing dozens of restaurants and shops while you wait for your train. There's something soothing about having a coffee and just watching trains come and go. 

Paris would be an 8 hour train ride from Osnabrück Germany. Not ideal. Don't want Axel to spend half his waking hours getting to us. So like Indiana Jones, I pulled out my map and just ran my finger around until I started finding big cities that might be a possibility. Amsterdam won. 3 hour train ride for us, 3.5 hour train ride for Axel. It was more or less the most "Central" location I could find with an international airport. 

Train is the way to go. It's usually about as quick as a car. You can read while drinking a beer and make your way hundreds of miles. The cost is negligible. We crossed three countries for like $30. (If you can't tell, I wish I could ditch my car and just walk and train everywhere, but alas, America and freedom or something)

Anyway, we made it to Amsterdam in the early afternoon, took their subway system essentially right to our hotel, dropped our stuff, and Axel was ready to go. The man was so amped up, it was infectious. 

I had heard that everyone in Amsterdam was fluent in English, but I didn't expect that EVERYONE was fluent in English. Not only that, they really didn't have any sort of accent. It was easier to understand Amsterdammers than some Scottish people I've talked to.

We managed to find a small bar called Le Patron to have our first cheers and catch up a little before dinner. There's something comforting and unassuming about being in a dive bar in any city I've ever been to. There's no special cocktails or bartenders wearing leather butcher aprons and calling themselves mixologists. Le Patron was just a neighborhood bar. Everyone in there was local (except us). The tables were all small, really just meant to be a spot to set a drink down while you stood around and had a good time with friends. 

This would be the last time we found a place to eat or drink on our first try. 

We ended up at a cheese restaurant called Kaasbar Amsterdam where plates of cheese and charcuterie pass by you on a conveyor belt. We were at a table, so we didn't have the belt of cheese feeding us, so we instead, we just ordered one of everything and pigged out. Then we had a mission to find a quiet place for an after dinner drink.

This is when we learned a hard lesson about how many people live in such a small area. We ping ponged around, trying to find anywhere to sit down, have a glass of wine, and continue our conversation. We ended up finding a few stops on the way home. (Oeuf Amsterdam and Restaurant Zaza's). For every spot we found to have a drink, we passed 3. 

We agreed on a time to meet up in the morning. We wanted breakfast before our boat tour of Amsterdam. Axel and I, essentially being the same person at this point, found the exact same breakfast spot at the exact same time, from our separate rooms. Long lost twins, you tell me?

We found FLOW All Day Brunch, which had just opened like a week before we were there. You would've never known it. The service was perfect, the food was incredible. Spoiler: We loved it so much, we went back the next morning. 

I had found a boat tour that was in English called Those Dam Boat Guys. It promised to be a more adult tour of the city, via the man made canals. We were going to curse, cover sex, cover drugs, cover drinks. This was the gritty tour of the city. And I have to say, seeing the other boats, we picked right. 

Our boat maybe fit 8 passengers and the captain (and the captain's dog.) Our captain, Marnix, was a pirate. We learned that all of Amsterdam was manmade and built on wooden pylons, so a lot of the city is sinking into the swamp. People have had to spend a lot of money raising their houses and getting them level. Almost every house was built around the same time, so they all have a similar look. To differentiate, every house has a decoration at the top and has a name. (The full moon house, the Poseidon house, etc)

Marnix had jokes, he had the history, and he told us the better places to go. For instance, French fries with a bunch of sauces are a popular food to walk around with in Amsterdam and one of the French fry joints went viral on Tik Tok recently. We crossed under a bridge and saw a line of about 100 people out in the cold. Marnix told us that is wasn't even the best fry place on the block, let alone in Amsterdam and sent us to Vlaams Friteshuis Vleminckx.

One of the things I didn't expect was how vertical Amsterdam is. If the bathroom was on the second story of the building, you were going to basically have to climb a ladder to get up there. 

We wandered the streets for a bit, doing some window shopping, eating our fries, looking for a place to warm up. (This was by and far the coldest day of our entire trip) Ultimately, the downtown area was too crowded and we decided to get out of there and move back to our hotel area. 

We found a great cocktail bar almost immediately. (Bar Mokem) and had a few drinks to warm up. We were trying to find a dinner reservation but pretty much everywhere was full until 9 pm. Whoops, should've planned ahead. It literally was the only day we didn't have a dinner reservation the entire time we were there. 

Axel, being the crazy super hero he was, found a seafood place across the street from the cocktail bar, but their site wasn't working. So he got up, ran across the street and secured us a table for four. It's definitely a gamble to eat seafood the night before you hop on a 12 hour plane ride, but it worked out. The Seafood Bar was a great last night place. We were able to have a very casual dinner, grab a bottle of wine, take it back to the hotel, and hang out. 

The next morning was as laid back as a travel day could be. We still had to pack, went and had breakfast, hopped on the subway to get to central station, then a train to get to the airport, and then onto the plane. 

The plane ride home was as uneventful as you could hope. We watched a few movies together, landed in Detroit, got a little caffeine, got to St. Louis, had a wild cab ride, and ordered Dominos, trying to stay awake until 11. 

We did it, vacation over. One of the best I've ever been on.