Author: rphbaker

We walked near our very first Airbnb that we had here with the kids in 2015 (how is it possible that was nearly ten years ago?) We walked past the grocery store that Greg let the kids walk to alone, or tried to except I followed from a distance just to make sure they didn’t get lost or taken.

Just around the corner from all these memories were a few outdoor cafes. We stopped at Cafe Josephine for dinner.

Our server was a young guy who could obviously immediately tell we were Americans. He asked where we were from and when Greg said Kentucky he said “Ken-two-key? Well that’s a first!” He then went on to briefly bring up the elections (whyyyyyyyyy) before bringing us menus.

Aside from accidentally bringing me regular coke instead of Coke Zero, despite mentioning Americans drink diet, he was a hard worker and made our dinner very enjoyable.

I chose the Croque Monsour and it was delicious.

It was a little after 8pm when we finished dinner and after little sleep Friday night due to all the partying Amsterdamers I’m ready for bed. After I start a load of laundry of course.

But first our walk home.

Tomorrow’s activities include a visit to the Rodin Museum, likely a trip to Sacre Coure and lots of walking in between.

Oh, and a lemon crepe, that is definitely on my agenda. After a breakfast pastry obviously.

We started walking a little before 5 towards Notre Dame to check the progress. Aside from that we have no specific intended destination. It’s a beautiful day in Paris. We have really lucked out this trip with the weather.

We started hearing music and I thought we were walking into a parade route. Nope. Turns out it was an anti Israel rally. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen this many police with riot gear standing everywhere. We quickly made our way through the area.

We walked through the flower market.

Notre Dame is looking so much better but there is no way it will reopen in December as it says it will.

We walked past an outdoor market with vendors selling things along the Seine.

We headed out to walk around a bit to see some of the sights. Within a block of our apartment it’s clear that Greg picked the best location for us.

I’m not sure how there can be so many in such a concentrated area of town. Also thought we left the red light district behind in Amsterdam.

The instructions said to walk to door 4 and use the code to enter. The only problem is that there were three door fours.

Our host’s housekeeper met us and let us in. This apartment will be much better because we have two bathrooms. Living large!!

Our Uber driver seemed to be an aggressive driver. He was all over the place. Thankfully we arrived safe and sound.

Pics from out the window.

We called for our Uber around 9:30 this morning. We had a few mins of stress as we waited for someone to accept our ride. We didn’t really have a contingency plan so I was thankful when he picked up our request.

We headed out of our Airbnb and waited on the curb. Near the school zone…which was clearly written in English.

Our driver said he’s driven cabs for 23 years and it was obvious he knew the roads and even the bumps in the roads very well. Last night when we sat outside there were multiple cars who bottomed out going over a speed hump. No chance of that with him. He dropped us off at the train station.

We grabbed a spot where we could throw our luggage down to wait until it was closer to time for our train. Greg and I ran to Starbucks for a coffee.

I’m not exactly sure what happened but our train was supposed to leave at 11:08 and then somehow it updated to 10:33. Thankfully Greg suggested we head on up to the platform because when we finally caught the elevator and made it up we had 5 mins before the train left.

After boarding and trying to figure out where our seats were we landed in basically a private car to ourselves. Carey went all out and got first class seats for us which supposedly include food but the seat numbers don’t exactly match our tickets. We are just gonna go for these seats.

We are all a little confused by this trip. The guy below brought breakfast but commented that he wasn’t supposed to come back to this car because it’s too narrow back here. He made it seem like he was doing us a huge favor bringing us food.

When he came back to pick up our trays he made some comment about moving us up to a different car if there was room. He said he had two seats now and might have two more seats after the Brussels stop. None of us are interested in moving because we aren’t sure if the seats are together and we might be awkwardly facing strangers. We would rather have no food than to sit with random strangers.

A new worker came in and started busting out a whole lot of stuff in French. I was really hoping that someone was following but it seems that wasn’t the case. We had a few seconds of awkwardness when he realized we weren’t French.

He started asking where we were from and then the talk changed to the election. The one topic that really none of us are interested in discussing.

He was a super nice guy who is from Chad. He asked if we got food and we said we were ok and he said no you need food! It’s my colleague’s responsibility to bring you food. We said we got breakfast and we thought that was it but soon after that the first guy showed back up with lunch.

We also found out that the locked train car behind us that the employees ended up using as a break room is for prisoners. Thankfully there were no drug busts on this ride because I’m not interested in having a prisoner staring at me.

We arrived to Paris right on time. I have no clue how this is possible but two people from Australia that were on our Viking Cruise had also been on our train. Literally smallest world ever.

We made our way through the train station and started to look for an Uber. One driver picked up our ride and then immediately cancelled. We decided to make our way outside and assess the situation.

After a lousy night of sleep due to partying outside our windows we are awake and packed with some time to spare before we need to catch our train to Paris.

We decided to go out and walk around one last time. The city was just waking up. This is my favorite time of day in Amsterdam it seems.

We started walking towards our Airbnb thinking we would find someplace to pop into for dinner and eventually we did. It took us a little longer than we expected. Things were popping with it being a Friday evening in the city.

We found a place along the canal with outdoor seating. Our enthusiasm was somewhat short lived as we were hit by cigar, cigarette and pot smoke. This town is interesting to say the least. So many bikers riding so fast it seems like everyone is super healthy but then everyone is smoking all the things. The fish and chips were good though and it was a nice night to sit outside and enjoy all the second hand smoke.

After dinner we walked the short walk back to our apartment past all the Christmas lights.

What time is it? Pie time!! We definitely didn’t need three pieces though. They were giant. The pie was very good but would have been better warm. I’d wait in line again on a future trip.

Before dinner we might as well get some pie slices to try later. Fries, pancake and pie were the must-do things from my research. Aside from the obvious canal cruise and Anne Frank house visit.

It was a short walk from the Anne Frank House. The most difficult part was trying to figure out how to order. There was a sign in the courtyard that said take away but no one seemed to be manning the station. There were people jockeying for seats outside and trying to order to-go for quite some time.

We nearly threw in the towel after being ignored a while but we finally got someone to take our order…three slices to go.

Finally!! Our incredibly heavy to-go bag with a side cup of whipped cream arrived. I guess whipped cream on the side is actually a thing. (For the record we didn’t request that!)

After our cruise we had a short walk to the Anne Franck House for our 4:30pm entry time. These tickets were not easy to get as they release them 6 weeks in advance at something crazy like 3am on Tuesdays. Ours included a 30 min intro talk followed by museum entry.

Because we didn’t get our charcuterie board and despite us eating giant pancakes for breakfast, Carey and I could use a snack. Carey headed for supposedly the best hot dog stand in Amsterdam (self proclaimed on their sign) and I grabbed a large fry to share.

The food cart guy was very friendly and asked if I was from the South. He said my accent gave it away. He then said I sounded like Dolly Parton. I’m not mad about that. I love me some Dolly.

We arrived at the Anne Frank house a few minutes early as instructed. There was a large line and then a door marked entrance 2 with no one there. Our tickets instructed us to go to entrance two so we cut the entire line. Most of the people in the long line didn’t have the intro program but others just can’t follow directions.

We have been to the Anne Frank house before but the second time was just as impactful. Hard to imagine what the members of that family went through. Pics weren’t allowed in the museum but we could take them in the room where we heard the talk.

Time to find something for dinner before heading back to the apartment.