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MIKE AND JESS' TRAVEL DIARY

Netherlands and West Germany Trip

Day 1 - December 1 2023

After 19 hours of travel, we touched down in Amsterdam! Neither of us slept a wink on the planes, so we were already exhausted and it was only 9AM local time! We took a train into the center of town, followed by a tram to the hotel to drop our bags off. The room wasn’t going to be ready until 3PM so we headed out to get some lunch and wander the city until then.

As with many of our previous trips, we love to start the vacation by having a meal at a food market and Amsterdam’s most popular is Foodhallen. This indoor street-food style market hosts about 20 different small restaurants and bars, each with a different theme or origin. We got the Butter Chicken (unfortunately, the worst butter chicken we have eaten to date), DanDan Noodles, Singapore Dumplings, and Duck Gyozas. Everything except the Butter Chicken was delicious! 

We did not have anything on the agenda to tick off today, and were too exhausted to be motivated to do much, so we just wandered the city. It was great to get a feel for the city without feeling rushed to get somewhere in particular. While we only scratched the surface, the city is as gorgeous as the pictures make it seem. 

Amsterdam is also a VERY bustling city. I have never had to be so alert when just walking the sidewalks and crossing streets. Not only are you having to check for cars each time you cross, but bicyclists are coming through the intersections from all directions and they have the right-of-way so you better be paying attention! There are separate bike lanes, but they often overlap with the pedestrian lanes. And this is obviously a very old city, so there is not much room for an auto lane, bike lane, and pedestrian lane on each side of the road! So while it is absolutely stunning to walk through the canal streets, we had to remind ourselves to pause (pull to the side because it’s impossible to not be in someone’s way!) and look around. Otherwise, we were too busy watching for the endless bike traffic to appreciate the views. It’s hard to imagine what it would be like getting around when it is peak tourist season if this is off-season, so we are so thankful to be here now! Enough of my blabbering, here are some photos we took along the way.

The Begijnhof, one of the oldest hofjes in Amsterdam, founded in the Middle Ages. A hofje is a courtyard with housing for elderly people (mostly women). They were privately funded. This one is so old it is at Medieval street level, which is a meter below the city level.
The black house is the oldest surviving house in Amsterdam. Built in 1420. Most houses were built using wood, but in 1452, a fire destroyed roughly 75% of the buildings in Amsterdam. Now, almost all are brick, but this wooden one remains.

We stopped by a cafe near the hotel to warm up with some hot teas before checking in. It was really hard to not doze off at the table once sitting down. It will be an early night tonight, if we can even stay up past sunset!

We decided to not travel tomorrow and will instead continue exploring Amsterdam. We saw a lot less than we thought we would today (we are getting to old to do these 30 hours awake travel days) and we want to make sure we give this city it’s due before taking any day trips. 

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