Amsterdam in spring

 My Amsterdam adventure began in the wee hours of Saturday morning, as most of my weekend adventures do. I decided to be a little more relaxed than normal and wait until the first train, as the bus is so slow, taking advantage of my bagless check-in, so that was quite nice. In saying that, I was still up at 3.30am as I had been too exhausted on Friday to face marking that needed to be done for Monday, so ended up doing an hour in the morning before my flight. Having clearly been a bit too ambitious and doing a rushed last minute packing job as well as attempting a load of washing, I went to pull it out five minutes before I had to leave but the washing machine decided not to spin it, so I put the spin cycle on and left it as a present for my host mum to find when she got up. So pretty much a typical Saturday morning start for me then!
Running the last minute of my walk to the train station, I managed to catch my train and proceeded to groom myself and re-organise my bag, while the other passengers did a valiant attempt at avoiding eye contact with the weirdo sharing their carriage.

By the time I got to the airport, I was ready to go, so breezed through security like I did it every other week, and had a smooth transition to my flight gate, enjoying my first impressions of Easyjet and happily finding my seat. I was then treated to the most enthusiastic pilot I think I've had to date whose cheerful announcements and scenic commentary complemented the 30mins of flight time we lost off our 1 hour 5 minute flight.

Coming out of the airport the marijuana wafts greeting me caught me a little off guard, before I remembered I was now in Amsterdam! The airport staff were friendly if not very helpful, so eventually I figured out which bus I needed and where to get my ticket before making my way into town. 

First stop was the Rijksmuseum, where I spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon. It was massive, and there were a lot of paintings by famous people, even a big one called the Night Watch by some guy called Rembrandt everyone seemed to be making a fuss over (just kidding, I know who Rembrandt is, kinda, anyway...). 

It was fascinating to see these artists like Rembrandt and Van Gogh, painting in an era before people were ready for their art, who died broke because they refused to compromise their style to suit their audience. 

Plus they made the first decent flat white I've had since leaving NZ.

Also my first photo was of the only plane in the building (of course).

In the afternoon I went on a bus tour. While waiting for the bus to leave and having not stopped for lunch I pulled out my bag of chips and started eating it on the bus. Having almost finished the bag, the tour guide introduced herself and over the loud speaker started off with "In order for you to enjoy this experience and not distract anyone from the commentary, there is no eating on the bus." I then had the awkward job of stashing away my crinkly chip packet in my bag as discreetly as possible while at the same time feeling slightly relieved I had eaten as much as I had before she said anything as it was 3pm and I was fairly hungry.
Sitting behind a group who were speaking in Arabic had me reminiscing over my Egypt/Jordan time with "Yala!" ("Let's go!") and heated phone conversations where every sentence began with "habibi" ("friend").

It didn't take long for us to arrive at Zaanse Schans, a traditional windmill village, where we went inside a windmill used to make peanut oil and were given a demonstration. Turned out even though it wasn't economically viable any more the big peanut oil factories in the area sponsored this guy to keep his windmill running so people could come and see how it used to be, which I found quite sweet.

We then went to Volendam, famous for cheese, and had a cheese making demonstration in a cheese factory. We were then supplied with cheese samples and encourage to buy from their shop. I got some 3 year old cheddar that reminded me of my favourite Kapiti which I'm looking forward to opening and proud of myself for not having done so yet.

After some free time to wander around the village, we caught a ferry across the harbour to a little old fishing village and had a tour of a clog making factory where we were given another demonstration. The man was really nice and sweet and passionate about clogs, so it was pretty fun. 

We then got on the bus and headed back into Amsterdam, where I made my way to my air bnb and slept.

The following day I got up nice and early and headed into Amsterdam for a little wander. I'd bought a travel pass, so decided to get on and off random trams and walk around. I was quite proud of myself at how well I managed to not get lost, but to be fair to Amsterdam, the tram lines are pretty much everywhere, and no matter where you are it doesn't take long for a tram to come along which is headed for Station Centraal. 

The A'Dam lookout opened at 10am, so I then headed that way, and the views were pretty incredible.

 

 The last place on my list was the Keukenhof gardens, which you had to take transport from the airport to. I'd chosen to go on what happened to be the busiest day of the year, so the queues for the buses were ridiculous, and there were people everywhere when I arrived, but upon arrival, one could see why.

Oh the tulips! The amount of vision and planning that must go into the planting each year there must be crazy and left me feeling quite in awe. 


If you ever have the chance to go to the Netherlands in spring, this is a must see! I was there for over two hours and I could have easily spent two more exploring all the gardens and the features. It was amazing.

My flight leaving early evening, I headed back to the bus queue but was lucky enough to skip the line as there was standing room on the bus and I was happy to stand.
Having ticked off all the important boxes for a weekend in the Netherlands, I left quite content with my experience, but as in most cases, wishing to return with more time. It was a beautiful place with beautiful people and with the Dutch over-represented in my closest friends and adopted family members I guess it should have been of little surprise they're such a nice bunch.