Day 7… Continued
We made it to Amsterdam in time to enjoy a lovely, but nippy, outdoor dinner at Eatmosfera, one of our favorite restaurants from previous trips. The house-made pasta, sourdough pizza, and tiramisu were worth the cold feet.
While the meal was delectable, it was not still. The streets that night were overflowing with people, particularly at the Rembrandtplein, a major square of Amsterdam’s downtown. Jason and I had never seen the city so crowded. We later discovered the mobs were due to a football match between Belgium and the Netherlands that was taking place in Amsterdam the following day.
Day 8
The next morning, we went to the Anne Frank Huis. Although Jason and I had both been before, it was just as somber and poignant on repeat. This time we listened to a substantial part of her diary in the weeks prior to our vacation so we would get more out of this visit. While the ending never changes, I still lose it on the exhibit about Otto Frank putting an ad in the paper seeking information regarding whether his daughters were still alive.
We took our time wandering back from the Anne Frank Huis, as in several hours, while it rained on us periodically. We stopped for friets (fries) at Heertje Friet and stroopwafles at Melly’s Stroopwafels, which we couldn’t successfully eat after all the friets. Chocolate shops and bakeries distracted us as well. It was a scrumptious ramble!
Later that afternoon, we went on a canal cruise with Friendship Amsterdam, another activity Jason and I’ve done on multiple occasions. It’s different each time depending on the route taken and the guides’ narration skills.
Lumbini Indian and Nepalese Restaurant finished our day with delicious momos, masalas, and lassis. Oddly, our best meals in Amsterdam were geographically removed from Dutch cuisine.
Day 9
Our final day in Amsterdam, we visited the Van Gogh Museum, another duplication for Jason and me but a fine one. The Van Gogh Museum houses 200 paintings, a third of all the painter’s works. It took us about three hours to soak up the offered art and information, information that revealed stereotypes about Van Gogh’s approach are all wrong. In contrast to the emotions his creations stir, he was methodical and organized, not some free-spirited, impulsive, hippy painter like he is usually portrayed.
The rest of our day was filled with perusing (and buying) antique tiles at Kramer, Kunst & Antiek and pursuing dinner at Portugalia Tasca. I ordered a whole sea bass per the recommendation of our waiter. As this was an entire fish, head and all, I was a little skeptical, but it was delicious. Others also took their taste buds out of comfort zones. My mom tried octopus for the first time via an octopus salad. Adventure, your name is our name too!
Early the next morning, our journey home began. Schiphol Airport traffic was designated “normal” instead of peak. I guess normal means no 2.5-hour security line because we didn’t have to deal with any of that this time.
That was our trip. In closing, I’d like to mention just a bit about the stressors and joys of this outing, namely COVID and family. It’s easy to get caught up in the problems of a vacation while you are experiencing them. It’s easy to forget that over time hard moments recede into memory and what remains is the wealth of common experiences, moments of laughter, and shared discoveries. But, while I do still remember these, here’s what caused a few difficulties.
COVID was still a concern when we took this trip. Hence, Jason and I wanted to be as prepared as possible for the possibility. We took four boxes of COVID tests, an oxygen monitor, and a thermometer just in case. The updated booster for Omicron became available about a week and a half before we left. Jason and I got it just a day after it hit pharmacies and doctors’ offices. That meant our vaccines were fully active about five days after we departed, which made us feel a bit more confident.
As our preference was to not ruin our travels by contracting the #1 undesirable, we wore masks in airports and planes on our way out, but, admittedly, we didn’t don them many other places as COVID counts were low at the time. At some point, you just have to set worry aside, or your vacation won’t be much of a vacation. Maybe we should have continued to slip on our masks though as my dad came down with COVID three to four days after our return. Thankfully, he recovered just fine. If he’d gotten sick in Europe, his illness would have been a much bigger deal though. Phew!
What about the bug that’s always with you, but you can’t spread? You can love your family dearly but still have some tension with them over exactly how to approach a vacation. Jason and I are fortunate in that we have very similar vacation styles, so our travels pass with little drama. With the larger group on this trip, incorporating different styles without conflicts or frustrations arising sometimes proved tricky. Plus, family is a funny thing. One day you might be weary of them and feel like an outcast, and the next you might be laughing at dinner over inside jokes and stories of bygone years. While there were a few rough moments on this excursion, by the end, everyone recollected the events with fondness. (And these last few paragraphs, at some point, will be largely erased from remembrance.)