Our jet landed at 6:45 AM in Amsterdam. We got off, through immigration, and picked up our bags in very little time, and walked out to the taxi queue. Partly cloudy and high 60’s -very nice weather after the heat and humidity of Uganda! Our taxi took us downtown to the NH Amsterdam Barbizon, a very nice hotel right by the central train station. We were hoping that we wouldn’t have to wait too long for a room as check-in wasn’t until 3 PM, but they had a room ready- Number 1, which requires a circuitous route to find, but it’s right on a canal and very picturesque!
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| Our Room, #1, from across the Canal |
We took a walk all round the neighborhood - right in the middle of the main tourist area so very crowded. As we hadn’t eaten since 5 AM we found an Argentinian restaurant where I ordered a small salad and Bob got penne pasta with spicy tomato sauce which we split. The waitress asked us if we wanted some bread and she brought us a pizza-size focaccia really thin with just olive oil, salt and herbs on it. It was delicious and we ate almost the whole thing!
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| Great Brunch |
Back at our room, the boat traffic increased greatly with all sorts of tourist (some floating cocktail lounges!) and private boats cruising past in our narrow canal. Bob got a life bird right from our room: the Little Gull - a handsome small gull with a coal black head!
Suddenly both our stomachs went on the fritz once again. We were out of Imodium so I set off to find some with a map from the front desk. I crossed the main canal, dodging bicycles and trucks, and found the area where the pharmacy was supposed to be. I asked in another shop and walked, very confused. The amusement of marijuana ice cream shops and window displays of dildos fades when one is in desperate need of meds!!
I finally saw a neat and tidy shop that turned out to be the one - no pharmacist, and only over-the-counter medications which is what I wanted and I bought some melt-in-your-mouth Imodium. I returned and we both took some - you peel off the foil, touch your tongue to the tablet and it instantly dissolves and disappears! Bizarre but effective. We relaxed and watched some TV - it’s been great fun traveling during the World Cup as everyone from tiny mud huts in Uganda to Europe is glued to the results - but that was not on as so many teams have been eliminated, so we settled for tennis from Wimbledon.
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| Cocktail Cruise passing our Room |
We had a reservation at Vermeer, the Michelin one-star restaurant right here in our hotel for 6:30, and managed to feel well enough to go. We were the first ones there. We first received a amuse bouche of a sliver of rhubarb dipped in pepper and spices along with a spoonful of rhubarb sorbet.
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| Rhubarb Amuse Bouche |
Then we got the menu which was a list of various ingredients that would be included in the food that evening: Guernsey ( the rich butter), mackerel, sweetbreads, pigeon, etc.,in case we were allergic to anything. We picked the 5-course dinner with matching wines, which turned out to be way too much food as there were three amuse bouche, making eight courses, plus lots of interesting wines. We finished up at 9:30 and collapsed into bed!
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| Pigeon |
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| Dessert |
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