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iHoff.com - Family Sat. 4-30 | Sun. 5-1 | Mon. 5-2 | Tues. 5-3 | Wed. 5-4 |
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Netherlands - Sat. Apr. 30,
2005 - Pictures below I left on Friday, April 29, around noon our time. I flew Albany to Detroit, then direct from Detroit to Amsterdam, that last flight was 7 hrs. 35 min. I arrived in Amsterdam around 6:30 a.m. their time. I did all the things Todd instructed me to do, changed my money to Euros, went through customs and then took a cab straight to the hotel...where I found him just waking up for the day around 6:55 a.m. Note, he had just flown 13 hours from Hong Kong to meet ME! I felt pretty normal, although I had only slept on the plane for about 2.5 hours. I flew coach, and met some very nice people around me. (and ON me as THEY fell asleep - yikes, the life of a sardine!). We set out immediately for something to eat for breakfast and ready to explore. This was "Queen's Day" in the Netherlands, when they celebrate the birthday of the former Queen, and honor the current Queen Beatrice. The Royal Palace where she "works" was built in 1533 and was owned by the "Orange" Family (the Royal Family of the Netherlands). Everyone wears orange to celebrate Queen's Day. We were out and about early, so the day was off to a slow start...but once 10:00 a.m. rolled around the streets started to come alive. Imagine the streets of New York City with no public transportation, and just filled with people walking, laughing, drinking, singing, etc. That's what it was like for the next 12 hours. We had an uncanny knack of finding ourselves walking AGAINST the crowd more often than not. There were street vendors, bands, and people blowing whistles and airhorns (the latter was a bit annoying after the first time). We came across a great "community" band - and I mean they were great. We stood and listened for a long time, we hated to walk away. They were from the southern part of the country. Also the locals have a flea market in all the streets. People were selling antiques, junk, toys, you name it. We came across so many interesting things. Anything we wanted to get would not fit in our carry on luggage. :-) I would think we easily walked about 15 miles that day. To the point we were both in PAIN Saturday night, and limping. Yes, limping. How sad is that? Neither of us had good walking shoes (a must next trip!). I knew we would be walking but not for a solid day. We walked almost every street in Amsterdam that day. What a perfect way (yet tiring) to see the city. Click on a Picture to see it larger...
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