Steph and I took a long weekend in Amsterdam where we met up with Tina.  We started early Friday morning with a train ride on the Eurostar.  The train went through Brussels, to Antwerp, Rotterdam, then to Amsterdam.  We had to get to the station about 45 minutes early to go through customs, but it wasn’t bad at all.  We got to Amsterdam around noon.

We started out with the Canal Museum, which talked about the expansion of Amsterdam and the construction of the city how it is today.  It was really interesting to hear and read about.  The garden behind the house was also gorgeous.  We then checked into the hotel and waited for Tina to arrive.

We went to dinner the first night once Tina got in and walked around the flower market before getting to a nice Indonesian place.  It was really tasty and I enjoyed the variety of food.  They had a plate with all sorts of dishes.  We walked into the main park near where we were staying, but didn’t get very far.

The next day we grabbed breakfast at a cute little coffee shop before heading into the city a bit.  We made our way to the Centraal Station and hopped a bus to a small town with lots of windmills, Zaanse Schans.  It was an adorable area, and some of the windmills are setup to still run.  We saw the sawmill moving, and got a demonstration of the mechanisms.  We also go to tour the dye mill, and oil mill.

The town was adorable, and we toured through the cheese maker, the clog maker, the carpenter, and the weaver house.  The whole town was adorable, and the weather was perfect.

We got a crowded bus back to Amsterdam, which took a long time due to traffic.  We headed back and grabbed some frites.  Steph and I had an amusing evening making AI music about Archer and Lana.

The next day we went to the Rijksmuseum.  We grabbed breakfast at the cafe there, then wandered the museum.  It is pretty big, but something that only takes one day.  We made it through all the exhibits we cared about by the mid afternoon, and then headed back to the hotel for a rest.  Tina wandered separately from Steph and I, but her interest was still captured by the same pieces.  The monk meditating with an engine, the teapot split in two, the library, the angry swan, and the model ships.

We had a late lunch at the Carousel, a themed restaurant that had pancakes and waffles, which were delicious.  We all had a bit of a food coma after that and relaxed at the hotel for a bit.  Dinner was at an Algerian spot Stpeh noticed while we were walking around and it was interesting and tasty food.

Monday morning we had coffee with Tina and then said our goodbyes.  Steph and I headed to the royal palace, which originally was the Amsterdam town hall.  It is a gorgeous building, and it is a shame it isn’t a public building anymore.

Our train was delayed so the trip back to London didn’t go as smoothly as we’d hoped.  We caught the later train back to London.