Vacation ‘23 Day 1: SFO —> AMS & Amsterdam

Our morning started out at home and ended in Amsterdam. What a great day!

The morning involved working out, getting bagels, yoga, packing, and heading to the airport. We had delicious salad lunches in the Centurion Lounge. I’m (not so) secretly trying to win SMS over to loving SFO more than SJC!

Our flight wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t the worst. Our boarding was delayed by 30 minutes, than we sat at the gate for another 30. The initial delay was due to a required software update. The co-pilot assured the boarding area crowd that there were no safety or mechanical issues. But like I told SMS, how were we to know if the software update story was even true? Maybe they thought the Silicon Valley crowd would definitely buy it. Right before the wings fell off.

The flight was long and we didn’t get a lot of sleep. We were flying 2p-1145p our time so we weren’t really sleepy. We landed at Schiphol, where it took about 30 minutes to get through customs. Sucks to be non-Schengen!

We went to the central station, dropped off our luggage, and went to the Rijksmuseum. We weren’t necessarily our best museum selves, but we revived ourselves a bit at the cafe before looking at some of the painting. The special exhibits area had a room full of incredible model ships. It was very impressive.

But the stars of the show are located in the Gallery of Honor. There, several highlights of the collection are on display. There are six Vermeer and a few Rembrandt, to include “The Night Watchmen.” That painting is spectacular. One detail that I was impressed by were the various hand positions, eg pointing, reaching, grabbing, that were so lifelike in the perspective. It’s amazing to think of someone being so talented they can create that depth of dimensionality on a 2D canvas.

After the museum, we went to the train station, picked up our luggage, and went to the hotel. It’s quirky and we have a canal view. Small room, but it’s the beginning of the trip so we don’t need space from each other yet! :o) But we did need a nap, which was delightful. I would have rather slept more on the plane and powered through but a nap was excellent as well.

We got up and headed out for Jordan. I thought Winkel 43 would be a great spot for dinner and appeltart. We asked if we could sit outside. We didn’t figure out until after we ordered, but we sat down in the next door restaurant’s area. No matter. The menu was great and the food was delicious.

We split a snack board, which was excellent. Then we split the mackerel with crispy wild rice crunchy topping and a nice salad. The outside temperature was perfect and overall, it was really an amazing night.

We walked a little bit and then went to Winkel 43 (the real one) for a slice of appeltaart. It was good. I really liked the crust and topping. It wasn’t too sweet, but several of the apple slices included the fiber-y portion of the seed capsule, which I’m pretty sure shouldn’t have been in there.

We walked along the canals for a bit and then returned to our tiny room. Time for a 10 hour sleep, I think!