[Photos taken 26 April 2024, posted online 28 August 2024. Yesterday a third (150 people) of the remaining workers at my last company were laid off. Oooof! The eruption has now created a baby-volcano cone.]
The following day the plan was mostly to visit downtown, perhaps do a bit of shopping, before heading to dinner at a restaurant that is housed in a collection of 17th century rooms. To get our coffee fix, a sister-in-law and myself started they day with a walk to a cafe a little ways from our hotel.
Friday 26 April 2024
The viow out our 11th floor hotel room window in Amsterdam.
I am forever intrigued by the different designs of hotel hallways. They say so much!! Finnur is there for a size reference!
Enjoying breakfast together.
The steam-punk-industrial bar outside the cafeteria.
Son and parents.
We heard that one of the rooms had a balcony! So we went to visit and investigate.
Sure enough, there was a balcony!
A passing train and the “Star-wars” houses.
The beds sure have a nice view!
We then went down to investigate the 3rd floor, which stank of chlorine from the pool area.
Pretty typical hotel gym… light weights, and cardio-equipment.
Not sure how anybody was supposed to use these in the heavy chlorine-infused-air.
Outside close to 11 in the morning.
The hotel was a little ways away from civilization. The table-sculpture was a third or so of the way to the cafe.
My fellow coffee addict that morning…
Behind me was an actual barber-chair, and people were getting their hair cut! Inside the cafe!
This cafe had lots of “no laptops” signs, so we just chatted and looked out the windows.
Taking “industrial design” all the way to its logical conclusion.
We discovered we couldn’t really close/lock the door to our room, and had to call for assistance.
At fault was an old nemesis of mine: this contraption where a wheel on a pump slides inside a receiver on the top side (missing in this picture). When the pump fails, the wheel is stuck in the upright position, and stays outside the receiver, holding the door ever so slightly open. The janitors removed the receiver, and all was well.
Spot the second saddle.
Close to 14 in the afternoon we took a taxi downtown.
Passing a music building.
I thought this was a decorative feature, but it turned out to be the automatic door opener, and I opened the side sliding door up while we were moving. Ooops!
More skinny buildings by the main train station.
I found an 80!
The taxis have to drop you off slightly outside the main downtown area… which way should we go?
Unexpected!
Less unexpected.
We found ourselves on the other side of the fancy shopping mall from the day before.
The energy in this “Grand Cafe” was very “ladies who lunch”.
The menu had a preface-section.
Food, glorious food! It was surprisingly simple, but effective.
Interesting, albeit useless, presentation.
We then entered the fancy mall, and oh boy, was it faaaaancy.
Five floors of somewhat diminishing levels of fanciness.
At this point in time I had to admit that my month-old shoes were absolutely killing me. My Achilles tendon was sore and swollen from the shoe-back-top pressing on it, and so I excused myself and limped to where Google maps told me there was a shoe store.
Random, funky smelling, alley on the way to the shoe store.
I accidentally found a pedestrians-only shopping street.
Finding mostly acceptable shoes, I went back to the stupidly fancy mall, hoping to find the others, but they were long gone. The ridiculously fancy displays remained. No price tags in sight.
Checking out the patio bar, but the cafe offerings looked a bit too sad for my taste.
Walking along another pedestrians-only shopping street to catch up with the others…
Introvert resting?
Amsterdam’s architecture is so very interesting. There’s classical stuff like this…
… and statement buildings like that.
I found them by a canal, of course!
About ready to find a taxi to return to the hotel.
There was an 80 in the statue-description!
Pre-dinner drinks. The bartender was not the most experienced. Note the straws, no more plastic.
We took yet another taxi downtown-ish…
Where’s the restaurant entrance?!?! It supposed to be right here…
Walking in was like stepping backwards by 300 years in time.
Amazing decorations.
We had a nook all to ourselves.
A skylight!!
The food was very Dutch, for lack of a better word.
To our side.
Cauliflower!!?!
The room behind me filled up for a short while, and then they all left?!
I surreptitiously took a photo of another dining room on my way back from the bathroom, and one of the waiters got very upset with me. I decided this would be a good time to erase all the people from the image using Google Photo’s AI magic eraser…!
I think that was a duck…?
Why so many bells?
Yummi dessert!
When we left, downtown was filling up with celebrants of the King’s birthday, that would formally be the day after. Our taxi had to drive veeery slowly through the crowd.
Orange cowboy hat spotted on a passing train.
Documenting the orange balloons everywhere at the hotel.
