In Amsterdam / King’s Day Avoidance / To Iceland
[Photos taken 27 – 30 April 2024, posted online 30 August 2024. Lots of rain incoming. Hello fall.]
Amsterdam turns into a party-town on King’s day to celebrate their king’s birthday. People wear orange, there are orange decorations everywhere, and partying crowds, particularly downtown. I’m not a person that runs to where there are crowds, preferring to stay very very far away, so I pulled my “I’m an introvert”-card, and declared that I would be not be joining the group going downtown.
Instead I wandered towards a cafe that was listed as laptop-friendly, and hung out there for most of the afternoon. Classic me.
The whole group then went out to dinner at an Indonesian restaurant, which are very prevalent in Amsterdam because the Dutch colonized Indonesia for almost 350 years.
The following day we traveled back to Iceland, and life resumed as normal.
Saturday 27 April 2024
In Amsterdam / Walkabouts / 17th Century Dinner
[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
To Amsterdam / Cheese Tasting / Canal Dinner Cruise
[Photos taken 25 April 2024. Posted online 26 August 2024. Volcano is still going, and it’s the first day of elementary school. The weather is finally nice enough to stain wood!]
Finnur’s parents had both turned 80 years old in the past year, so the siblings decided to replicate previous big-birthdays, and go abroad with them for a long weekend.
Miraculously, they managed to agree on a location and dates, although Icelandair did its very best to throw them off. Both of the flights that we had booked ended up getting cancelled (probably didn’t sell enough seats), and we were instead re-booked on same-day flights, but with less optimal departure times.
We got up at the crack of dawn (which is quite early in late April), fetched Finnur’s parents and drove to the airport. This was a child-free trip, and I was one of two spouses.
Thursday 25 April 2024
