{"id":39232,"date":"2024-04-27T11:05:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-27T11:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/?p=39232"},"modified":"2024-08-30T12:35:05","modified_gmt":"2024-08-30T12:35:05","slug":"in-amsterdam-kings-day-avoidance-to-iceland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/2024\/04\/in-amsterdam-kings-day-avoidance-to-iceland\/","title":{"rendered":"In Amsterdam \/ King’s Day Avoidance \/ To Iceland"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

[Photos taken 27 – 30 April 2024, posted online 30 August 2024. Lots of rain incoming. Hello fall.<\/em>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amsterdam turns into a party-town on King’s day<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead I wandered towards a cafe that was listed as laptop-friendly, and hung out there for most of the afternoon. Classic me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following day we traveled back to Iceland, and life resumed as normal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saturday 27 April 2024<\/h2>\n\n\n
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The Dutch celebrating the birthday of their king. Finnur took this photo, as I was far, far away!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n
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As before, we all congregated downstairs for breakfast.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Finnur trying the bizarre chair in our room for a bit.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Around 13 the other’s took off towards downtown, and I began walking. This tree-pot that hangs down from the middle of the balcony caught my eye.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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It wasn’t a long walk by any stretch of the imagination…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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It was a slightly brisk day, weatherwise.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Bikes get all the love.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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A curved building, spanning a canal.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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There was a restaurant hiding at sea-level, and a bunch of boats were “parked” by it.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The birds ignored me.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Pretty blooms.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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An open library.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Why is it so hard to take level photos of tree-tunnels like this one? I tried so many times, and this was the least-bad one.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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A fairy-tale house.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Oh look, a bike! Note all the floating structures.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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There were floating structures all along the waterline. You can see a windmill in the distance if you squint.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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I looked the gym<\/a> up, there was some fine-print.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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I’m kicking myself for not taking a photo slightly to the left, but I didn’t want to intrude. There was a whole market square thing going on, apparently pop-up markets are all the rage on king’s day. The cafe <\/a>was two doors in.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The classics.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Note the open plugs on the big table. Made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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A biological Roomba made an appearance…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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About three hours later a block party had started across the road.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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I snuck in closer to take a better photo of the orange balloons which was another photo-task set by the family-game-master.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Aside from the block party, the streets were quiet in this surburbia.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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More orange balloons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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A hidden wedge building ahead.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Distant windmill alert!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The Dutch have a very different relationship to water than I do.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Instead of walking past a block of houses, I ventured in among them and stumbled upon another party!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Felt a little bit like California of old.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Spot the bird.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Sad plastic bag on the last little stretch towards the hotel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The side of the hotel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Nice melding of nature and graphic.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The path I took back to the hotel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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In front of the Indonesian restaurant Jun<\/a>, around dinner time.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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We got a good table, right by the window.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The birthday-babes!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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We ended up with so much food! It all tasted very good!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Hubby and me.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The door had all the stickers!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Photo from our taxi to the hotel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Another taxi photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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A fun building to photograph.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Horizontal horizon?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The end of the orange-balloon-day!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Sunday 28 April 2024<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Taking a photo of the “art” by the breakfast area. It was very “5 minute crafts”-ish.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The whole wall was tool-themed.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Feeling inspired?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Last look out our window.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The mini-bar fridge was all “drink water from the tap you silly person”.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Orange remnants of the previous day.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Passing the time before heading out to the airport.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Passing yet another waterway on our way to the airport.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Airport waiting.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Our plane.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Goodbye Holland!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Flying past an active volcano.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The weather was surprisingly nice.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Offspring-bribing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The last huddle before we all went our separate ways.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Going to find our car…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The new volcano was visible from the road to the city. And that was the end of our trip to Amsterdam!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Monday 29 April 2024<\/h2>\n\n\n
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A sad note on the fire-escape stair-well door at work, reminding people to actually close the door. The air-pressure inside the large stairwell was such that the doors didn’t close easily. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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A sloooow sunset at 22:10.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Tuesday 30 April 2024<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Thankfully, the trend in large-stair-well design is to have the floor numbers veeery visible!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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An Australian lamington cake<\/a>, by the resident Australian baking-enthusiast. He kept his job in the August-round of layoffs.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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He made two different things! These were also excellent, but I can’t remember the specifics of what they were any more.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The first in an end-of-an-era. The one in the middle was the other person in the “Data Corner”, and this was her last day. The lady on the right is\/was our magical scrum-master\/herder-of-cats\/delivery-manager.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Photos taken 27 – 30 April 2024, posted online 30 August 2024. Lots of rain incoming. Hello fall.<\/em>]<\/p>\n

Amsterdam turns into a party-town on King’s day<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Instead I wandered towards a cafe that was listed as laptop-friendly, and hung out there for most of the afternoon. Classic me.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The following day we traveled back to Iceland, and life resumed as normal.<\/p>\n

Saturday 27 April 2024<\/h2>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>
The Dutch celebrating the birthday of their king. Finnur took this photo, as I was far, far away!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-finnurs-family","category-holland","post-container col-md-12"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39232"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39302,"href":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39232\/revisions\/39302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}