Trip to The Netherlands: Part 1

 

April 13-14, 2023

Journey to Amsterdam:

Thursday morning we were on the road by 6:00 am. The bags were loaded into the car the night before. Cruising through the weekday traffic in Los Angeles is always challenging. Despite everything we made it to Adwight’s place in West Hollywood by 8:30 am. Parked the car in his garage and called Uber to take us to LAX. 

It was nice to find that PF Changs at the Tom Bradley international terminal was open for business again after the pandemic. We had a relaxed lunch before boarding our flight to Amsterdam. 

Earlier in February or so when Atul( my brother in law) asked us about joining them for a tulip tour I was excited. But when he added that it would be a bike tour I wasn’t sure it was my thing to do. 25-30 miles a day on the bike was daunting for me. My regular life is so sedentary that this seemed unrealistic to accomplish suddenly without proper training. Worse situation, Atul said, we could stay on our boat if we couldn’t keep up with the biking. Therefore despite a cloud of doubts in my mind I signed up for this trip. 

The tour was to start on Saturday. Considering the travel time we decided to arrive in Amsterdam the day before. While we found a direct flight from LAX to Amsterdam, Minal( my sister) and Atul would need to fly to London before connecting to Amsterdam. 

The 10 hour flight from Los Angeles was comfortable and allowed to catch up on some sleep as well as some reading. As we crossed across the Atlantic Ocean suddenly I caught glimpse of the sun rising from the horizon. Soon the coastline of The Netherlands was in view and the windmills in its waters and the boats and farmlands. 

We landed in Amsterdam by 8:30 am on Friday, a good half hour earlier than the arrival time. The long line at immigration and the subsequent long walk past the multitude of baggage claim belts(25 or so, more than I had ever seen at any other airport) negated the time advantage. Finally we made our way out of the terminal with our bags. Large concrete containers displayed deep burgundy tulips in full glory outside the terminal. No soul could mistake they were in The Netherlands! It took a few minutes for us to figure out the location to catch an Uber ride to our hotel. 

The driver arrived in just 4 minutes. He drove a spacious black Mercedes sedan. A rather happy and gracious man, approximately 60 years of age, he made good conversation with us as he followed the gps directions to our destination. I spotted a football stadium as we rode his car. He told us it was a big thing for the city. His father had bought premium seats for 8000 euros each when the stadium was built and had priority for the seats for any game or concert through the year. The family attended almost all the games during the season. Present day value of the seats was over 65,000! And since every game tended to be sold out their tickets for a single game could fetch 8 times the normal value for a ticket.

 Besides football we also talked about pickpockets in the city. He told us about an incident when his father was mugged at gunpoint and robbed of his watch and cash in a parking lot. Mostly immigrants from poorer east European countries were the offenders but the police were cracking down on crime very effectively lately, he told us. 

He worked 6 days a week from 7 am to 1 pm and enjoyed rest of his day with his family. His children were about the same age as ours. The contentment and politeness we found in this gentleman pretty much was a quality that was common to other people we met subsequently during our trip.

The hotel was located almost at the far end of a new community created by reclaiming of land from the ocean. This suburb on the outskirts of the city was called Iburra. Buildings and bridges reflected modern architecture and the place looked upscale and spotless. He warned us there is always lot of wind here. We got the first taste of it as he dropped us outside our hotel. The wind was extremely chilly and into our face even for the short walk into the hotel.

The receptionist verified our reservation and informed that the rooms would not be available until 3 pm. The restaurant in the hotel would open for lunch at noon. It was barely 10:30 am. We could leave our bags in a secured room downstairs, which we opted to do. Then tried to take a walk along the water shores outside. There were scattered tulips and daffodils growing along the road and waters and a swan lingering around the shores. It was a pretty sight but too cold and windy to stay out longer. We soon returned to the comfort of the seats in the lobby of the hotel. 

The restaurant opened promptly at noon and we were the first ones to be seated. We chose seats near windows that offered a view to a marina. A slender vase with a tulip or two on each table was a delight to see. The mushroom risotto with a glass of rose’ did not disappoint either. 

As we waited patiently in the lobby after our lunch it was a pleasant surprise when the receptionist walked up to us at 2:00 pm to say our rooms are ready. We got the bags from the storage and took them up to the eighth floor. It was a cozy room with a partial view of the sea. 

Minal and Atul arrived two hours later and took the room across from us. After everyone freshened up we took a little stroll on the road but the wind was there to stay. It was its permanent playground. We decided to have dinner at the hotel as well. After dinner we took the elevator to the rooftop bar on the tenth floor and enjoyed our drinks with beautiful post sunset views of the sea. A musician played on the keyboard as we sat enjoying the evening before calling it a day.