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This was the last of my "48 hour rule" trips. That is, my employers reimbursed my flights as long as I did not have a layover longer than 48 hours.
I had passed through Schipol many times and driven through the Netherlands when travelling from Berlin to the Ferry terminal at Rotterdam, but never stopped, other than for petrol.
I had passed through Schipol many times and driven through the Netherlands when travelling from Berlin to the Ferry terminal at Rotterdam, but never stopped, other than for petrol.
I did two walking tours, an introduction to Amsterdam walk in the morning and an Anne Frank tour in the afternoon. The morning tour was led by Karel, who was extremely knowledgeable and threw in a good deal of humour.
It was a warm day, so I went for an ice tea before trying to find the start of the next walking tour. One thing with Amsterdam is that just about everyone seems to speak exceptionally good English. I was looking for an address rather than the Jood Museum. Well meaning people could not help me with the address but possibly knew where the museum was. As time passed, I was getting a little anxious about the possibility of missing the tour. As it was, I was one of the first to arrive. Other people who arrived, seemed unsure as to whether they were in the right place.
For the afternoon tour, the guide was Latvian (or was she Lithuanian?). She was knowledgeable but lacked both the enthusiasm and the humour of Karel. At the point where she pointed out the bar where Heineken began, she suggested that we may want to take photographs. While looking through my viewfinder, she led the group away and I could not find them.
Having lost the group, I returned to Dam Square where I had seen someone producing large bubbles and I wanted to go and explore the photo opportunities. That is the drawback of a guided tour. Something may catch your photographic eye and you are not free to go and investigate. I gradually made my way to the Red Light district, which is definitely one of the city's tourist attractions even for non-clients. I had heard on the morning tour about the dutch connection to Indonesia, so I sought out an Indonesian restaurant. All this proved challenging as I did not have a dutch SIM and had been roaming on my Kazakh SIM which then ran out of credit. Using the Wi-fi in the restaurant allowed me to add credit to my Beeline account and find my way back to the hotel. It is time to consider updating my phone to one that can take an eSIM when I travel to another country.
