Pat and Rich Come to Amsterdam....I Return to the US!

Well, I left my very pleasant visit with Jo on her houseboat and took the tram over to Jordan where I would be staying with my friends Pat and Rich,  who were coming by train later in the afternoon. I settled into this very nice place we had found on VRBO.com. I did notice that there seemed to be no  electricity, so I emailed Moira, the owner. They were doing some work out in the street, but whatever the problem, I certainly could not fix it, so I headed over to the train station. En route I stopped at the Little Church in the Attic which Jo had told me about. I also went up to the top floor of the new library, which is very close to the train station, which had wonderful views of the city. This was another of Jo's good suggestions!
I did take lots of pictures at both places...plus on the houseboat. But, UNFORTUNATELY my camera must have fallen out of my pocket in the cab back to the flat from the train station! So the pictures on my camera were lost, and I used my iphone for the remaining time away!  I usually downloaded my pictures every day or so, but I did not do so on the houseboat.

Pat and Rich arrived from Paris, and we took a cab to our flat. There was still no electricity! The workers outside promised that we would have power in several hours and we did. Pat and I went to get some groceries nearby before we all went out for dinner at a nice little Italian restaurant around the corner. So nice to be able to walk everyplace!

Thursday we went to Keukenhof.   http://www.keukenhof.nl/en/  This is described as the most beautiful garden in the world, and being a tulip lover, I have to agree. (See my virtual pictures of the tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, etc!) They have very fancy greenhouses with wonderful or chides and other plants which are more traditional houseplants. The only thing we would need to do differently is go earlier in the season, as it closed the following Saturday, so we had missed the true splendor. However, that was unavoidable, and we enjoyed what we saw.

Friday we went to Anne Frank House early, but our wait was still perhaps a half hour. It is such a sobering place. Everyone walks quietly through this house which is quite barren of furniture, but filled with lots of descriptions and memories of such a difficult time! No pictures. http://www.annefrank.org/
Afterwards we took the same walking tour I had taken, as I really enjoyed it, as did Pat and Rich!
We also took a canal cruise, which really vary a lot. Some barges are very open; some are not. We would have preferred an open one! Some have speeches in different languages which you hear via headphones; on others a live person is giving a talk. So many choices!

Saturday we headed to the world famous Rijksmuseum, where we could have spent hours!  To see authentic paintings by Rembrandt and van Gogh was wonderful!
https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en?lang=en&gclid=CKCc_Mv0kL8CFUIQ7Aod9AkANg
We had a very tasty lunch there, before we moved on  walking around Amsterdam, which is the perfect city to do this!
Jo (of the previous houseboat post) had invited some couch surfers to her houseboat that night where her current (guitar playing) couch surfer was to give a short concert. Afterwards they passed the hat. He is from Rochester, NY and traveling about Europe playing.The only really paying gig was to  be in Latvia. Afterwards Jo served some wonderful desserts! It was fun, and I was glad that Pat and Rich could see the houseboat!

Sunday we took the train to Delft,which is lovely little town with its own canals and charm. We ate lunch outside along one of the canals.Again we walked around, did some shopping, ate some ice cream, and loved the ambiance of this old town! There was a flea market along the canals, but I did only look!

Monday we were getting ready to head back to Boston, so enjoyed our little remaining time. Pat and Rich went to the van Gogh Museum. I took another trip along the canals, which I find so intriguing!

We had some very tasty meals on the last leg in Amsterdam, not to mention the end of my ten months "living in Europe"!!

It was great having Pat and Rich come to Amsterdam so we could explore together!!


We went to the airport together, but flew home on different airlines!

Tomorrow it will be five weeks since I have been back in the US!! I am still thinking about how this terrific experience changed me....I will go back sometime, but not for ten months in all likelihood, but who knows?? It is great to be home, of course!

And again, thank you for traveling along with me!

Still colorful, but sad as they close their season!

They must force this planters for the end of the season!

..."Surfing" on THE Houseboat

Well, I am WAYYYY behind on this blog!! I have been back in the US since May 20th, and the re-entry tasks have overcome the priority of finishing this blog....But there are still some "chapters" about my ten months in Europe I want to share....

Lovely floral displays all over Amsterdam!

At the end of January I had emailed some couch-surfers about my May visit to Amsterdam. One of them was Jo, who lives on a houseboat. At the time she told me I was on her Maybe list.  She gets 15-20 requests a day to couch surf with her. I was SO hopeful, as it sounded like GREAT fun!! Luckily about two weeks before I was due in Amsterdam, she emailed me to say it looked like I was going to be able to stay there!

May 12th I was due at the houseboat, and Jo would be returning from Athens. On May, when I was going to stay at Jo's and time-plenty of it-to spare, so I opted to drag my still filling bags what my phone said was 1.5 miles. Jo originally was due to be at the boat by 6, but then she emailed me saying she would not arrive until 8, so I could walk very slowly!

I got to the boat, took some pictures, and went around the corner to Torino's, a neighborhood Italian restaurant. She emailed to say her flight was further delayed. So I dallied over a nothing special, but filling spaghetti Bolognese. I went and sat on a chair in front of the houseboat and waited for her. She and her partner Hans arrived about 9:15.

The spacious boat, owned by a young Dutch couple who've bought a farm in Hungary, was totally renovated. It had a bedroom in the bow (front of the boat), and all the amenities(dishwasher included!) of a flat.
From Jo's I visited the Resistance Museum, the Rembrandt house (huis), the Portuguese Synagogue.

I left Jo and the delightful houseboat to go to my final stop in Amsterdam in Jordan. 

Thanks again for coming along!! ...I am optimistic that the next post will be done within the next few days!!