Monday June 7th, 2004

Tom and I both woke to the sounds of shattering glass bottles at 4:00am (and daylight, no less) as the recycling trucks made the circut of the cafes around the square. Neither of us had slept very well. People do like to party on Sunday nights around here!! Plus the covers were too heavy and the temp was a bit warm. We both tried to go back to sleep, but Monday mornings must be recycling collection mornings as garbage trucks just kept coming. So we showered and read and then headed down for breakfast.

The main thing I spotted on the breakfast buffet was a pitcher of wonderful, clear, crisp, ICE WATER!!! There was a mad dash from all directions for that pitcher!! One woman stood there filling one glass while chugging another until the original pitcher was empty. Luckily they brought more or there might have been a murder! We hadn't seen actual ICE in WATER in over a week! Yummmmmm .....

Our plan for the day was to see the Van Gogh Museum, my main reason for wanting to go to Amsterdam. We hopped a bus outside our hotel and managed to get fairly close to the museum area. Walked the rest of the way. The day was warm and sunny. The museum itself was actually kind of disappointing. It did have a lot of Van Gogh's personal artifacts and some history and paintings I had been unaware of .... but none of my favorite Van Gogh works were there. I guess that kinda makes sense. Other big famous museums and private art owners probably have the most famous pieces. His "Sunflowers" was there along with several self-portraits. Lots of very dark early pieces. We bought some prints and souveniers from the gift shop ... but once again, the selection seemed to be limited by the actual paintings featured in this museum.

There was another big art museum nearby, but it was closed for renovation. There were lots of little shops along the walkway and I had a nice time picking up items here and there for people at home.

We caught a bus back to our hotel ... dumped our stuff there and grabbed our books and headed back to our Irish Pub. There we settled in for an afternoon of reading and relaxing and drinking beer! I was in heaven!! There was always some kind of street musician ... from Violinist, to accordianist, to guitar and saxist ... entertaining and then passing the hat. We listened to the people around us and just inhaled the atmosphere. Luckily, neither Tom nor I feel like we always have to be going and doing!! And I am so glad.

We asked for a fan at the front desk and happily they were able to comply!! So I took a little nap while Tom wandered the streets of Amsterdam. Our friend, Gary, had recommended that we try to have Indonesian Food while in Amsterdam. They serve a meal called a Rijsttafel which is basically a buffet of tastes brought to your table ... dish after dish after dish. Luckily, the restaurant was only 2 doors down from our hotel so that we could roll back there! Actually, we walked around the square a couple times then settled at our Hotel's sidewalk cafe for coffees. All in all it was a very relaxing day in Amsterdam.

The area outside our hotel was not as noisy on Monday night and so we slept a little better. The fan helped, too.