Like our other travel days, we planned to sleep in and check out at the last possible moment. We ended going to bed pretty late the previous night because the courtyard outside of our room is loud and boisterous. Apparently, Thursday night is similar to Friday night. The noise didn't die down until after 1 pm. We checked out around 10:30 am and left our bags with the hotel. We headed over to the cookie shop that I tried to go to yesterday. I ordered to be what I thought was an iced coffee, but ended up with a double espresso. I also ordered an alfajores which is an Argentinian treat of two cookies with dulce de leche in between. It was small, but tasty.
Breakfast of champions!
After eating on the steps at Dam square and people watching, we took one last visit to Dam Square and got some last minute pictures.
The hubster
Me
Random light post
Shopping mall
Not a lot of shopping areas in the US that look like this. I didn't get a chance to go inside, but I was reserving all my spending money for Paris and we already got enough souvenirs from here anyway.
Ruh roh
We started to walk back to the museum plaza to visit the Rijks museum. Yes, this was the same route we refused to walk the other day. It really wasn't a long walk, but this time we got to stop and see all the side street things that we saw on our way yesterday. It was nice little walk and of course, we got lost along the way.
Flea market - mostly books and posters
Bikes and canals, oh my!
Starbucks! Even in foreign companies, this place is still packed.
Random building
Another random building. I think this was a hotel.
But all the guide books and blogs I've read all say go off the beaten path and you'll discover wonderful things about the locale you are visiting. Well, it's true! We got lost along the way and found the Hard Rock Cafe. There is a small inside joke between the hubster and I. When I first moved in with the hubster, I was organizing the closet and found that the hubster keeps every single shirt he wears as an undershirt, even old, yellow ones. Anyway, I found so many Hard Rock t-shirts. Remember when they were so popular in the 90's? He was one of those people. Anyway, so we had to take a picture and no, we did not buy a t-shirt. Surprisingly, it was pretty busy.
Still going strong
Rare sight to see only one bike locked up
We made it!
Selfies!
The Rijks musuem is huge. There were so many exhibits, we didn't know where to start. We hadn't planned to visit this museum, but our tour guide talked us into it. I have to say that this was my favorite museum. It had a wide variety of art that appealed to me. Unfortunately, my camera battery died about 45 minutes into the visit. My iPhone battery drains so quickly that I was using the hubster's iPhone. So he has a lot of pictures of art with dogs in it. I haven't been able to get them from him yet, but I wouldn't post those pictures anyway.
One of our last stops was a weapons exhibit. Lots and lots of pistols and rifles. I really liked how they set up the display. As you can see in the picture below.
My serious face
Once we finished with the museum and picked up one more souvenir, we headed off to find some lunch. We walked through the tunnel we biked through yesterday and stopped to take one of the best pictures of the trip.
So beautiful. Can we just build canals everywhere?
We took a different than the one we came and walked passed several places to eat, too bad many didn't suit the husbands palette. We finally found a sandwich shop. I got the pork belly and the hubster got American BBQ pork. *sigh* They were toasted and warm sandwiches on fresh bread. It was quite tasty, but not as good as yesterday's sandwich. We walked a little further and decided to have an impromptu picnic on the canal.
Happy hubster
My sandwich
Me enjoying my sandwich
Adidas bike
After we finished eating, we walked back to the hotel and picked up our luggage. Still not willing to pay €4 to take the tram, we decided to walk to the train station. It wasn't that far of a walk and we had plenty of time. The luggage was getting a little bit heavier since we picked up a few souvenirs along the way. We hunkered down and powered through it. We arrived at the train station with plenty of time. We found our platform and waited. We could see rain clouds coming in and Amsterdam is notorious for rain.
As we boarded our train, it did start to rain. We felt lucky that we such beautiful weather for our trip and it didn't rain until we were set to leave.
Rain drops on the train
This was our last first class train ride and we were going to enjoy it. Once we hit Brussels, it was a non-stop trip straight to Paris. We were served dinner and had free wi-fi which helped the trip go faster.
They ran out of chicken entrees by the time they reached us, so we had the vegetarian meal. Eggs, asparagus, carrots, gingerbread, cheese, roll, and an apple tart.
Not too shabby for free
Dessert
As we approached Paris and Gare du Nord, we noticed a strange phenomenon. Everyone decided that they wanted to be the first off the train and people started lining up at the door which was right next to the hubster. I thought Americans were the rude ones. I was so fed up with their behavior.
Once we got off the train, we had to navigate the Metro to find our hotel. Good thing my dad gave us a map of the Metro ahead of time. We had a little bit of difficulty buying our tickets, but after one transfer, we popped out at the right stop. It was a short walk to our hotel and we checked in quickly.
When we got settled into the room, we were trying to decide what we wanted to do. Originally, the plan was to see how the line was at the Eiffel tower and go up since we didn't book reservations in advance. It took us awhile to actually get moving. We made it in time to see the 10 pm light show. It was quite breathtaking. I loved every minute of it. I know it's so cliche, but it was spectacular.
Right when we arrived
We had a terrible time getting good pictures because it was dark. These were some of the best we got.
Waiting for the light show to start
Lights!
This was the best shot and it's actually a still from the video I took with my phone
I know there has been a lot of bad press with people videoing iPhones and iPads and miss the actual event. So I made sure to the picture framed out and then held and watched it live! What a way to start out the Paris part of our trip!
The only negative part about the Eiffel Tower are the hawkers trying to sell mini Eiffel Towers and champagne. We were only sitting for maybe 15 minutes and we were approached about 50 times! Multiple times from the same guy. So annoying and almost ruined the experience.
We watched the light show and then headed back to the hotel where we crashed again...
Up next: Louvre, Musee D'orsay, and more!
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