Our first capital city, Amsterdam!

We made it to our first capital! Of course our aim is to see every country in Europe, and we also want to visit the respective capitals. So the first one of many is Amsterdam. 

Shortly after arriving at our campground, which we would stay at for the next three nights, my human took off by bike to Amsterdam central station, about half an hour and a short cross over with a ferry away, to take a train to Den Hague to catch up with her friend, I told you in the last episode. I stayed where I was and enjoyed the great view over the lake, which was all of two steps away. 

Getting here was an amazing ride. From Leeuwarden, which is in the province of Friesland, you can either go all the way around, or, you take the straight route across the Afsluitdijk, which is a great dam, built from 1927 to 1932. It is 32km long and gets you right into the province of North Holland. 

The dam divides the Ijsselmeer from the North Sea and protects the land lying behind it against floods since 1932, a brain child of Dirk Roosenburg. In the Ijsselmeer, the worldwide largest wind energy park in inland waters is currently being built. In total there will be 89 wind turbines, which are going to supply power for 500.000 homes.

The minister who put the plans for the dam through parliament, Cornelis Lely

My human got back to me late in the evening, and we enjoyed a quiet cup of tea together, staring out at the water, saying good night to yet another wonderful day on our trip.

The following day it was time to explore Amsterdam. Well, what can I say, it’s a very big place, compared to what we’ve seen so far, and it’s full of people -  so many people! Suddenly there are Germans and English people everywhere! It’s kinda weird, after, for the most part, just being surrounded by Dutchies. 

Central Station, a lot has been renovated extensively lately, but not the old facade

Just an average size parking garage - for bicicles!

Of course, it is a very interesting city with so many entertainment options, but really, it seems we are more the small town types. 

In the Nieuwe Kerk, the New Church, an exhibition of the “World Press Photo” was on, and on a whim my human decided to check it out. These days you need to book tickets in advance online to get into anything, but luckily enough, there were some left for half an hour later. This proved to be a happy circumstance, because the exhibition was fascinating. Here are some of her favorit pics:

This one got the price of "Press Photo of the year"; it's called "The first embrace"

Fighting the locust infestation in East Africa

A jade mine and a Buddhist temple collide in Myanmar

In the Himalayas of northern India they build these huge ice cones to provide them with water in the summer

Covid-19 adapted training, Kochel am See in Bavaria

Dispute about the demolishon of an emancipation memorial - and so much more!

Aptly titled "The Ameriguns"

After walking around the city for some hours afterwards, it was time to go back to the lake and chill! That’s what we did all Sunday as well! We had a brief moment of bad conciousness about doing absolutely nothing at all, but that passed quickly!

In the afternoon, we had a very nice chat with our neighbor, Barry Love. A 6-time dad, kids ages ranging from 8 to 48, from 4 different wives, who’s spent most of his life as a traveling musician and who was stuck in Vietnam during the worst of Covid-19. You can imagine that we had some interesting topics to talk about.

In the evening, of course, there was the final of the European Championship 2020. Italy took the pot home, after, what I felt was a very mediocre game. But then, I’m no expert.

A visit to the Anne Frank house was scheduled for Monday morning, a must-see when in Amsterdam. Sure, there is a mirade of famous art to look at, a Madame Tussaud and so on, but this is history to dive right in. Not pretty, but still part of our lives. Unfortunately, more so now than in the last decades. Something going the wrong direction here, is my opinion.

After spending two, very subdued hours basically inside WWII, it was time to hit the road again, driving the short distance (it’s all short distance here, really) to Leiden. Here we found a cool spot right next to another lake. There is something about water. If you don’t count in the local kids riding around their scooters and motorbikes until midnight, we were going to spend a quiet night here.  

A little look around town (and a very expensive rain jacket later) made me feel good about leaving the big city, this is much more my style. Nice, cobbled streets, small alleys, a big windmill right in the city, and hardly any other tourists. Leiden, as you know (of course), is where Rembrandt was born on the 15th of July 1606, and they were preparing for celebrations this weekend. 

After a run and a swim in the lake in the morning, my human took the bike on another trip to town, just rolling around a bit, and then went to see the exhibition about the human body at “Corpus”, which doesn’t mean corpse. Well, at least not directly, it means body. Sooner or later to be a corpse, yes, but not just yet. 

So you walk around inside a huge human figure, which you can see from the outside of the building, starting at the knee. With an audio guide you move around the body, through the brain, the nose and eye, the intestines, and so on, while you get explained all the functions, interrelations and intricacies of the various parts. Really quite interesting and also amusing at times. 

Inside the actual body you are not allowed to take photos...

... so we were left with these pearls of wisdom

Thanks, Hippocrates! What a great idea!

And because everything is so close, we decided to drive to Den Hague in the afternoon, all of 15km away. But that’s a story for next time. Only so much for now, we had a Royal time!

In our category "van life" I today present you with my power of tower! My human loves that thing! Of course, it was her brother's idea and she wasn't convinced at the time, but that didn't take very long to change!