You can't travel without a guide to life

Johnny’s post

This morning I was woken by Abba again at about 10:30 from a fantastic sleep due to the much-needed help from a melatonin pill. Immediately we headed out to our little café near us for a lovely candlelight breakfast. I enjoyed a small meal consisting of a latte, orange juice, yogurt with berries, and a croissant. Abba had a bacon and cheese omelet while Grammy had some sunnyside up eggs. We were all worn out by our strenuous walk back to our houseboat (about 50 ft), so we decided to rest for the next hour or two.

After our much-needed rest, Grammy and I decided to venture out to downtown as Abba continued to rest his bad back and needed recovery from being beaten so severely in Oh Hell the previous day. On our walk to the Jordaan, we stopped by a street vendor and picked up some famed Amsterdam French fries with mayo and curry sauce! After our snack Grammy and I walked in the direction of the Anne Frank statue. Grammy using her Rick Steve’s Guide to Life was looking all around on the map for the statue while I, being a person who uses my eyes and looks around, kept pointing out to Grammy that “It’s right in front of us, it’s right in front of us.” She says to me “One second, I’m looking for the statue of Anne Frank.” Finally, she looks up realizing it is right in front of her face. Me being a gentleman let it go. After this encounter, we decided to visit some little shops, a Delft pottery shop which had some beautiful pottery and a cheese shop where we bought some excellent goat cheese. We decided that it would be a good time to go back to our houseboat as we thought Abba might be getting lonely without us. We arrived and found Abba sitting at the kitchen table while a plumber tried to fix the heating to the shower, to no avail. We still have no hot shower. After getting that disappointing news, we decided to go to take a break and eat some of our delicious cheese while watching the FIFA world cup.

After our snack, we went for another walk to the Leidseplein to get a canal tour. Sadly, there were no more tours there for the rest of the day, so we had to take a tram all the way to Centraal station to get one. During it, we viewed many a sight while trying to figure based on the flags on the machine what languages we could listen in. Some beautiful sights we observed on our tour consisted of a modern white building (I know, so descriptive), the Maritime museum which looked similar to a boat, and some boats and a bunch of bridges we were scared would destroy the top of our ship every time we went under them. After our lovely boat ride and lots of photo taking we decided it was an excellent time to head back to dinner near the Leidseplein. After looking around, we decided to go to a Mexican restaurant recommended to us by Paulo’s sister Melena (who checked us in). I got four delicious beef tacos, while Abba and Grammy shared some tortilla soup and chicken mole enchiladas. Stuffed thoroughly, we started our walk home from dinner just in time to catch the final game of today’s world cup matches, while I write this blog.

Grammy’s comments

I believe Johnny has my number with the Rick Steve’s “Guide to Life”—LOL. I do tend to travel with his book or map in my hand, pointing out sights along the way. And, yes, occasionally I do have my head in the book instead of seeing what’s in front of my face! It was great fun to go exploring with Johnny in one of my favorite parts of Amsterdam. The Jordaan area is one that we also explored with Jack on his trip two years ago.

The homemade fries stand was a lucky find. The Dutch fellow behind the counter, sporting round red glasses, chatted with all of the customers. The woman ahead of us told him there is now curry flavored ketchup in the US. He looked at her disdainfully and said, “Anything you have in the US, we had here first!” We got our fries piping hot and perfect (topped with curry ketchup!). The little cheese shop was neat, too. We tasted pesto gouda that was bright green and truffle cow cheese, and we eventually decided to bring back an aged goat cheese, Johnny’s choice.

The canal tour was a great overview of Amsterdam and had narration pointing out many of the interesting places we were passing. It’s got the added advantage of being completely relaxing—great for three jetlagged souls who want to see it all!

Abba’s comments

Johnny really captured the highlights—I can’t think of anything to add, except that we got real mole at that Mexican restaurant (Los Pilones), and this spoiler alert. It’s now the next morning, and we have hot water in the bathroom sink! (The shower hasn’t been tested yet—Johnny hasn’t gotten up, and we want to make sure he has hot water when he’s ready.)Read more