Day 7 - Amsterdam / Dusseldorf

Decided to change up the standard front page photo with one of the hotel's cat. Lovely animal.

The first thing I noticed after getting up was there was a charge to my credit card of about 8 euros that occurred at 3am. We had gotten back to the hotel before midnight, so I wondered about this for a while - was it fraud? Eventually I guessed that the tap-off from the metro had not worked correctly and I was being billed for that. I'll keep an eye on it to see any other transactions like this pop up.

The hotel Isis certainly is a mixed bag. Cheap, close-ish to the station, 15 mins train ride from the city centre, great water pressure in the shower. Against that the walls are made of tissue paper and the wooden floors transmit sound throughout the whole building, so much so that you can clearly hear anyone walking around the hotel. It also has doors to the room that do not automatically lock, and no kettle/coffee. However there is the cat to greet you at reception, so that makes up for a lot of the downsides.

We proceeded to visit the Rijksmuseum. It's most significant piece is an enormous painting titled The Night Watch. I was unfamiliar with painting and only learned about it the day before from Buckie, but apparently it is very famous. The painting has long been coated with a dark varnish, which incorrectly gives the impression of the scene taking place at night.

Some facts about it I recall was that twice people have tried to damage it by slashing. The first guy did it to protest his inability to find a job, however he was so noodle armed that the blade did not even penetrate the varnish and the actual painting remained casually unconcerned during his feeble attempts to damage it.

It was not mentioned if this act of vandalism resulted in job offers.

The second guy actually managed to penetrate the varnish and damage the painting. This damage was restored as best as possible but some small slashes are still visible if you example the painting closely.

Unfortunately at the time we visited it there was some restoration works being done on it and the scissor-lift thing prevented getting a good view of it. Still I'm glad I got to see it, and actually kind of cool the see the restoration works going on.

Spent a fair bit of time at the museum. Many fantastic paintings and sculptures.

There was a room full of old books, some of which were being examined by experts while we were there. The room had sound proof doors and you had to be silent while in there. There were also some incredibly large and incredibly detailed doll houses, which unfortunately I forgot to photograph.

After the museum we observed a bird eating something off the ground.

Once we had seen enough of the bird it was time to leave Amsterdam. The train ride out was very interesting. They have very extensive and high capital agriculture going on, I've never seen land being used so intensively before. Huge, very expensive looking green houses taking up 10s of acres each. All the land is precisely allocated and farmed right up to the boundary, with the occasional canal of water between them. It was very impressive.

Our next stop was 's-Hertogenbo'sch. Yes, that is how it is spelt. As mentioned previously, Buckie has a list of food he is eating his way through, and 's-Hertogenbo'sch is one of the places to get the delicacy Bossche Bol. There are two bakeries in town, one is "the one" to go to get it and a lot of people do, the second was far less well known but they looked absolutely delicious so we decided to go there.

The Bossche Bol is a delicious combination of chocolate, pastry and cream. Buckie recorded himself eating and commenting on it, I assume he will play these videos on his Twitch stream.

We looked around 's-Hertogenbo'sch for a while and then boarded a train to Dusseldorf. Interesting place, as are all European cities to us. It also has the largest willow tree I have ever seen.

On our way to Dusseldorf we missed our connecting train at Velno, something which we got very salty about. There were a number of issues all conspiring together. Our train was delayed, there was no information online as to what platform the train we had to catch would be leaving from, there was not a working display board at the station, you could not book a ticket online, the ticket machine had far too many options to consider after you simply click "buy a ticket", after you select English at the ticket machine it will switch back to non-English in later menus, and finally, after we had overcome all that, the train was PARKED DOWN THE OTHER END OF THE PLATFORM as far away from the station building as possible (it closed it's doors and took off as we were running toward it).

We were not happy about any of this.

Ended up strolling around Velno until the next train. It was interesting to note that the agriculture is getting noticeably less intensive the further south we went.

On our way to Dusseldorf I began looking for a hotel using the various travel apps I have installed. I found a great deal. A hotel room, within 1 km of a station, with a private bathroom, for a mere $56 AUD. Amazing deal. I've stayed in bunk rooms for less but for a private room with an ensuite this was a new record deal. The only issue we discovered was that although they provided you with a kettle, there was no cup provided, making it not possible to make coffee in your room. Strange. I've added a collapsible cup to my travel kit list in case this happens again. The room was also very close to a rail line but the sound was sufficiently muffled when you close the window.

As we were leaving the train station in Dusseldorf, there were some people waving Isreali flags and shouting angrily. A number of police were standing off to the side. Not sure what it was about.

We went to dinner at the Loffelbar, just a bit down the road. I chose something outside of my normal choices, a goat burger, and it was excellent.Read more