My last day in the Netherlands.   On tap today – a quick day trip to Utrecht about an hour away, a free walking tour (obviously), and then my first ever football match.

I had set my alarm for 8am at a very low volume so as not to wake everyone in the room when it went off.

Turns out I just woke up at 7am anyway so problem solved.   It’s crazy that I keep waking up early.   I have yet to have 8 hours sleep and I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop where I just snooze through everything and wake up in the afternoon.

Well, for today anyways, I was up at 7am.   Plenty of time to casually get ready, grab some breakfast and head on to my 9:30 train into Utrecht.

Yup… plenty of time…

Locked out

I washed up and went to grab my day pack out of my locker.   You know – the pack with all my important stuff like cash, cards, passport among other things.

Hmmm, can’t find the key…

Oh fuck!

This trip is the first (and now last) time I’ve brought a key lock instead of a combination lock.   I always found it hard to read the stupid numbers on the lock in a dark room in the early morning hours so this time I figured I’d try a key lock.

Yeah, I couldn’t find the key.

After searching high and low (in the dark, mind you), I finally surmised that I had locked the key in my bag in the locker.

God dammit!

My mind quickly started reeling.   What was my next step?   Can I figure out a contingency plan real quick without access to money for the day?   Was I gonna be able to leave in time for the adventures I had planned for the day?

I went to the front desk where Sanni was working.   She had literally just started her shift and here I was unloading this problem on her.

She was going to try to find a locksmith for me.   Yeah, a locksmith at 7am on a Sunday.   Good luck with that!   Oh and when she does find one, I can’t wait to hear the quoted price.   Sigh.   What a silly waste of money.

The first one she called quoted a whopping 195€ (that’s $300, by the way).   My jaw dropped.   The second person she got ahold of offered to do it for “only” 95€ ($150).   Well, in my mind I figured it would cost about that, so I told her to get the guy over.

A little while later the locksmith came by.   All my tiptoeing in the dark to not wake up my roomates was now all in vain as I had to flip on the lights in the dorm to let my guy do his lock picking magic.

It was only then that one of my dorm mates told me I could have just used a couple of screwdrivers to wedge the lock and break it open.   The locksmith agreed with him.   Greeeeeeat.   That woulda been nice to know about 30 minutes prior.

Whatever.

Anyway, he did his thing and I was able to get my bag.

By the way… the key… yeah, it wasn’t in the bag.   Turns out I found it later on in the evening just lying on top of my big backpack under my bed.   It must have fallen out of my pants pocket when I moved them in the morning.

Yeah, silly waste of money but onward and upward.   I will not let little (well, this one was kind of big) things bring me down or mess up my trip.

So, with that, it was time to start my daily adventure…

Yay! Utrecht!

Amazingly I was actually still able to get out the door in time to catch the train I had originally planned to take.   I’d be in Utrecht in about an hour and have enough time to eat breakfast there before heading to the walking tour at 10:30

I had previously looked up gluten free restaurants around Utrecht and I had a place – Anna Pancakes – mapped out on my map.

I ordered the Morning Shizzle, a stack of 3 gluten free pancakes served with spinach, fried eggs and avocado.

What I didn’t take into account was how long it would take for my breakfast to arrive to my table.   As I watched the minutes pass on the clock on my phone, I soon realized that I’d have to gulp the dish down and race to the start point of my tour.

I finally got my food at 10:20 and by 10:28 I had paid and was on my way.   Not quite the way I wanted to enjoy my meal.   I kind of wanted to savor it and take my time but, hey, gotta do what you gotta do.

The tour around the city of Utrecht was very nice.   The streets are all cobblestone and the building are all old.   It was nice to just be walking around a classic European small city.   These are the cities I long for.   In fact, I’d go as so far as to say that this would have also been a great choice to setup my home base for the week.

There was one weird guy in our group from the UK.   A big portly man with thinning hair, a beard and a bright forest green shirt half tucked into his black dress pants with sneakers.   He had notepad in hand and couldn’t wait to brag about all the places he’d been.   Between each stop he’d cozy up to someone else, ask where they were from and then proceed to tell them all about the time he visited there.

The scary thing is I saw a little bit of myself in him.   Fashion wise, not so much but I’ve bragged about where I’ve been and I’ve fallen in the pitfall of talking about my adventures instead of asking about others.   It was a good reminder to check myself and to remember that it’s better to listen than to talk.   I hope this experience will open my eyes to it and make me a better traveler.

The tour ended around 12:30 and I had a good hour before I had to leave for the next adventure of the day.

I decided to pop back to Anna Pancakes for lunch, only this time I was going to enjoy it.

When I got there it was packed and I knew I didn’t want to end up in the same situation as I did earlier rushing to get my meal done.

I decided to just pop to the less busy restaurant next door where happily they also were able to modify meals to a gluten free diet.

Yay!   I won’t lie – I was a little scared about being able to eat gluten free while traveling but so far I’ve had great success and experiences with it.

For lunch I had a Tosti which is basically the Dutch version of a Croque Mousier.   It was filled with Emmental cheese, pastrami, cabbage, red onion and pickle and it was amazing.

Seriously, amazing.

And I didn’t have to wolf it down!

Overall, Utrecht was great but now they were soon to become the villian…

Boo! Utrecht!

It was time…

My first ever football match!

I took a quick 15 minute train from Utrecht to the Ajax stadium in Amsterdam.

I had spontaneously booked the ticket a couple of nights ago and, now, here I was among the huge crowds making their way into the stadium.

My heart sank for a brief moment when I saw a sign at the entrance that said they didn’t allow backpacks inside the stadium but the people in line with me assured me that they’d have a baggage check.   Phew.

The baggage check, though, turns out to be about a 5 minute walk to an adjacent stadium’s locker storage.   It was actually at the Ziggo Dome where I had just seen the Depeche Mode concert a few nights ago.

So, I walked through the crowds of people, passing public urinals (yup, you read that right, Google search it) and placed my backpack in a locker for the low, low price of 8€ ($12).

After another trek back through the crowds and a long hike up seamlessly endless flights of stairs I was finally in my seat.

The atmosphere was electric.   Just the feeling of being here among the locals taking in for what many here would say was the ultimate “cultural” experience, literally brought a huge smile and tears to my eyes.   I actually had the exact same feeling when I saw the bullfights in Madrid.

I was seated in a upper corner section right next to and above what I can only describe as the rowdy section where the fans were chanting and beating a huge drum the entire game.

The drumming was almost tribal like and I couldn’t help but to constantly tap my foot with the beat of the drum.

I won’t lie, my expectation for a football match wasn’t high.   I always thought the sport was boring and only ever watched games during the World Cup every 4 years.

Well, my mind was changed big time today.

The match was electric.   It helped that our side controlled the play in the offensive zone for most of the match.   It also helped that we won 3-1.

Yeah, it was a fucking awesome game!

Another 4 course meal

By 5pm I was heading on yet another train.   This time I was headed further into Amsterdam Central where all the action is.

I was able to find a restaurant, Café Piazza, by searching for gluten free restaurants and found out that this Italian restaurant actually had a dedicated gluten free menu along with their regular one.

Their menu was ala carte but I was going to have a 4 course meal anyway.

I started with one of the weirdest caesar salads I’ve ever had.   It was greens in a dressing with parmesan cheese and actually full anchovies on top.   I mean, it had all the ingredients but I’m just used to having the anchovies blended in the dressing.   Anyway, it was good if not unique.

Next course: bruschetta.   This has always been one of my favorite starters but because of my gluten allergy, I can’t remember the last time I had it.

For dinner I had their penne carbonara.   Damn, it was good to be eating pasta at a restaurant again.

Along with a glass of prosecco, my meal came out to 40€ ($60) but you may have noticed I was missing a course.

Well, that’s because my dessert course was going to be at a little organic pastry shop I had passed by on my way to the restaurant.   I popped in and told the lady I was on my way to dinner but I’d pop back for dessert.

So, I kept my word.

Strawberry cheesecake for dessert!

What a great way to end my day and, in fact, my time in the Netherlands.

Tomorrow I’ll be taking a 4 hour train into Bruges, Belgium where I’ll be for one night before heading on to Antwerp for the rest of the week.