It’s not often I split up blogs into two parts.   I did yesterday because it literally felt like two days.

I’m doing it again today as well.   This entry is all about my first day in Amsterdam.   Part two, which you can find here, is all about the walking tour I took around the city.

About last night

Okay, so I left last night’s blog on a cliffhanger.   Something about foreshadowing money flowing out of my pocket…

Yeah, I lost 100€.   Just disappeared out of my wallet.   I have no idea what happened to it.

It annoyed for a bit but, ya know what, I got over it.   You know how I solved the problem?   I went to an ATM this morning and got more euros.

See?   Problem solved…

In all seriousness though, it’s crazy how freely my money is flowing.   Back home, I’m tight with my money.   I hardly go out to eat or do anything.   Here, every day is an adventure.   There’s stuff to do and new dishes to try.

While it’s probably hurting my bank account, it’s warming my adventurous little heart, so I guess it’s money well spent.

Anyways, somewhere in the whole losing 100€, was a late night trip from my hostel in Haarlem into Amsterdam at 9pm.

Even though it had been a long ass day, I still had a little bit in the tank and figured, what the hell, let’s pop down to Amsterdam and have some dinner.

The train ride is only 20 minutes and I had marked a few places in the city on my map that I wanted to eat at while I was here.

I decided on Sumo Sushi.   It’s been awhile since I’ve sushi thanks to my lovely newly found gluten allergy.   In fact, in the last 3 years, I’ve only had sushi once and that was with my brother when he visited me in Vancouver last June.

Sumo Sushi was on my map for the simple fact they have gluten free options including a gluten free soy sauce.

So, yeah, I popped down to the big city, had some late night sushi and then headed back to the hostel.

I was tired, it had been a long day, and I was ready for bed.

Damn you, TD Visa

I finally actually fell asleep at 1:30am mostly because I was writing last night’s blog.   By 7:30am I was up again.

Ah yes, early mornings when you’re traveling.   It’s crazy – in my normal life I’m rarely up before noon but when I travel it’s all early mornings.

I decided I was going to go on the Amsterdam free walking tour today.   Unlike walking tours I’ve done in the past, instead of just showing up you had to reserve your spot online for 2€.

Now, I really don’t care about the 2€ but the problem is TD Bank has a security feature online where they will send you a text message with abnormal purchases to confirm it’s you.

No big deal when you’re at home.   You get the code in the text message, enter it, and voila, purchase approved.

Of course, being over here in Europe I don’t have access to my home phone number and I can’t get the code to confirm it’s me.

There’s no other option either.   It’s only a text message.

So, yeah, pretty much every online purchase I do is now rejected.

Long story short, after trying many ways to get around the obstacle, I just couldn’t.

I decided to just show up for the walking tour at the start time and hopefully they wouldn’t kick me away.

All sim’d up

Before I headed into Amsterdam though, I stopped by the local Vodaphone store to purchase a European sim card for my time here.   It’s just easier having data on your phone instead of always relying on wifi.   Also, a handy local phone number could be useful down the road.   Foreshadowing again, by the way.

I got a prepaid one month plan with 2GB data for 30€ ($45) and added 10 minutes of call time for 10€.

With phone in hand, I headed to the train station.   On to Amsterdam…

Famous pancakes

I had time before the walking tour started at 1pm to try out something everyone says you have to do when you visit Amsterdam.

That’s visit the famous Pancake Bakery.

I was surprised to find out it’s actually not located in the center of all the action in Amsterdam but was instead a 15 minute walk in the opposite direction from the train station.

The restaurant itself from the outside is very non-descript.   In fact, I had to double check that I had actually gone to the one and only famous Pancake Bakery.

I popped open the door and, yup, that place was packed with tourists and locals alike.

I ordered the ham, cheese and pineapple pancake (with gluten free flour, of course), an OJ and cappuccino.

The meal came out to 25€ ($38) which, if I’m being honest, is pretty damn expensive for breakfast.   In this case, though, you’re really paying for the experience so you pay what you pay, you smile, and you move on.

An awesome walking tour

Moving on in this case was onto the free walking tour.

Thankfully my guide Max didn’t kick me out but it was close.   Not because he didn’t want me there but because in Amsterdam there’s actually a limit of 15 people to a tour group.   I guess it’s a way of controlling the hordes of crowds in the city.

Luckily for me, there were only 11 people reserved for the tour so I snuck in under the wire.

The tour itself was fantastic and there was so much going on that I actually decided to just give it a blog of it’s own.

Windmills!

After the tour ended at 2:30pm I actually hadn’t made any other plans for the rest of the day.   In a spur of a moment kind of thing I decided, what the hell, let’s find some windmills.

Zaanse Schans about a 30 minute train ride north was just the place.

While riding there, I decided to try to call the toll free number for TD Visa from my new Netherlands phone number to see if they could unblock my purchases or put a note on my account or anything at all.

Yeah, that 10€ of call time went down the drain in mere minutes on that phone call.   I was literally cut off mid sentence and after all that, nothing got settled.   I just wasted 10€.   Yay, so awesome.

After getting off the train, it was still a good 15-20 minute walk to the windmills but, man, was it worth it.

Because I came later in the afternoon I missed all the tourists and tour groups who had visited earlier in the day.

There were still a few dozen people along the pathways around the windmills but it was still so calm and quiet.

Genuinely a great place to sit down, relax, and reflect on life.

Times like these are special for me when I travel.   I’ve had a few of them including shedding genuine tears in Cordoba, and sitting under a tree in Cinque Terre reflecting on a crazy day.

After visiting the windmills, I headed back to Amsterdam.

There was another restaurant marked on my map.

McDonald’s?

Yup, McDonald’s.

Okay, okay, before you get on about going to McDonald’s while visiting Europe – hear me out…

They have gluten free buns.

In fact in the world, there’s only a handful of stores that carry gluten free buns and I had one marked on my map.

It’s been three years since I bit into a Quarter Pounder with cheese and it was amazing.

Of course, had to have mayo with fries, cause, ya know, when in Rome…

After that, I headed back home to my hostel and spent the night in.

Tomorrow is the big day.   The reason this trip was originally planned.   Yup, tomorrow night is the Depeche Mode concert.

Along with the concert at 8pm, the plan is to do a day trip down to the Hague and then have a nice dinner before the concert.

Yeah, tomorrow is gonna be epic.   Can’t wait!