The Quinn Family Excellent Adventure: Goodbye Berlin - Hello Netherlands

We tried so hard to find a reasonably priced place in Amsterdam. $250-300 per day is just stupid. For whatever reason, Rotterdam seemed to be a better choice for us. It had much more reasonable costs and trains led to anywhere we needed to go. The train to Rotterdam was great. The station was comfy and Uber had no issues finding a nice driver. It's a pretty chilled city and our Airbnb was in a sleepy part of town by the river. https://goo.gl/maps/WsgopXNnmgZidUc69 Our host provided the key in a lock box and soon we were introduced to her cute little dog. Our host worked several jobs and her dog sitter was no longer available. I felt kinda bad. We took him for a walk right away. He pooped like a champ. I think he liked that. The place was honestly a bit messy. She was just too busy to really take care of it and it showed. It was so tempting to clean the kitchen but we simply just let it go. Her dog whined quite a bit the first night and I found myself searching for another place before going to bed but nothing came up.

We did not see our host until the next morning. She had come home late at night and was very conscious of her noise level. She offered us a seat and a Coffee and wanted to hear everything. Really nice girl. I felt a little better about staying after talking with her. We did not need anything more than what we had. So what if it's not perfect. It's all we need as a base. She mentioned a water taxi stops very close to her place in the park. We looked at the sign and see it's really more of a ordering type of service. They only stop where they are sent to and it's really necessary to book ahead. Bummer. We took a bus instead to downtown Rotterdam. It was really nice. After such a long walk we decided to try a nice meal. We randomly found an Indian place that turned out amazing.

I think is was called the Atithi Indian Restaurant https://goo.gl/maps/tUFEXUwo5yNiBZrx7 The owner was awesome and as it was not busy gave us full attention. He is trying very hard to ensure the food tastes are done with as many organic ingredients and spices as possible. It really showed.

After a few more days of dog walking we decided to take the train to Amsterdam. What a city. Bike everywhere holy moly. I've never seen so many. The Subway station has so many, it impossible to find your bike. We noted only 1 person had a bike helmet. Interesting is was an older man riding is what I think was his underwear. Cool. Another days travels took us to the Den Hague and the Pier. It was nice to see that open ocean again. We picked a day where the locals were on vacation so the place was a little quiet. The Pier must be a rockin place in the warm weather because it was really built up for vacationers. We ate a pretty decent Pizza considering the bar was set high from Italy. We also watched a marriage proposal being constructed by scraping out the message on the beach sand below. It was clearly visible from the Piers restaurant, Ferris wheel and Zip line. I wish we caught the surprised face of the other party. It looked like it went well from where we were sitting.

Netherlands is the home of friends we had made on our Uluru tour in Australia. They were planning to see a concert in Amsterdam and they booked a canal tour for all four of us. We had a blast. They suggested a local beer and some local food after. They really like Bitterballen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitterballen. I think we essentially got two shapes. One on white bread. Weird. They really love bread there. After "lunch" we walked around the Tulip seed areas (OMG) and just had to have a local Stroopwafel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroopwafel Crazy sweet. We toured around the red light district a bit, (so weird) and I noticed only girls in the windows. We all agreed there needed to be more guys. Our friends soon had to go so we walked them to the Amsterdam Central Station and said our farewells.

Michelle wisely researched a classic location for some traditional windmills, Kinderdijk. The bus to get there took a little running around to find but it was worth it. The bus was full of kids only for the first few stops and then it was only us almost all the way to Kinderdijk. The driver was very kind to ensure we were dropped off at the correct spot.

Our bus dropped us beside a place that also rented bikes. Partycentrum De Klok https://www.deklok.com/ https://goo.gl/maps/PZ7omscSGd2j1Xuc8 Super nice people. Really cheap bikes as well. We were soon off for our first Netherlands bike ride. It was nice. We had plenty of time to check out the riding trails beside the Museummolen Nederwaard. Many people there were walking. Bikes were way cooler. After that spot we found ourselves taking a short ferry to look for a mysterious looking castle https://goo.gl/maps/V1BJgTQYEq51bWQ8A It was a cute ferry costing only a few bucks. Unfortunately the castle turned out to be a private residence but it was fun finding it

https://goo.gl/maps/AXxCFpiuCszBZptS8. After a hot few hours of riding we headed back to Partycentrum De Klok for a snack and some cold drinks. It turns out there is a fast boat ferry that leaves on the hour nearby. It was not so pricey and faster than the bus. We walked to the ferry dock and a slow crowd was building.

Paying for the ticket was kind of weird on the ferry. We barely figured it out and the ticket person later talked to me about it. It was a totally new pilot project ticketing system. He knew there were bumps in the system and was impressed we (actually Michelle) got it correct. It turned out he was an employee of the company and had his hand in the design and implementation of the device. We talked way too much about geeky things. Taking the fast taxi back was a great way to say goodbye to Rotterdam and the area. It was time to get ready for the fast train to Paris :-)