Sun-Mon, April 28-29 - to the Rijks Museum and Returning to California

Tulip B&B breakfast room

Sun, April 28 - To the Rijks Museum

We got up at 7:30 and I cooked RR some scrambled eggs with mushrooms, onions and tomato from our fridge while I had a healthy breakfast of yogurt, granola and banana.  We set out for the Central Station and after some confusion found the #5 Tram.  You can pay when you get on which was handy and we cruised south through the city and got off right at the Rijks Museum at 9:10.  We had gotten tickets from the US so we could get right in line to enter. 

 

The Rijks Museum

  

The entire museum was very crowded as it has been closed for ten years while two large atriums were cleared out and the glass ceilings restored creating a beautiful large bright area.  Long-covered original murals were restored and all the paintings must have been cleaned and restored as well as the colors were all bright and glowing. So the combination of increased tourism due to the upcoming Queen’s Day and locals wanting to see the newly-reopened museum made for quite a jam.  We rented i-pods and took a tour of the museum highlights which got us to walk through all the rooms and hear a short or longer lecture about selected pieces.   Some of the more famous paintings had such crowds in front of them that we skipped over them as it was impossible to appreciate the works while peeking through masses of people.  But the earphones did serve to isolate us from the crowds and it was wonderful to see so much wonderful Dutch art throughout the centuries.

Museum Research Library

Amazing Doll House

Delft Tulip Vase

By noon we were a little peckish, and so went into the Museum Café which was full but so efficiently run that we shortly got a table and split some great tomato and red pepper soup and a bread/pickled onion/gherkin/cheese plate.  Thus revived we started the walk home in bright sunshine.

 We walked past the I AM STERDAM sculpture with people climbing all over the letters and continued on towards some gardens where I hoped to finally see some tulips!  A man approached us and asked in Dutch where some museum was.  We tried to tell him that we were tourists and didn’t know.  After a couple of exchanges we left, and a few minutes later Bob realized his wallet was missing!!  Stunning how a pro can distract you and take advantage!  Fortunately he only got some cash and Bob’s driver's license, not his passport.  And the credit card the thief got doesn’t have a chip embedded and so is pretty useless in Europe…but still upsetting. 

We walked past some large beds of magnificent orange, yellow and white tulips in perfect bloom for the big week.  We arrived home, I called Citibank to cancel the card just in case, and we relaxed and watched some more snooker.

At six we walked a couple of blocks to a small bar café recommended by Chris, called t’Tuinfeest.  It was jammed as Hollanders seem to eat 24/7 - rather nice actually as you never feel like an unsophisticated American eating way too early.  We got some good Belgian beer and Bob had pasta with mussels and shrimp and I had a tuna steak with spicy polenta.  We split a nougat panna cotta and walked home in the sunshine as a live band played and people were riding on a small carousel.

  The B&B’s lovely cat followed us upstairs and is now curled up inside Bob’s suitcase!

Mon, April 29 - Home to California

We got up at 5:15, finished packing, and made some delicious coffee with those little capsules – Chris had kindly gone out and gotten some decafe ones for us.  We slowly got the bags down the winding staircase and David was there to greet us and print out the taxi voucher.

 The electric taxi arrived right at 6:30 and as today is a holiday with very light traffic, we got to Schiphol Airport before seven. We printed out our boarding passes and then went to the desk to hand over our three bags.  The lady was just opening up her booth and probably had partied the night before, along with the rest of the country, and let one bag go through without a tag!  Bob saw it and the belt was stopped just before the bag was about to disappear into a massive dark hole of suitcases!  This bag contained all our laundry including still-damp moldy stuff from Ghana which would have cause an international incident if it had been blown up!

We wandered around the attractive airport, resisting spending our euros – I was trying to find some Dutch chocolate, but could only find Belgian.  In this airport you go through Security at the gate which means it is quite civilized with no endless line and crush of people.   We boarded at 9 AM into our comfortable Economy Comfort seats – Bob in 14A by the window so he can watch the North Sea, Greenland, & Canada as the whole flight is during daylight, and me in 14E next to a wall separating passengers from the galley, but with a foot of storage room so I could spread out.  After we had lunch and, as it was 2 AM in LA, I took a sleeping pill and got five hours of sleep, awoke for another meal and some TV and we were in LAX at 11 AM

As Bob’s driver’s license had been stolen, I was going to drive home in our rental car…. but just then I remembered that I hadn’t taken my license with me as I figured my passport is better ID …Well, you never know when you might have to drive, so my license is now added to my travel check list.   I called the SB Airbus and fortunately they were due to pick up riders at 2 PM so we waited an hour and hopped aboard.  Actually I much prefer to ride the bus to SB after a long trip than fight the traffic in a weakened, drowsy state, so it worked out well.  We arrived in SB; the bus driver had already called a taxi for us, and we arrived home at 5PM with just enough time to dash down to the Cat House Hotel to pick up a howling Maddie who didn’t leave us alone for a couple of days!

Back home, mail sorted, stinky laundry done: great to be back in Santa Barbara!

XXX, Katy