6/28/2023: Haus > Van Gogh

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Today we woke up at 2:30pm (agh!) Brad made J and I a gourmet breakfast before we decided to rent bikes for the next few days (lesson learned on the Amsterdam taxi scene). We traveled through the city on our bikes, stopping at an authentic Amsterdam coffee shop and then going to what we thought was the Van Gogh museum. Turns out we had bought tickets for something entirely different (a very new interactive exhibit on haus music), which ended up being so much fun. After spending three+ hours on a bench post exhibit, we finished the day biking around looking at the sights and ended at a cute Italian restaurant for dinner and wine.

Can I just say - the bike scene is ridiculous! I’m not sure how more people don’t end up seriously hurt because those people make some risky moves! Weaving in and out of traffic, stopping for no one (including trams, cars, and pedestrians - bikes have the right of way, green light or not). That said, we did run into (no pun intended) a number of trees decorated with flowers/photos and decorated bikes tied to trees that appeared to represent a shrine/memorial of sorts. A good reminder to always look both ways.

THEN, at around 2am while on the phone with Chase Bank trying to figure out the credit card situation, we got a call from the hotel.. we didn’t answer but then quickly realized it was strange for the hotel to call us in the middle of the night. We got off the phone with Chase and called the front desk. They told us a man had called saying he had my phone and would return it for 50 euros. Considering we were about to drop $700+ on a phone for me, 50 euros was a piece of cake. We got the dudes number and called but he didn’t answer. Then we texted him and waited for a response…

~ Savvy