Little delays can add up; our plane was delayed in loading cargo, and so we sat on the plane for thirty minutes or more before finally taking off an hour late. Then, at the Amsterdam airport, it was a bit of a hike to passport control, where there was a huge crowd of people being held out of the entrance area for reasons we could not tell. Happily, Dubbs saw a sign for another entrance to passport control, which was another fair hike. It was open, which was great. What was less great was that they only had one person working the desk for non-EU passports, and so it took a little over an hour to clear the passport counter. The good news from that wait was that our luggage was waiting for us, so that was efficient.

The delays made us all decide that getting a ride from an Uber driver was worth it, so after a ten-minute wait for the driver, we were shuttled to our AirBnB residence, which worked well. Our host, Andy, was super friendly and gave us lots of information about Amsterdam. I think the information will be useful, but it did take thirty minutes to communicate when all we could think about was bed. So, after a very, very long twenty-eight-hour day, we finally got to go to sleep for a couple of hours. If given a choice, I will avoid ever doing that long a day again when traveling – it is too hard to function in a new environment on so little sleep.

The world was both literally and figuratively sunny when we woke up mid-afternoon. It is a northern city in November, and so will still be cold (in the low 40s), but the sun helps a lot. After a couple of quick showers, we spilled out into the old city center of Amsterdam.

Not surprisingly, it is stunningly cute. There are canals everywhere, and all of the streets are lined with three- or four-story houses with colorful facades and fancy roof lines. The Dutch seem very fond of large windows, so we could see inside many houses and apartments, and it seems the Dutch love books; despite limitations on space, many houses had a room for a library.

Mer was in charge of the afternoon, and so she led us south to the museum district. It was a beautiful walk. The canals make the neighborhoods scenic and slow down motor traffic, although the Dutch seem to have the low-country love affair with the bicycle, so we learned very quickly to check to make sure we were not accidentally in the bike lane. We have an informal bet about who is going to get knocked down by a biker first.

A close-second bet is who is going to fall down the stairs first. Because so many of the buildings are so narrow, but still fairly tall, we’re guessing the old buildings in Amsterdam must have at one time been taxed on square footage of the ground floor. Our apartment is no different – we are on the third floor, and both sets of stairs are the steepest stairs I have ever seen, and for good measure wrap around at the top of the flight, just to make the steep stairs harder.

The museum area of Amsterdam is beautiful – multiple open spaces with dramatic buildings scattered throughout. The park was in use and was lit with tons of lights, and skaters were already skating on a rink. At the same time, a trio of people were tossing a Frisbee around, which is not something you usually see with ice skaters nearby.

We went into a museum to buy a Museumkaart, which gives you unlimited access to Amsterdam’s museums. Or, more accurately, it did. Now, you get five visits on the card, and have the option to register it to get the full version, which gets mailed to you. This is not the best option for tourists here for just one week. So Mer scrapped her plan of visiting the modern art museum for an hour, and we went to find supper.

Here too, we hit a bit of a snag. The first place we went was a small pub, and was packed out. Europeans eat later than Americans do, and it was only around 5:30, but that did not stop people from being social over a coffee or beer. We moved on to another restaurant, where we had more success.

Mer had no firm plans for after supper except to see the city, so we wandered south a couple of blocks to a park, which was very pretty in the dark, except for the few places that were not well lit. Otherwise, the lights reflected off small canals, and it was lovely, except for the cold that descended after the sun went down.

We all brought warm winter clothing, but I still got cold on the hour or so walk back to the apartment. I must be out of practice. We walked in the general direction of our home, but felt free to be distracted by lights or anything that looked interesting (including a friendly tom cat). While the Christmas lights are not anywhere near so extensive as Lisbon’s promised to be last year at this time, Amsterdam has the distinct advantage of having the lights already turned on. It’s a bit of a coup, really.

We got back to the rooms fairly early for us, around 7:30. That is wise given the little sleep we have had, and Amsterdam promises to be fun to explore tomorrow.