Netherlands Day 4: A Floral display in Deep Rain

Okay, what a day. What A DAY.

Began a bit early by dragging myself out of bed somewhere around 5:15am. I don’t really know exactly when it was, just that it was still dark.

Today was one of the days I was most excited for, because today was the day we were going to visit Keukenhof gardens and the surrounding tulip fields. This was one of the big draws of coming to the Netherlands in springtime.

I had a whole day planned: visit the gardens, go on a boat tour of the tulip fields, and rent bikes to bike around the fields. So much fun packed into one little day. I had everything perfectly planned, but you can’t actually plan everything.

As soon as we left the houseboat we noticed that it was so cold. And raining. Like hard, pelting rain. We made it to the train station and caught the metro (first metro experience in Holland shout out) to the place where the bus was supposed to pick us up. We had such a hard time finding the right bus stop, and the rain just would not let up. Also, nothing was open because, in general, things open later in Amsterdam than the US.

The wind started to pick up, and at one point Jimmy and I were huddled under a shop awning trying to decide if we still wanted to do this. We debated waiting until the next day to see if the weather was better, but we had already bought tickets for today.

We finally decided to give up and walk back to the metro station, when we found the bus stop. We figured, hey, we’re already here. Might as well just hop on the bus. They scanned us in, put us in a line in the driving rain, and then bus showed up 40minutes late.

At one point a giant truck of porta potties showed up, and we joked with the people behind us in line about being willing to ride in the porta potties to get out of the rain.

I joke with Jimmy that every trip ends up having at least one truly miserable moment. I teased him that I think we’ve found it for this trip. Hopefully it’s the only one.

Here is me in that moment complete with porta potty truck behind me.

The cool thing about miserable moments is that they never last forever. Our bus eventually showed up, and all of the drowned rats waiting at the stop were shuttled inside.

The good news: the gardens were worth it. Here’s a photo dump of some truly beautiful flowers:

I really fell in love with looking for little raindrops on the flowers.

The garden also had greenhouse buildings spread around with indoor flower exhibits

And they’ve set up all kinds of cute places for photos. Which, of course, I loved and embarrassed Jimmy.

AND AND AND

They had sheepies!!! Including babies

After a few minutes in the gardens, the rain let up, but the temperature dropped. It got so cold. But we had prepaid tickets for the boat tour, so we hopped on.

That’s us looking happy-ish on the boat.

Now here’s how it actually felt on the boat:

The boat did us in. By the time we got off the gardens were extremely crowded, and we were numb from the cold. We grabbed some lunch and decided there was no way we would make it through a bike ride, so we ditched our rentals.

We got a couple more pics on the way out

Then we headed back to Amsterdam to try to de-thaw.

And do laundry. We only pack carryons so eventually the issue of laundry arises. Luckily our houseboat is near a laundromat that will wash and dry clothes for you while you take a nap.

Which is what we did.

When we woke up we decided it was a pivotal moment in the trip: time to get Dutch apple cake from Winkel 43.

Winkel 43 is an institution here in Amsterdam, and locals and tourists all line up to order their famous apple cake and a coffee. The slices are HUGE, and the cake was delicious.

When you go, definitely get it with whip cream. And a latte. Yum.

After rejuvenating with some apple cake, we noticed the weather had cleared so we took off in search of two of Amsterdam’s most famous attractions: churches and the red light district. They are conveniently located close together. Well convenient for our sightseeing anyway.

We started with visiting a church museum called Our Lord in the Attic. So many questions begged from that name. Why is Our Lord in the attic? Who put Him there?

Luckily, the museum has a great audio guide to answer all of your questions. The real story is that at some point in history (my retelling of historical facts is about to get really vague; just go with it) the Dutch joined the Protestant reformation and outlawed Catholicism. As well as Lutherans and Baptists, which makes me think I need an update on my church history classes.

The Dutch value personal freedom, so it was decided you could worship however you want as long as no one knows about it. Catholic Churches moved from beautiful cathedrals into house churches, which judging by the one I saw today were still pretty ornate. Our Lord in the Attic is a home with a house church in the attic that has been preserved through time and is now a very slick museum. Here’s the home part:

Did you all notice I snuck in a toilet? We hadn’t been to any sites that had historic toilets in them, so I’m very happy to have found this one as it is a long-standing blog tradition since the castle with the mannequin on the toilet in Ireland. You’re welcome.

This toilet is special because the exhibit makes a point multiple times to inform you that lots of clay pots (aka: archeological artifacts) were found in the cesspit (aka: where the hole in the toilet goes), complete with visuals. It was great.

Now here’s the attic:

It’s a full on mini cathedral with a pipe organ. Pretty amazing.

And Our Lord was in fact present in the attic:

After going to church we decided to tackle the red light district with the help of our favorite corny tour guide, Rick Steves. I gotta give it to the guy, he does a decent job of creating a walk that is fun, accessible to anyone, and tackles some of the ethical conundrums as well as strengths. If you’re curious but uncomfortable, you are the target for this walk.

We started at Dam square

Then headed into the red light district and toured around the outside of the old church.

I didn’t take very many pics on the walk in order to respect the people who were there. But the condom shop deserved a shout out.

It has a condom museum inside if that’s ever been something that’s missing from your life.

After doing his walk it was time to pick up our laundry, then head to a brown cafe in the Jordaan district. Brown cafe’s are like historic bars that sometimes serve food, and sometimes don’t. This one served great food, although neither of us ended up getting what we ordered. Our server was so fun, but he was a terrible server. Everyone around us also had something amiss in their order.

Honestly, I think what we got was probably better than what we ordered. I got pork tenderloin, and Jimmy got steak. So yummy.

I also got a Trappist beer that legit tasted like beer mixed with Coca Cola. And I loved it.