Rainy Days in Amsterdam

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Let's just say we're hoping the rain moves out before we get on our bikes. The day started out promising enough, well it was cloudy and windy, but it's usually cloudy and windy in Holland; this is the home of windmills after all. Anyway, after I finally got Willard's lazy butt out of bed, we packed up to move hotels. The brief respite near Vondelpark was over as we headed south toward the University of Amsterdam on a city bus. I will admit I had a few moments wondering about my choice of hotels as we kept going further south. We finally arrived at what we thought was our destination--seriously we had no idea exactly where we were, only an idea. Fortunately there are maps everywhere, once we got off the bus and checked the map we found the Holiday Inn very easily.

We checked in, discovered our room was ready and that breakfast was still being served; this was going to be a great day. We spent most of the rest of the day at the Rijksmuseum which is still among my favorite museums. Currently they have an exhibit called "Art is Therapy" with thoughtful, and often pithy, comments near major works of art. They were even offering a book of the comments for sale in the museum gift shop. Somehow that diminished the experienced for me; it became an exercise in capitalism instead of consciousness.

Sometime during our visit, it started raining even though someone I love dearly assured me I didn't need to carry my umbrella as there was no rain on the radar. I wonder when I will stop listening to him? So, we got wet and I turned into the curlied hair girl of Charlie Brown fame--only it wasn't red (we have so much in our culture from Charles Schultz. Where would we be without him?). We wandered around until I purchased a poncho (Willard just got wet, he doesn't have enough hair to worry about) and we found The Green Grill, an organic restaurant. After a sumptuous meal--it really was that good--we braved the rain again and got on a tram headed back to our hotel. We weren't entirely sure we knew which stop was ours but figured it out.

As you can tell this didn't get posted last night; the combination of jet-lag, wind and rain caught up with me--not to mention a couple go glasses of wine--so after a cup of tea and some lemon polenta from the restaurant, I was soon asleep. Today we are heading to the Portuguese Synagogue, Jewish Historical Museum and Van Gogh Museum--a very full day. Promises of pictures tonight. And yes, my umbrella is in my bag regardless go the radar.

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