Thank you for the tips
Trip-report:
Schiphol airport is not pretty but it is very convenient. People are generally friendly and helpful and it's nice to see immigrants everywhere even though there seems to be some segregation. Dutch food is interesting; there's some overlap with traditional Swedish ingredients and flavors, but completely different combinations, and none of the contrast flavors I expected (we went to a few places, among them one called Greetje). There are some architectural similarities with my favorite parts of sthlm, but the colours evoke London rather than Scandinavian capitals. The language was initially very difficult for us to parse, especially when spoken, even though we prepped by watching Dutch used car reviews on YouTube. Unexpectedly difficult tbh. Crossing the street is also surprisingly different, with traffic light timings that are different from other countries we've visited, and uncommonly audacious cyclists that refuse to stop when we feel they should.
The hotel was quite lovely. It's a massive building that used to be an orphanage. I gambled a little and we were upgraded to a very nice suite and welcomed with delicious prosecco and rose petals strewn everywhere because it was our 5 year anniversary
we finally got to open the last wedding present, and inside we found a by now eight year old wine, two beautiful hand blown wine glasses, a card that brought tears to my eyes and a book full of messages and predictions from the wedding guests.
I surprised the ginger with a concert because she's wanted to see a symphony orchestra for a very long time and I keep getting in the way of her plans.
The weather was fickle as fuck.
We had a blast reading through the predictions and have had to add a ton of things to our to-do list. Many/most expected 2-5 kids by now, and a fully operational goat-farm, which was obviously unrealistic or beyond our control. But visiting old friends, traveling the world and sleeping beneath a starry sky are definitely things that we can accomplish. They were all right about one thing though: I'm more in love for each day that passes.
With that mushy nonsense out of the way, more impressions: Leiden was small but very pleasant. It was nice hanging out with Dutchies and getting a better idea of ordinary everyday life in the Netherlands. I was a little surprised to learn about how things like parental leave and childcare work; it really opened my eyes to how unique the Scandinavian countries are even in western Europe. It was interesting to learn more about their healthcare system as well as about the quirks of the Dutch churches
kept seeing signs with religious messages, which was weird. I had some opportunity to discuss the Dutch part time work phenomenon.
Another interesting thing: Dutch housing policy seems to try to mix people from different economic strata, at least when it comes to rentals. I'm not sure if it's a regional thing, but I did get the impression Dutch cities are somewhat less segregated wrt housing than eg. Scandinavian cities.
Our last two days were very pleasant. The language suddenly started making sense, we reached a tentative truce with the trams, learned how to glare at cars in order to defend our right of way, and found nice places to just walk around. Finding good food was a pain in the ass at first; we were more reliant than usual on crowdsourced information–a blight on society–and they were unusually uninformative or just misleading. Saturday night was especially difficult without reservations (which we hadn't made because reviews were so useless). Nevertheless, we found a Moroccan restaurant with good starters and desserts, and a few cozy Dutch places that were decent value. Very difficult to find nonalcoholic cocktails, which was a little unexpected.
The red light district was an extraordinary letdown b/c of how busy it was. The area around it was more pleasant. Back at the hotel we snuck in to a silent disco, which was a misnomer because everyone was shouting along with the lyrics with no coordination or melody.
We slept in late on our last day, did some touristy food-hunting, checked out the van Gogh museum, enjoyed coffee and cocktails in the sun and then took an uber to the airport, which really demonstrated how convenient schiphol is compared to eg. Arlanda in sthlm: €23, less than 20 mins. However, they have the handsiest mofos in Europe working the security checkpoint, and there is a dearth of power outlets. KLM was a disappointment on the return trip.
If any of you do decide to go, you must--you simply must--visit the van Stapele koekmakerij:
https://www.tripadvisor.co.za/Attraction_Review-g188590-d6439052-Reviews-Van_Stapele_Koekmakerij-Amsterdam_North_Holland_Province.htmlI don't say this lightly: they are some of the tastiest cookies I've ever had. Must be eaten as fresh as possible. I wish I'd bought dozens more.
I'm relieved to be almost home, but I must say I regretted making it such a short trip. Wouldn't mind returning sometime soon, for another short trip.
PS. Ganja everywhere.