Day two is really the continuation of day one since we left California on 6/4 and got to Amsterdam on June 5th. We made it through customs and jumped a train to Amsterdam Centraal train station. A lovely station.
Since we are here less than 24 hours we figured a place close to the station would work best. Mike and I decided if we were to stay a few days here we’d find a place away from the hustle of this place but it works fine for us. Typical small European hotel room. Functional. Not a bad view!
My ATM Card wasn’t working so after a call to my bank and a quick shower at the hotel we headed out to hunt for an ATM and a cafe so I could get an espresso. We found a cafe one along this alleyway that was full of head shops.
I had a yummy little walnut tart and a macchiato.
We had tickets for the Van Gogh Museum at 4pm so we decided to catch the tram over a bit early and wonder around. There’s a beautiful park behind the museum that we walked around.
The Van Gogh Museum is in the distance.
We stumbled upon the United States Embassy. 
Quite a bit of security compared to the other embassies on the block.
The Rijksmuseum was close by. I’m not a big fan of Rembrandt and our time is limited and did I mention we’ve only had 2 or so hours of sleep…? See how tired we are?
So we got into the Van Gogh museum a bit earlier than or reserved time and really enjoyed it. 
Mike loves the Sunflower painting (it was powerful.)
I really liked The Potato Eaters. And The Cottage (aka The Nest.) 
Both are earlier Van Gogh’s before he got all Starry Night. (Which I love.) There were far fewer paintings in his final style than I thought there would be but plenty to satisfy.
Jet leg was beginning to catch up so we took the tram back to our hotel and look for a place to grab a quick bite. We decided to head toward a pretty church and look around there. I couldn’t resist going inside St. Nickolaas. 
We found a little Indonesian place for a quick dinner. They had me at shadow puppets. 
A yummy chicken with peanut sauce later and we are back in the room trying to stay awake a couple of more hours to help with the jet lag.
By the way, Amsterdam is really cute and though we thought it might rain all day long we had no rain except for when we walked from the train station to the hotel.
Mike is asleep at 7:30pm. Not bad. I’m going to try and stay up for a bit longer…maybe.
Art’s Travel Adventures 