Amsterdam Day 1

We had a pretty easy flight last night — only 6 hours from Newark airport to Amsterdam! — but arrived this morning sleepy and glad we’d booked the hotel overnight so we could go to bed right at 7:00am when we got here.  The Hotel Ambassade is beautiful and our room has a gorgeous view of the canal.  
This is in the courtyard at the Begijnhof, a former woman’s religious community with houses around a beautiful courtyard that dates to the 14th century.  We happened on it as we were walking on the way (and it’s not on the way… we were turned around) to the Anne Frank House.
The entrance to the Pulitzer Hotel.  We will have to go back there for drinks!
Apple “pie” at Winkel 43.  It’s similar to the Jewish apple cake from a place like Wagshal’s in  DC — it doesn’t have a pie crust, nor does it have a strusel top like the American version of Dutch Apple pie.  It did have huge apple chunks, buttery cake and delicious whipped cream. 
There are bikes everywhere and these innocent-looking wheels are just lying in wait for the moment they can speed along to see if any sleepy tourists are easy prey.  We managed, in spite of a certain exhaustion, to stay out of the path of bikes today and we are resting now to get ready for tonights’s Indonesian “rice table” or rijsttafel.  I’m having a glass of mint tea in our hotel’s library while Claudia catches up on sleep.




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