After an 8 hour layover in Germany, we finally made it to Amsterdam. We grabbed the rental agreement and headed to pick up the car. I told the guy we rented a convertible and he looked extremely dismayed.
Then I laughed. He said “whewwww you were kidding,” and laughed with me. Apparently the lady at the check out had mixed up someone with a convertible recently 🤷🏼♀️😂oops! I think I was just as shocked when we got into our rental. Dan is extremely frugal with travel (opposites attract right?!?). He used to rent with companies that have hidden fees and other problems we won’t mention. Anyways… when I asked him sweetly to book our rental car for us he picked Enterprise and I’m so thankful he did! They gave us this gorgeous Audi. I kept saying, “This drives like a dream.” All up until we went to park in the Radisson Blu parking garage. I couldn’t for the life of me get the car into reverse. 🤔
Naturally we spent 10 minutes figuring it out and then Sarah googled it. Apparently you have to push the stick shift vertically toward the ground prior to shifting. That’s a new one for me. Dan laughed at me as we told him our dilemma. What wasn’t so funny…. was the parking fees at the Radisson Blu Hotel Amsterdam Airport. Parking is free for the first two hours, then 3 Euro an hour after that for a max of 25 Euro per day.
Now I’m not a genius at math but it’s pretty simple to see you’re pretty much gonna pay the max parking fee if you park overnight. Good thing Dan wasn’t here or he would’ve moved the car every 3 hours 😂. I’m sure the hotel staff could see the irritation and stress on our faces and gave us coups for free wine.
The next day we got up at 730 and started our Amsterdam adventure. We stopped first at the I Amsterdam sign and ate waffles for breakfast near the Van Gosh museum. Right after waffles it started down pouring as we walked back toward the car. Make sure you pay for street parking in Amsterdam because they track you+ticket you based on your license plate.
We drove out of the city to see the windmills. When we arrived, Sarah wanted to see the windmills and I wanted to see the shoes of course. We compromised somewhere in the middle. It turned out to be a beautiful, relaxing afternoon.
We ventured back into the city to explore. Daniel and I have driven in a lot of cities worldwide. Driving in Paris with 9 way intersections was the only city that comes to mind in comparison to how stressed I was driving here. Picture this: Sitting at a red light… you have 200 people on bikes weaving in and out of traffic, mopeds zipping next to you… AND a street tram that was lets say 4 inches from the rental car. In addition, to say that the bike riders in Amsterdam are aggressive… is an understatement. Just be careful, if you’re driving anywhere near the Anne Frank house. #praisethelord we didn’t scratch the rental! We ended our trip with some sweet goodbye cocktails and cider.
Caleb… go ahead and pack the kids up to move here. The waffles will be worth it 😉. Sarah will be waiting for you at this large red rubik’s cube in the airport! ❤️
Love,
Jenny
