Day four we took a train to Amsterdam, Netherlands. On the train we decided to take these pictures of us enjoying the lovely scenery for your viewing pleasure (note that the actor isn’t doing such a good job of acting like he’s not on camera-I’m just saying!).
During these pictures from Amsterdam I am going to tell you the story of our crazy day here involving cars, the American government and documents….interested?
One theme of our trip from this point on was that on top of seeing all the regular sights in each city, we spent a lot of time dealing with various problems. In Amsterdam, Zak realized that he had left his International driver’s license on the plane and we needed it for him to be able to drive the rental car which we were picking up the next day. And so, after visiting the Van Gogh musuem, we headed over to the AAA of Amsterdam, also known as the ANWB. At this magical place, the woman told Zak that in order to get a new international drivers license, he had to be issued a Netherlands drivers license which she could only do with a document from the american government saying that he was allowed to drive internationally. Zak then said in a confused voice, ” Do you mean that I need the document I lost in order to get back the document I lost?” And this gem of an agency, the woman calmly replied, “Yes”. Uh….What!?
This city was absolutely beautiful. All the canals and the beautiful buildings were amazing.
Story continued: So, then we had to go to the American Consolate to try to get this document. When we got there, we were not let into the gate but were spoken to through the intercom system where we were told that the American Consulate can’t help an American with problems they have while travelling and good day to us. Again…Uh, What!?
That afternoon, we took a boat tour of the canals and took so many pictures that if you saw them all, you’d feel like you lived every moment of the tour with us. We loved Amsterdam. It reminded me so much of New York. I guess it makes sense that New York used to be called New Amsterdam. It was like New York but with boats and canals. Who could ask for anything more?
So, then we decided to call Maren to have her call AAA in America to see if they could send us a new copy. (Our cell phones wouldn’t call any European numbers nor any american numbers that weren’t pre-programmed into our phones. Keep this in mind as it comes up many times in the problems we encounter later in the trip). AAA said that they couldn’t help us either. So, in a last, desperate attempt, we headed back to the oh so helpful ANWB and when Zak explained it all to the woman at the desk she nicely replied with a shrug, ” I guess your friend drives” and moved on with her day.
When we were at our hostel, we asked the guy at the desk if we should take a boat tour and his response was, “Do you have canals?” and then he walked away. Aparently it was a stupid question. And once we got on the boat, we knew why.
Even with the fiasco of trying to get Zak his drivers license, we still loved Amsterdam. It was absolutey fantastic. And not just pretty in some parts, even the poorer parts were beautiful. I was so beautiful that it was also not tainted by my shoetastrophe. I bought new shoes for the trip and wore them all over NYC for the few weeks before our trip just to make sure they wouldn’t hurt my feet. Check. Sadly, after walking for 12 hours a day non-stop the first 3 days of our trip, these shoes tried to eat my feet. They gave me four blisters and my feet hurt like hell. Then, to add insult to injury, when I put on my other pair of shoes, I noticed they had a hole in the sole and let water in anytime I stepped onto the wet streets. So, we had to add a trip to a shoestore to our itinerary for the day. Good riddance evil foot eating shoes!
