hop over the sea

In order to hop over the sea, to transfer one's self from an island country to a mainland country, one must find transportation. 

This will do, we thought.

But the tube would only take us to the city's edge. So then one must hop onto another mode of transportation. Like this.

Yes, but this would only get us to the land's end. So we made plans to hop onto this.

Yeeeeesssss. This would take us over the sea. But wait. We arrived three hours early! Oh dear. And it's dinner time. Off on an unexpected journey by foot into the local village to source out an eating establishment.

Which we were successful in, and after eating, we headed back to the ferry and boarded. We were rather excited!

And that was the end of that travel day. Zzzzzzzzzzzz....

At 6:30am, on the dot, we awoke to the speakers in our room playing "Don't Worry, Be Happy". Rather unexpected! It was then time for breakfast aboard and watching the ferry dock in the Hook of Holland!

This "dutch boy" found his heart's delight. Little packets of a famous dutch treat - Hagel Slag (or, chocolate sprinkles for toast.)

His daughters don't mind the stuff themselves. :)

And before we knew it, there out the window, was Holland! Aiiiiyaiyai!!!

More trains, a bus, few pains, much fuss, and we made our way to Amsterdam! Yaaaaaahooooo!!!

(A look of a bit of exasperation at the exciting but tiring end of our hop across the ocean!)

Thoughts on Amsterdam so far. MY GOODNESS> This is like no other city I have seen, nor is it quite what I imagined. It has blown my expectations out of the water! Everywhere you look is the most quaint, detailed, intricate architecture you can imagine, with winding streets, trams passing through, bikes EVERYWHERE, and cute little teeny cars weaving in and out. Canals and bridges everywhere, tiny boutique shops (stringed instrument repair shops, "brow bar", shoe repair shop, etc). That, and while it's bustling, it's not over the top crowded. In fact, Amsterdam only has a population of about 800,000. The other thing is that it really isn't very large. It's small - you could even walk the city comfortably if you were up for a nice long stroll one day. Quite amazing, really! Like a little boutique city! 

So, after our arrival at The Hidden House - a great little AirBnB place we rented, we got treated to dinner by our hosts, a family with two sons, and had soup and pancakes for dinner! Can you believe the mother was nervous to serve Canadians pancakes? Hah! That warmed my heart. I think of dutch pancakes as quite the specialty. :)

Delicious dinner, great, friendly hosts, and a wonderful place to stay. Can't wait to get on with this amazing week! Yahoo!

A quick little photo of myself holding the heys for "our London place" and "our Amsterdam place". Oooh la la!!!