Walking through Schiphol reminded me of coming on business trips to Holland from Russia and feeling like a kid in a candy store when I landed. It was like being in a time warp: I got on a plane in dark and dreary Sheremetyevo and exited three hours later into the bright, colorful, bustling, cheerful microcosm of a city that is Schiphol.

There are so many attractions – shops of every variety, STARBUCKS!!, good fries – it is hard to decide which one to take on first. Freshly-baked-bread-smells lure from seemingly every corner while blooms and perfumes beckon in the opposite direction. Heaven! And it hasn’t changed.

We took care of the necessaries first – new SIM card with a local phone number for Willem’s unlocked phone and OV cards (a debit card that can be used on all forms of domestic transportation). Then we had more coffee, explored, and took pictures until lunch time. Since we couldn’t check into the hotel in Rotterdam until 2:00, we decided to just have a leisurely morning.

The train to Rotterdam took about fifty minutes, since we opted for the slower one that went through Leiden and Den Haag on the way. While we were eating, it started to rain, and that continued for the rest of the day. People simply put on their rain gear, take out their umbrellas, and continue on with whatever they had been doing while it was dry. People on bikes seem unfazed, some riding with one hand on the handlebars and the other in a pocket to keep warm. I was pleased to see that they still do not lock their bikes when they stop to go into a store. This picture below is one of my favorites from our trip in 2014. It is a bike parking area at a train station.

Once checked into the hotel, we decided to rest a bit before going out, and both promptly fell asleep. At some point, the phone rang and in my sleep-deprived stupor I decided it was a wake up call from the front desk (we hadn’t left a request for one, so go figure!). I reached over, lifted the receiver, and put it down again, effectively hanging up. In fact, as we found out later, a friend had come by spontaneously to see us, and had asked the front desk to call the room. We got it straightened out later, and our friend was quite understanding.

We decided to go down the street for dinner to a Belgian bistro. From the velvet curtain placed to cut down on the wind that enters every time the door is opened, to the wood paneling on the walls, it reminded me a lot of Bar Tabac, the little local bistro in my neighborhood in Brooklyn.

Final adventure of the day before going back to the hotel was a stop at a grocery store near the hotel. They had all the Dutch yummies we love, and we bought a few of them. I couldn’t resist a picture of this whole section dedicated to licorice, which I think the Dutch love even more than chocolate.