Netherlands in May, 2018

🛬 Amsterdam

“Passport control is too crowded at the moment. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

Airport hall with movable sign that warns about crowded passport control and apologizes for this People staying in line for passport control, monitor above shows approximate wait time: 10-15 minutes

Only one line for cars, the rest is for trams and bicycles.

Amsterdam's street with only one line for cars and the rest is for trams, bicycles, and pedastrians

There are a lot of bicycles in Amsterdam.

Big parking with a lot of bicycles

We rented a couple of bicycles to feel like locals but driving in Amsterdam is tough.

Me and my wife Inna staying near rented bicycles

One of my favourite things to do in a new city is to visit a random neighbourhood.

Residential building with balconys and people's personal stuff

People having a picnic on a lawn right near a multifamily residential.

People have picnic on lawn in residential area

Amsterdamians love picnics and bbq.

A park with people having picnics

We decided to be like locals and bought single-use grill and went to a park.

Dima lighting single-use grill Dima cuts grilled meat and vegetables Dima smiling while making meat and corn on grill

Another popular place for picnics and parties is a boat.

A boat on a canal with a lot of people on it partying A very crowded boat with people having fun and partying

BTW, you can rent a boat with small electrical motor and organize a party on your own. It’s not required to have a license to drive a boat on Amsterdam canals. We used sloepdelen.nl to rent one.

Dima driving a boat

It is not easy to drive a boat and it could be pretty stressfull but it’s very fun and a cool thing to do in Amsterdam. The traffic in city center is huge.

A boat under the pretty low bridge Dima drives a boat in Amsterdam A selfie of Dima and his wife Inna in the boat

Another interesting thing to do in Amsterdam is visiting a zoo. I have a difficult relationship with zoos: I don’t like keeping animals in cages but I love animals. So we’re visiting zoos almost in every city we travel to. This time we couldn’t resist since there are red pandas living in Amsterdam’s zoo.

Red Panda sniffing leaves

On the territory of the zoo there is a museum of microbes — Micropia. Very cool place where you could see different micro organisms under electronic microscopes.

A lab in Micropia museum with a huge window you can look through Dima looking at microbes under electronic microscope A picture of a microbe Interactive video with explanation of an evolutionary step from single-celled to multicelluar life A huge exhibition of ants

Random architecture of Amsterdam.

A beautiful buildings in the city center A random residential building A building in NDSM area

Beautiful In.

Inna staying on the bridge

Random neighbourhood.

A cat sitting on the window of a small townhouse A cat approaching Dima Dima is ready to pet the cat Dima pets the cat

It is very often that stairs in old buildings in the city center are very steap and narrow. So if you want something large (e.g. a furniture item) to be delivered to your house you have to use a window. There are special machines to help with this.

A machine with an elevator that helps to deliver big items to a flat through a window

There are kindergardens on the ground floors of the residential buildings, should be convenient. Teachers there have special segway-like machines to transport kids.

A segway with a box in front of it where kids can seat A kindergarden on the ground floor of a residential building

Random views.

A canal, a bridge and some buildings in the city center Houses on water Cafe tables, canal and buildings staying in the water

I was wondering how the underground trash cans get emptied.

Picture of underground trash cans

In Schiphol you can drop your checked baggage during the self check-in. No need to go to an air company check-in table. 🛫

Dima puts a bag into a special box for checked baggage