But Where Have All The Tulips Gone?

Ever wondered about Amsterdam and thought it might look a little like this?

Well, probably not. This was just a photo from the internet of Amsterdam on a particularly tulip filled day. I was told the tulips don't bloom in Winter, but even in Spring they are not so abundant. Which is a shame really because I was hoping Amsterdam might just be like a really big tulip marketplace.

I was supposed to only have a 55 minute switch, but it was delayed by an hour. The reason? It was snowing heavily in Amsterdam. I didn't mind, because this was the first thing I saw fresh out the doors of the airport.

I also had a reasonably enjoyable flight. There was a huge selection of movies and I ended up watching the first 2 LOTR movies. I also met a recent graduate from Boston heading to Helsinki for a holiday (and some snowboarding), a girl from Canada visiting her boyfriend who was attending grad school in Iceland and a couple of musicians from Boston who were headed to Amsterdam to perform - he was a pianist and she sang. I encountered the thoroughly confusing Icelandic "Kr" currency, which i think are kronos or something, and paid about 1500Kr for breakfast at 6am during my stopover.

I don't want to get arrested, but the dutch have a very relaxed customs control, especially compared to America - I guess they didn't have a major terrorist attack. And maybe because I was coming in from a flight in the EU, but they  barely glanced at us as we strolled out onto Dutch soil. Or snow.

The snow is truly incredible and literally crunches under your feet.

I probably should've taken more pictures of Amsterdam instead of just a few ghost trees on the road, but I'll be back to see Amsterdam again with my travel pals soon, so instead, here's a picture of Rotterdam. 

Maybe I would've done better if I'd worn gloves and it wasn't so difficult to take my hands out of my pockets...

PS. Blog posts are possibly gonna be out of order for a bit since we have to catch up on the period in which we had extremely limited internet access and the best we could manage was an offline travel diary.