Adventures in Europe: Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Yesterday morning Diana and I began our journey back home, flying from Algiers to Paris to Amsterdam.

As we took off from Algiers, we had this exceptional view of the truly massive Djamaa el Djazaïr mosque.

We planned a 24 hour layover in Amsterdam because Diana has family here.  Her aunt, Ellis, and uncle, Nico, picked us up at the airport, and they took us for drinks and dinner with some other family members.

Diana's cousin lives in a neighbourhood that was once heavily populated by Jews and Nico pointed out to us that memorial plaques line some of the sidewalks, remembering the names of some of those who died in the Holocaust.

We spent the night at the home of Ellis and Nico in the Amsterdam suburb of Almere, where the morning was remarkably sunny.

This morning after breakfast, Nico dropped us at Amsterdam's central station on his way to an Ajax football game.  

We had a couple of hours to spend, and consensus recommendation seemed to be we were best off doing a canal tour.

The canal tours leave from right in front of the train station and take about an hour or so; it was an ideal way to see some of Amsterdam quickly--especially because it was fairly cold and the boat is enclosed, and because and we had our bags with us so walking would not have been ideal.

These are some photos from the boat.

Back on land, Diana made sure we quickly stopped by a Febo for vending machine fast food, apparently her favourite thing about one of Europe's most historically and culturally significant cities.

After our croquettes we were out of time, so we caught a train to Schiphol, where we will catch our KLM flight direct to Edmonton.