Our Final Tour Day

It is nearly midnight,  and we want to be at breakfast by 8 AM tomorrow in order to give farewell hugs. Therefore today’s blog will be written tomorrow. 

Gute Nacht, Susan 

We walked together with Ruby to the relatively nearby Rijksmuseum to begin our tour of 17th century Dutch masterpieces. Part of the walk took us through a large park, and in this morning hour we watched many many persons riding to their jobs on their bicycles. Being alert to cyclists is part of the responsibility of pedestrians. 

Our museum guide, Marianne, spent time in front of Rembrandt's The Night Watch pointing out particular details and sharing history of this and other magnificent paintings.  The Museum is very large and would take many days to visit the entire collection.  We remained on the second floor for two hours. It was a particularly special experience.

Premilla and I decided to walk across a very open and green area to the neighboring Van Gogh museum and have lunch in their cafeteria before our visit to the collection. After a salad and open faced sandwich lunch we visited Van Gogh's life story and related paintings and those of his friends. Paintings also had a story printed. I viewed not only his masterpieces but also learned about their context. 

On our return to the hotel in the afternoon we walked in the flower and vegetable garden of the Rijksmuseum.  Green and other colors and a wide variety of plants appeared well cared for. We also returned through the large park from our morning walk. At the hotel we met a couple from our tour and invited them to join us for a cool beverage. Together we sat on the sidewalk across from our hotel and watched bicycles, motor bikes of a variety of sizes and noise, cars, trucks, and trams whiz by as we enjoyed a cool beverage before our final meal together. 

We ate at the Cafe Americain and enjoyed each other's company's along with great food, presentations, stories, and a whole lot of laughter. This was indeed memorable. 

Back at the hotel Ruby brought out her laptop computer and helped Premilla and me make reservations for the Saturday train ride to Brussels and the return ride to Schipol Airport in Amsterdam on the 29th. Although we had researched times and routes Ruby saved us a few Euro by making the reservations from her computer. 

We went to sleep with mixed feelings about leaving our new friends with some plans to get together and to keep in touch.

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