This morning was again a slower one, the high hopes of a good nights sleep did not come to fruition last night. Between both of us coughing all night long and not able to breathe it was a short night. However, we are here, our data are limited and we gotta go. 

We had wanted to do both a walking tour and boat tour, but rose to find only one spot on the boat tour this morning so we rearranged and decided to join the 10:30  am walking tour first. We stopped by the nearby grocery for some orange juice and more ibuprofen and made our way back to the market. I grabbed a smoothie and Nick a piece of Dutch apple pie.

Then we met up with our group for the tour, while free, not the best one we’ve been on. We did manage to see a few sites we would not have on our own, my favorite being the gardens at City Hall.

After our tour we had time before our boat tour, so we grabbed lunch on the harbor, and then made our way to down the water. Super early, we asked to join the boarding tour and the nice gentleman allowed us to. I knew this tour was of the port but I honestly thought it would be more of seeing the Rotterdam skyline and not the legitimate port where all the goods come in and out of.  Nonetheless it was a nice tour although a bit windy and gave us some fabulous views of the city.

Grabbing the earlier tour allowed us to be done much earlier than we anticipated so we returned to the hotel, grabbed our bags and headed to the train terminal in hopes of catching an earlier train to Amsterdam. We waited in line to speak with a man who told us all we needed to do was go to platform 13 and ask the train manager. Nick had wanted to photograph the train station though as it is newer,  being redesigned 10 years ago. So knowing that we had about another hour until the next train passed  through I grabbed a tea at Starbucks and he photographed what he wanted. We then made our way to the track, and were happy to be granted access on the next train which  now put us in Amsterdam two hours earlier.

We got checked into our hotel, the most expensive of the trip, but what feels like a step above a Red Roof Inn on the outskirts of Amsterdam. 

Nick found a bier garden a short distance away by the tram, we enjoyed some Dutch beers, I had a really good burger and Nick the chicken. We then called it a night as we have a full day planned tomorrow starting with early morning pancakes!