My arrival in Amsterdam was at the end of Queensday. Thousands of celebrating people were walking to the train station just as I was leaving it, trying to find transportation to my friends' house. It was so overwhelming (and fascinating) that I forgot to take pictures. But it will remain indelibly marked in my mind.
The next day I went to the countryside around Amsterdam and walked on the dunes with my friends. The dunes stretch 8 kilometres along the Dutch North Sea coast with a width varying from 1.5 to 5 kilometres. I had, before this visit, no idea how magnificent this landscape, with its dense and varied vegetation, was:
That evening we went to a party in central Amsterdam. Looking out the window of the flat, I saw the trees and boats of the endless canals:
