Once we checked in to the Sheraton's Amsterdam Airport hotel, we began disassembling the bicycles and packing them in their travel bags.
This process essentially reverses what we did when we first arrived, i.e., removing the racks and fenders, taking the pedals off, turning the handlebars to align alongside the front fork or top tube of the bike, removing the saddle, and removing the wheels to pack in the side pouches. The whole process took us a couple of hours. Several of the removed pieces will be packed in another piece of luggage (due to a weight restriction of not more than 50 lbs or 23 kg per bag if we wish to avoid additional fees). We took our fenders into the shower and rinsed the dirt and debris from them so they could go in the bags with other stuff.
When we finished, there was still plenty of daylight left, and since Steve had an Italian restaurant in mind in Amsterdam where we could enjoy dinner, we went to the train station in Schiphol and caught a train to Amsterdam Central station - about a 20-minute ride.
It was a warm, sunny Saturday, and the sidewalks in Amsterdam were crowded with masses of people. Steve compared it to trying to walk through the crowds at the State Fair. The mood was similar, too.
We gradually worked our way to a pub on Herengracht (Proeflokaal Arendsnest) for a couple of beers, and then it was short walk to Sapore Italiano on Spuistraat. I enjoyed a dish of scaloppini ai funghi, and Steve had a special dish of penne pasta with gorgonzola. For dessert, we shared a dish of panna cotta with a berry sauce.
On our way back to the Central Station, we encountered two Stolpersteine ("stumbling stones") and paused to remember the persons who once lived in the house at that address before the Holocaust. The Stolpersteine project is a relatively recent memorial effort to remember victims of Nazi persecutition, but it is not without some controversy. Begun in Cologne, Germany, in 1992 by Gunter Demnig, a man with no ties to Jewish heritage and whose father was a German soldier, the project places brass markers to "symbolically bring back the victims to the neighborhoods where they rightfully belong." The project requires approval of local officials, and in some places the residents of the address in which the markers will be placed. To date, Stolpersteine have been placed in more than 25 countries, but some cities have declined to approve the placement of the markers based on objections from members of the persecuted community, who feel that the placement of the markers where they could be stepped on is disrespectful to the persons whose memory is evoked.
The Stolpersteine we saw after leaving the restaurant.
Interactive map of the Stolpersteine in Amsterdam, Haarlem and Utrecht
We caught the train back to Schiphol, returned to our hotel, asked for a 5 am wake up call and then went to bed. We had been asleep for about 90 minutes when we were wakened by the fire alarm. (That will get your heart pumping!) Fortunately, we were informed by a person in the hallway that it was a "fake alarm," something we confirmed by calling the front desk.
Morning came quickly, and we made a straightforward check-in at the ticket counter for Delta Airlines. All our bags passed muster for the weight limit, and we headed off the gate for the 8:35 am departure.
We had a short layover in Atlanta and arrived at the Bloomington, IL airport around 3 pm. All in all, it was a good trip with lots of great memories.
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