Before the excursion : From the final list of passengers' destinations I was able to determine that 34 of the original 127 passengers on Viking Vili were forced to leave the ship because of testing positive for Covid-19.

For some inexplicable reason I was unable to get Weather.com to display the forecast for Amsterdam in the way that it did for all of the other stops.

The ship arrived in Amsterdam at about 2 a.m. There was no special port for river ships. In fact, at least one ocean liner was in the harbor when I awoke.

It appeared that there was no chance of avoiding rain on this day. However, the walking tour was scheduled to depart from the Mövenpick Hotel at 9:30, and its duration was only two hours. Perhaps the rain would hold off until after the tour ended. Hope springs eternal.

Viking did not require us to fill our saliva tubes and deliver them on this final morning.

I affixed the brown tag to my suitcase and placed it outside of the door to room #100. The hallway was surprisingly empty. Maybe I was the only survivor in the steerage section. I had seldom seen another passenger down there during the entire voyage.

The restaurant was more crowded than usual for breakfast. Since some of the passenger had already departed the ship for early flights, that surprised me a bit. As usual, I ate by myself. Knowing that I would be on my own for lunch and supper, I stuffed myself more than usual.

After I brushed my teeth I put my shaving kit in my backpack. I checked everywhere in the room for miscellaneous gear. When I was satisfied that I had everything, I went upstairs to deck #2. A few people were milling around, but no one seemed to know what the procedure was. No announcements had been made.

Before I left the ship I got a chance to say goodbye to Ed, Steve, Denise, and Bunny. They had a long journey back to Saskatchewan ahead of them. I told them how much conversing with them meant to me and promised to send them a link to this journal when it was completed and posted on Wavada.org.

The departure time for the bus ride to the Mövenpick Hotel was 8:30. At 8:15 I went outside and walked to the end of the pier. I located my suitcase on the dock and then boarded the bus with the other twenty-two people who were staying at the Mövenpick Hotel. Although we had spent two weeks together, none of them seemed very familiar to me. While I was sitting on the bus I spotted Mike and Vivienne walking on the pier toward the pickup point.

Amsterdam was not constructed for the convenience of motorized vehicles. We probably could have walked to the hotel more quickly than the bus was able to make the journey. It needed to circle around behind the building and make several very tight turns.

The bus let us off at the hotel, which seemed to be a very nice one. Our instructions were to report to the Viking representatives in the lobby. The were very easy to identify in their bright red shirts.

Viking had its own large desk in the hotel's lobby. When our group arrived a large number of people had stayed in the hotel the previous night and were bound for the dock to board the Viking Vili or another Viking ship. The scene was a little chaotic.

The person in charge at the Viking desk was named Hana. I checked in with her and told her about the change in my travel plans on Sunday. For some reason the computerized information that was available to her and to the crew on the Viking Vili was obsolete. Hana made an appointment to meet with me after the excursion.

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Walking tour of Amsterdam: Seventeen of the twenty-three Viking Vili veterans assembled at the Viking Desk at 9:30. There were two tour guides. Our group had nine; the other group, which was designated as "gentle", had eight. Our guide's name was Julia, and she did not ask us to pronounce it Yulia.

One of these two ships was definitely Viking Vili. The boat at the back was probably bringing supplies.

Would Calvin approve?

That's Julia pointing down the long canal with her #29 "lollipop".

The second thing (after the water) that anyone would notice about Amsterdam was the overwhelming number of bicycles. The statistics understate the reality. Parked bicycles were everywhere, and the cyclists were the biggest threat to safety. They never stopped for pedestrians.

Most of the boats for canal tours were weather-proof.

The first of ...

... many canal views.

The third thing that a stranger in Amsterdam would notice was the astounding number of really tall people. I had been taller than average in every other location that I ever visited. In Amsterdam I felt like a midget.

It was important to know where the bridges were.

Old buildings were tall, narrow, and contiguous.

Any free space soon got filled by bicycles.

The building across the harbor with the square top had a revolving restaurant, a viewing area, and a swing right on the edge.

A duck on a ledge of a canal.

Large materials were pulled up with hooks and pulleys.

A close-up of the hook/pulley.

Marijuana was legal in Amsterdam but regulated. The places that sell it are called "Coffeeshops". A strong smell is evident when one passes such a place, and there are often stoners outside.

No, we did not check out the red-light district.

I have no clue about these colored things.

Julia said that there were millions of bikes in Amsterdam, and bike theft was probably the most common crime. Some were tricked out with ways to transport groceries, children, or, according to Julia, "drunk husbands".

Over 500 years old.

A courageous guy.

Don't even think about turning that car into this street.

We saw quite a few electric charging stations for automobiles, but I did not photograph any of them.

I did not expect to see street signs in Chinese in Amsterdam.

My recollection is that this was a temple, not a restaurant, but I could be wrong.

The sign on the delivery van says www.foodtoimpress.com.

The first king of the Netherlands was Louis Napoléon, who was appointed by his brother in 1806. Napoleon grew tired of his little brother's willfulness and annexed the country back into France in 1810. I was surprised to learn that the Netherlands ever had a king, and I was astonished to discover that it still did.

Iconic: cellphone, planters over a canal, rows of bikes and an ad for a Van Gogh exhibit.

Vladimir was not popular in western Europe in 2022.

In Amsterdam parking requires creativity.

The big status symbol in Amsterdam was a wide house. We saw a wide grey one that was owned by two very wealthy brothers. The mistress of one of them lived in a very narrow house across the street.

The three X's were a symbol of Amsterdam.

Guns and roses?

I think that this is the Royal Palace built by Louis Napoléon.

Fun facts:

• Amsterdam means dam on the Amstel River. Other cities in the country (e.g., Rotterdam) follow the same form.
• All buildings in Amsterdam were built on wooden pilings.
• The Centraal Railway Station was built in 1889.
• Before the pandemic big cruise ships were in the harbor 150 days out of the year.

Julia also provided some numbers on tourism in Netherlands, but I was not able to validate them.

We walked back to the Mövenpick Hotel on the main thoroughfare that ran from Damplatz, the site of the obelisk and Madame Tussaud's, to the train station. We encountered several groups of young ladies dressed in rather outrageous outfits. Julia explained that one of them was getting married. They were celebrating with a "hen night". She said that the males would be elsewhere. Their party was called a "stag night".

Julia asked if we had such stag nights in the states. No one answered, but a guy from the U.K. said that they had them in his country. He joked that he might market the concept in America. I didn't say anything, but it was no secret that stag parties (not nights) were not uncommon in the U.S., but what she was referring to was, of course, generally called a bachelor's party.

I was on the lookout for places to eat. We passed both a KFC, which interested me, and a McDonald's, which might have if I were not eligible for free breakfasts at the hotel. The only other place that I noticed was a Subway that was quite close to the hotel. It also occurred to me that there might be restaurants inside the gigantic train station.

The center portion of the Centraal train station.

One of these was Viking Vili getting ready to depart for the journey back to Budapest.

A shot of the harbor from room 1802 of the Mövenpick Hotel.

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After the excursion: Julia led us back to the hotel. She had done a good job of describing the city. Some of the neighborhoods that we walked through seemed quite attractive, but I did not feel too comfortable venturing out on my own yet. I was not certain that I could find my way back to any of them.

I checked into the hotel, which I later learned was part of a Swiss chain with hotels throughout the world. Everyone who worked with me was courteous, competent, and spoke excellent English. I did not hear anyone speaking Dutch, which was an unmistakable language.

My room was on the eighteenth[1] floor. The desk clerk showed me where the elevators were and told me that I needed to make contact on the panel with my key card. I had a little trouble making this work, but I eventually found my way to 1802.

The lights in the room worked on the same principle as the ones on the ship—you had to leave a key card in the slot by the door. That was about the only thing that the two rooms had in common. This one was spacious and provided a spectacular view of the harbor area. It also had, in addition to a chair with an actual back to it, a large couch and a wonderful bed.

I immediately checked my email and found this message from Sue.

Well, Bob's girlfriend is back. I caught her lying around in front of your garage door. I think Bob told her if you come home, the door will automatically open & she better disappear!

She is a light grey tiger with (oddly) a solid black tail! I got a few pictures. She is really making herself at home. I am afraid she might come in the cat door if she sees Bob do it. She is pretty brave. I wonder if her owners are on vacation. I think she is the same one as before & her owner may live on this street (at least some of the time.)

I am going to bed now. Bob kept me up "helping" today! He kept lying in the bag I was trying to declutter! Then he had to sit on my lap and lick my sweatshirt. Anyway, today's meeting should be around 10:00am MY TIME (about 8 hours from now). If that doesn't work because you are moving to the hotel, just email me a convenient day & time and I will re-set it up.

The MEETING ID is: zga-hxov-tfv  https://meet.google.com/zga-hxov-tfv

I promptly composed the following reply

No wonder Bob wanted you to brush his back.

I am now in the hotel. The Internet is superb. My walking tour is over, but my luggage has not arrived yet. I have an appointment with Hana, the boss of the FIVE Viking representatives in this hotel at 4PM, which is 10AM your time. She will tell me what the arrangement is for getting me to the airport on Sunday. So, I will try to join the meeting some time between 10:30 and 11:00, if that is OK.

My suitcase was delivered to my room not long after I sent this. I unpacked what I needed for the next three days. It was lunch time by then, but I was more tired than hungry. I tried out the bed for an hour or so.

At 4 p.m I met with Hana at the Viking desk. She told me that I should go to breakfast right at 7 a.m. on Saturday. Then I needed to come down to the lobby to take the Covid test. Because I had signed up for the Golden Age excursion, which left at 8:45, I would be among the first persons tested. At the time I thought that a handful of us would be taking the tour together.

At 4:30 I signed onto the Internet on my laptop and joined a Google Meet that Sue had arranged. She blamed her cat Bob for impeding her progress in rearranging all of her stuff. He was demanding a lot of attention from her. She also was trying to cobble together a foursome to play in the bridge tournament on Sunday. One of her teammates had resigned from her previous team. I told her that I had not turned on the cellphone in days in hope that it would work on Sunday evening, but I did not have much confidence in it.

Then I took another nap, but only for an hour or so. When I woke up, I planned to walk to the train station to see if there were any likely places to dine. I broke a strap on my third FFP2NR mask, but I had plenty of N95 masks in my suitcase. I was taking no chances. I saw almost no one in Amsterdam wearing a mask; my policy was to assume that everyone had Covid and was busy spreading it to unsuspecting tourists. I had worn my mask on the walking tour, and I wore it on this little jaunt as well.

For only the second time on the trip I got a little wet from the rain on my way to the public part of the train station. I found lots of retail stores there, but none of them seemed to sell books, let alone books in English. I located a few places that sold food, but none of them interested me. I stopped at Subway on the way back and picked up a large ham and cheese sub. My camera was strapped around my neck, but I took no photos whatever that evening.

I ate half of the sub and put the rest in the mini-refrigerator. I tried to watch the television for a few minutes, but nothing caught my eye. I spent the rest of the evening working on this journal and trying to plan an agenda for the next two days using the map that the hotel had provided and Google. My highest priority was to find a book to read on the plane ride home. I found one really good candidate, Scheltema, which was close to Damplatz.

The sun did not set until 9:37! Amsterdam is right on the eastern edge of Central European time, and it is quite far north.

I took a shower and went to sleep on the wonderful bed in room #1802. It was just as comfortable as the one on the ship. I usually read a book to make myself sleepy, but on that night I did not need one.

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