We left for the airport at 2:00pm after I finished work from 10am-1pm. The drive was uneventful. We arrived at the Etobicoke park and fly and parked in the economy lot. It was supposed to be $155 for 17 days but the QR code machine never works, and we always end up paying double ( I swear the discount scanner is broken on purpose to make Park and Fly more money). We jumped on a shuttle bus right away and headed off to the airport a little after 3:30pm and went straight through security, which took about 30 seconds!! My bag was flagged for an additional security check, but even considering that the process was so fast. We then walked down to our boarding gate and ordered a beer. We were finally on vacation! 

Our flight was very full and the gate area got very full (a man pulled out a drill next to us and started pulling apart tables in the middle of the craziness). We boarded on time but because the flight was so full it took a long time to complete boarding and we missed our push back time, so we sat in the plane for well over an hour waiting for a new take off time. The flight was completely fine (I really hate flying, but am addicted to travel). We actually had really decent vegetarian food, it was an Indian curry dish. I watched three movies: Courier, Spencer and a forgettable one I can’t even recall the name of. We arrived a little late in Amsterdam, but the flight was only seven hours total, not eight like I had thought. We disembarked and found a locker for our bags in a really cosy library section of the Schipol airport (it cost 8 euro for the day). We then asked a KLM lady which gate our flight would leave from in 16 hours, and then headed to immigration and customs. 

We arrived at Schipol train station at about 9am and purchased a return ticket for Amsterdam central which cost 20 euro for the both of us. The station was already decorated for Christmas which was interesting ( I have always wanted to see Christmas markets in Europe). We arrived at Amsterdam Central at 9:30am and set off to explore Amsterdam on foot. 

First we looked at a floating Chinese restaurant and then set off down the narrow canals to just explore and get lost. After walking for a bit we stopped for breakfast. I ordered a mushroom omelette and Jives had a “Dutch breakfast” which was a lot like an English breakfast, just without the greasy meats. 

We then wandered around in the general direction of the “De Hortus” , a huge greenhouse complex. Along the way we watched an old lift bridge operate and Jives filmed some rap takes (he got cheered on by a group of construction workers).