It was Christmas day with our hips buckled on our seats, the 777 was airborne and cruising at 37,000 feet over at the Atlantic when I kissed and greeted my wife "Merry Christmas!". No fancy wine, but only bottled water were in our hands. It was different, yet happy that we're together like those past Christmas seasons. As a matter of fact, this one was unusual as we normally travel before or after Christmas day if we were to get away for holiday.

After landing to Schiphol, my wife and I agreed to see the famous Dam Quarter rather than spend six hours waiting for the next flight off to Milan.

Dazed, a traveling angel with a face of a complete stranger befriended us and accompanied us to where we're headed. Later we got to know that her name was Markell.

It was such a nice way to capture the city's urban scenery: a long line of parked bikes and people crisscrossing with cyclists on the streets. I was captivated with this old structure building turned into a lovely shopping mall standing majestically in one of the major streets there. Walking along the canals and seeing ferries taking passengers, you almost like to join the ride. The public tram cars, although they ran cautiously, we made sure we move and cross the street with the crowd so as to avoid being hit by it.  Gushing of people from every direction was dizzying.

Finally we reached the plaza, took quick pictures of us with nice building facades as background, alternately with my wife and occasionally with Markell. I had to stop at Sex Museum and took a solo picture at the entrance. Three Euro was needed to get in, but it was the flight schedule that we were chasing now as we needed to head back to the airport.

Overall, the atmosphere in that afternoon - though hurried, was fun. Drizzling and the ground had puddles of water almost everywhere we stepped on, but that's a good trade-off to see the beauty of its people and the welcoming city of Amsterdam.