I've Decided to Travel to Amsterdam later this Year

[DFW]

23. As far as lodging goes, you don't have to stay in Amsterdam to be near there.

Nederland is very tiny by US standards. The town of Haarlem is beautiful, with many of the tiny streets preserved
almost as they were in the late middle ages. Some streets are so narrow, cars can't navigate them. They were built
well before such things were invented. Amsterdam is maybe a 20 minute train ride from Haarlem, 30 minutes from
Utrecht, an hour from Den Haag. If reasonable accommodation is not to be found in Amsterdam itself, you can
always sleep in a nearby town and commute.

If you travel later in the year, and you are interested in a very special kind of zoo, there is the Apenheul, also informally
known as the Apjepark, near Apeldoorn. It's a very special kind of open air primate park where large numbers of various
kinds of monkeys and great apes roam around free. You can't get close to the gorillas or baboons, but the huge
family of death's head monkeys and spider monkeys roam around free (and all over your shoulders). They give you
waist pouches to seal your stuff in. Take them seriously, because the monkeys are extremely curious, and will swipe
anything and everything not nailed down. Once, in the death's head monkey area, we heard a loud piercing cry of agony
from a stroller next to us. The kid in it had taken out his pacifier for a moment, and was holding it in his hand. A
monkey saw it, grabbed it out of the kid's hand and was 150 feet up the nearest tree within 2 seconds. The kid was
inconsolable, and the monkey had no pity on the screaming kid or his poor parents.