Amsterdam

Amsterdam (Oct 21-23)

We skipped out on a hotel for the evening of Oct 20th and took the midnight train going an-y-where!  Or to Amsterdam, whichever.  What I'm trying to say is we got a sleeper train between Munich and Amsterdam, which was fun.  And tiny.

I found out that my tripod shoe can open a bottle, always good to know.

And we played a bit of Cribbage while winding down for the evening (thanks, Tim and Tina!).

So we get into Amsterdam nice and early, drop our bags off at the hotel and go wandering around.  Obligatory Amsterdam-is-awesome-look-at-these-freaking-canals picture.

We start heading to the VanGogh Museum and have our first kitten sighting in Amsterdam.

The text reads literally, "Caution Courageous Cat" and is approximately equivalent to the "Beware of Dog" signs you might see on someone's fence.  I love this town already.

We made it to the Van Gogh Museum (which is currently closed for construction.  We're sensing a theme) but the exhibits had been moved to the Hermitage.  We were cold and hungry, so we stopped in to the Stedelijk Museum's Restaurant (next door) for lunch, where we tried our first round of french fries and mayonnaise.  It was actually pretty good.  Unfortunately, we did not go to a McDonald's, and so were unable to order a Royale with Cheese or a beer.  I suppose that'll give us something to look forward to next time.

We walked over to the Hermitage and saw the Van Gogh exhibit (as well as a bit of their permanent Impressionists exhibit) and took a minute to relax before heading to the hotel to check in.

So the hotel isn't really a hotel in the conventional sense.  It's basically a room in the back of a house.  The place is called B&B 1680 and is run by a really nice guy named Joost who was so stupidly accommodating that when we checked in, he was giving us the rundown of the room and was literally backing out of the room and was about to close the door when I asked him about settling up, to which he replied "If it's OK for you, it would be best upon arrival."  He wouldn't even say, "yeah, now is good."  Here's what the room looked like.

If you look, you can see some tile on the wall behind me.  Apparently it was a part of the original build and had been covered up.  When Joost remodeled the room to turn it into an apartment they found the tile and left it.  Just gorgeous.

It's also in a really great location.

I swear that I didn't plan that, but it was actually quite apt, as pot was in the air constantly.  We once walked down an alley between a canal and the back of a series of buildings for at least 100 yards where the smell was so strong, you'd have thought we were in a small room filled with lit bongs the entire way.  I'm not entirely sure I'll be able to pass a drug test when I get back just having been in the city.

We walked around some more and found out that many (if not most) people in Amsterdam don't bother with curtains, which made Katie very happy...

So we went wandering again and stumbled upon a pretty respectable carnival where you could travel to such exotic places as “New York USA” and a “Barber Shop”.  Clearly barber shops in Amsterdam are more interesting than those in the States.

That night we headed to a little hole in the wall that Katie found called De Zotte which had an excellent beer list and very good food.  I tried a couple of Trappists called Orval and Achel, both of which turned out to be good ideas.

The next day we took to wandering yet again, this time making our way to the Noorderkerk Market in Jordan, which had mostly clothing and home goods.

Then we headed to the Anne Frank House.  It's kind of odd to wander through there having never had any contact with that story outside of reading the Diary, you keep looking at the rooms thinking, "this isn't nearly as small as I thought it would be, this would be a decent-size bedroom," before realizing that she shared the room with a family friend.  Then you look at the kitchen and say, "this is a decent-size kitchen, "until you realize that it was also a bedroom for a married couple.  Then you walk into the next room and think, "this is a decent-size apartment for Amsterdam", and then you realize that they could never leave, and then the entire place starts to feel incredibly small, in the most literal form of the word "incredible".

As with the Van Gogh museum, no photos were allowed, but here is the building itself, a warehouse and front office for a company that sold jams/preserves in the mid 1900's.

You are reasonably sad right now, so here's a happy picture to cheer you up!

So we kept seeing things about pancakes, apparently they're kind of an Amsterdam tradition.  So we dropped in to a diner called "Sarah's Pancake House" for apple and cheese pancakes and a spiked cider.  The pancake (singular) was about as thick as a crepe but much larger.  Katie was pleased.

Afterwards we went looking for a place to ship some stuff home (unsuccessfully... well, ish).  We did, however, stumble across a brewpub with a homemade ale.

Katie's reaction...

OK, so she wasn't a huge fan, but THERE WAS A FIGARO KITTEN OUTSIDE (orange tabby with stripes)!  Between the beer and the cat, I considered it a diamond in the rough.

That night we went to an Indonesian restaurant called Bojo that turned out to be quite good.  We had lumpia and bapau to start dinner, and ayam roedjak (chicken in curry sauce over rice with prawn chips.  Nom.) for the main.  Apparently centuries of imperialism pays off in the form of excellent restaurants hundreds of years later.  Delicious.  Unfortunately, not all of their food preferences are so discerning.  For example, here is a restaurant that serves only fries in containers of various sizes and with various types of toppings/dipping sauces.

On the way home, we saw yet another cat.  Awesome!  I love this town.

The next day we went walking and Katie got me an early birthday present (more on that later).  We also found yet another cat wandering around downtown Amsterdam.  BEST.  CITY.  EVER.

We caught a train to Paris late morning/early afternoon from the awesome Amsterdam Central Station.