oh, amsterdam! this city was as wonderful the second time as it was the first time. mike and i were there for two nights, and we stayed in a lovely little rented room [with a private bathroom – YAY!] called pension de laurier. it wasn’t large or super fancy on the inside, but it was nice and clean and the location was perfect – it was right on the canal, in the jordaan district. i think we both would have loved to stay a little bit longer!
we did some of the same things that i had done with mom and mimi last year, like the anne frank museum, a canal tour, and the red light district, but we did different things too. i was happy to get to visit the van gogh museum since the last year we had gone to the rijksmuseum. i loved both of them – probably preferred the rijksmuseum to van gogh, but van gogh is such a famous person of dutch history and it’s interesting to learn about him and see his paintings, so both are must-dos in my book. another highlight was getting to go to pancakes amsterdam. we both had dutch pancakes – i got an apple bacon one and mike had a banana, bacon, & chili pepper one!!!! they were both so delicious!
also, one of mike’s friends and her fiance were actually on their honeymoon in amsterdam while we were there, so we met up with them for a couple of hours, which was fun [it’s such a small world that they were there at the same time as we were, right?!]. and the weather was perfect, so we were very lucky. one of my favorite moments was actually sitting on the edge of the canal with our feet dangling over the water, eating asian food from takeout boxes as the sun got low in the sky. [you can see a quick moment of that in the video i posted from our trip.] it just felt special for some reason. here are a few photos [but not too many, for once!] from our amsterdam adventures:
{in the photo on the left, the door on the right + the windows next to it was our place! and the place in the photo on the right was across from ours – i loved all the flowers. it was a really lovely little area of the city. i especially liked that we were really close to the cute little boutiques on de negen straatjes [“the nine streets”].}
{our humble little abode!}
{so cool that both of these scenes were right outside our door!}
{the first thing we did when we arrived was have some indonesian food – i had heard that it’s really good in amsterdam [it was]. i had noodles with lamb, and also tried this indonesian coconut milk drink with these green rice noodles at the bottom. the noodles were kinda different [they look like little green worms, ha!], but it was pretty tasty.}
{the harbor}
{we both really love this city. i was so happy to get to experience it with mike!}
{i wish i could remember the name of this place on the left, but it had all different kinds of yummy salads and sides that you could buy in little cups. great for a healthy snack! and on the right, this was the life, let me tell you – sipping wine in the late afternoon and people watching.}
{the canal cruises are a great way to see the city.}
{it’s interesting to see all the houseboats…}
{did you know that amsterdam has more than 100 km of canals [that’s more than 62 miles], about 90 islands, and 1500 bridges? that’s just amazing to me.}
{beautiful amsterdam}
{i really took this photo because of the UPS truck, for my aunt who works for UPS corporately.} :)
{and check out that nutella shop!}
{we love you, amsterdam!}
i took quite a bit more photos of amsterdam on my nikon, so those will be next…