Friday, May 23, 2014

April 27th: Rainy Sunday in Amsterdam

Zach and I got up around 7:30 the next morning and checked the weather to figure out what to do for the day. It was pretty rainy (and supposed to stay that way), so we decided to spend the morning checking out the Anne Frank House. We went downstairs to grab breakfast first.

We were the only ones downstairs when we got there, so we got the best table - the one in the front overlooking the canal. I honestly miss this breakfast...it was so good! I would spread the liverwurst and little triangle of soft cheese on the piece of bread on the right, then spread strawberry jam and chocolate jimmies on the raisin toast on the left. I usually only used half the box of jimmies, so I'd take the rest upstairs, make more coffee in the room, and eat them straight out of the box.   :)

We weren't the only ones who wanted to see the Anne Frank House...we got there about half an hour before they opened and there was already a line. They had free internet in the line, though, and once they opened the line moved pretty fast.

The view from in front of the Anne Frank House. Oh Amsterdam, you're such a pretty city.   :)

We took our time going through the house. It was really neat to go back again; after being here last year I reread both her diary and a biography of her that filled in a lot of the background information. It was really neat to walk back through the house knowing all of the new stuff I had learned since I had been there last.

It was still pretty dreary when we finished at the Anne Frank House, so we hung out at the hotel for a little while before heading out to do a little shopping. I picked up a few things, including some new jeans and a cool backpack, then we stopped back at the hotel to drop everything off before heading out for some lunch. It took a few tries to find a place to eat...by this point it was early afternoon and still raining and it seemed that everyone else had the same idea we did. Every single place we tried was packed! We eventually wound up stopping at a pancake place near the crappy hotel Mark and I had stayed in the year before.

The pancakes were really good, though. I had a French pancake; it was covered with brie, spinach, and toasted cashews. Nom!

After lunch we headed back to the hotel for a while. Most of the other things we would have tried to do (museums, etc) would have been slammed, so we decided to just have a lazy afternoon. Zach took a short nap while I worked on some stuff on my computer. After how crazy the past few days had been, it wasn't a bad thing to have a little downtime. After a few hours we were getting hungry again, so we walked down the street to grab some dinner.

Zach had read online that the pizza place down the street was really good, so since it had finally stopped raining we grabbed a couple pizzas and ate them by the canal. He was right...that was some good pizza! It was still fairly early, so we made a quick stop in the room before walking around the corner to our next stop: 't Arendsnest, a bar that also had really good reviews.

The reviews here were spot on...this place was awesome! It had a really cool atmosphere and a great selection of drinks. I got to try some jenever (pronounced yeh-NAY-ver...I asked!). It's a juniper-flavored liquor; gin evolved from this. It was really good; it tasted like whiskey with a hint of juniper. I'll be honest...I'm kind of sad I can't find this in the US!

Sorry for the picture of the toilet, but the floor in the bathroom was too cool. It was a bunch of bottlecaps!

We hung out in the bar for a while, had a few drinks, then decided that since we were already out we might as well take a walk through the Red Light District. I didn't take any pictures there, but the canals on the way over looked really cool. The Red Light District was pretty funny...so many of the girls were still tapping away on their iPhones. We did see a few guys bargaining with a couple of the girls, which was pretty funny. We wandered around a bit, then made our way back to the hotel. The next day was our last full day in Amsterdam, and we had a lot we wanted to do!

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