Roaming die Straßen: Amsterdam

April 29th to May 2nd

My cousin Lizanne had a working trip to Utrecht and so her husband, Gernot, decided to join her to visit Amsterdam not too far off. Robert and I decided to also go since I was on school break and his courses are flexible. Soooooo FAMILY TRIP TO AMSTERDAM :D

Wednesday, April 29th
The cheapest flight was early on Wednesday for all of us

Here's the sun rising at 6:45 am at the Strasbourg airport

And here it is upon the waterways near Amsterdam around 7-8am

Gernot and Lizanne arrived next, Lizanne went to work and Robert unfortunately missed his flight, so it was Gernot and I roaming the streets of Amsterdam. We had an early start so first things first THE MOST IMPORTANT MEAL OF THE DAY aka breakfast.

Gernot looked up a super hipster place with mostly vegetarian options name Vinnies on the most hipster street we found.

Overnight oats in coconut milk at Vinnie's

After that, we had no plans so we went with the flow

The canal flow of course :D

So Amsterdam has so many transit modes: Biking (everywhere!!), scooters, motorbikes, walking, boating, metro, tram and cars, train. Choas when we come to intersections.

That's Amsterdam Centraal Station

What interested us the most was the food in the windows

mmmmmmmmmmmm waffles

We arrived just after King's Day (biiiiig deal in Amsterdam, big party) and I think this carnival/theme park installation was related to that

We just passed by it, didn't participate

And the exploring continues

This is the most narrow house in Amsterdam

It is a tea shop :D

More canals and boats boats boats

In most cities we see locks attached to bridges but here on a chain for a drawbridge

Look the houses are so slanted

They must be falling over oh no!!!

We of course stopped into a sweets shop

It was soooooo cute

They were baking right in front of us

Look at all that butter on the scale :O

Soon after, Robert arrived at the central station and we checked out the Red Light District before nightfall, the girls were already starting to show up at the windows starting at 7pm.

We all woke up super early, so we headed in early to our hotel and Airbnb. Robert and I were sleeping in Alkmaar (about an hour away by train)

Thursday, April 30th

I woke early again to do some groceries to save on eating out for breakfast and snacks

On my walk back from the Spar (the grocery store) I recorded the bells ringing at 8:30am. In the Netherlands there are many bells that ring at every hour, half hour and sometimes every 15 minutes.

I also saw windmills from afar

This was essentially our breakfast every morning

Around 11 we met up with Gernot in Amsterdam and made our way to the museums

but first... look at this wine bottle art on a boat (they must of drank a lot of wine to make those)

The church next to the Anne Frank house (we didn't want to wait 4 hours to visit it)

The Rijksmuseum

The Rijks is really interesting because it has a multimedia approach to their exposition. However, their app was not working that day. We did benefit of explanatory cards that highlighted areas of a painting and explained the meaning of the paintings.

The Threatened Swan by Jan Assleijn

The Netherlands represent themselves with swans because of the De Witt family (White family) and this swan is being defensive towards the dog in the water who represent the English coming to attack the Netherlands across the water. It was a really interesting read and a beautifully detailed painting.

The art library was part of the expositon

Look how beautiful

Wooooow

oh wait...

huh, oh hey, there are art students studying down there :O

*better be quiet*

oh man I should have been studying too :S

Van Gogh famous self portrait

In Amsterdam, there is the Van Gogh museum. Robert went on Friday; I didn't join. He will probably talk about it in his blog :)

Outside the Rijksmuseum there are the IAMSTERDAM letters

I tried to do an M (like in Y-M-C-A) but it looks more like that Asian heart thing Koreans do :P

There's Robert

I couldn't get the whole thing with my phone camera.. If I walked any further I would have been stepping in a pond

There was more art on the plaza

I hugged this identity crisised duck bunny

look so cool and cute

We then walked to some green space
Not far was the largest park in the city: Vondelpark

The IAMSTERDAM letters were there too

Say hi to Gernot

always people climbing them

such as ourselves haha

Said Vondel person after which the park was named

Flower blooming time

We moved on to explore specialised stores such as the Bierkoning, so many varieties of beer

And the Condomerie that sells condoms at 3.5 Euros a piece because they are in funny shapes

In the evening, Lizanne joined us for a gastronomic meal at a Japanese restaurant, Akitsu
derricious!

At night the bridges light up

Sensational, really

Friday, May 1st

I had a late start while Robert and Gernot went to the Kaasmarkt (Cheese market) in Alkmaar in the morning. I went to the library to study a little. Was very nice. The library was a sight on its own, very modern and multimedia-based.. of course I just used my pen and papers.

Friday was a holiday in France and Germany. When I went out, there were mobs of people speaking those two languages. My plan for the day was thrift shopping. The Waterlooplein has a market that is open every day except Sunday.

But first a quick snack from an awesome café

Little Miss Blues carrot cake with lemon frosting

was soooooooooooo good

I found two button up t-shirts for 2 Euros each and a cotton corset flowery dress for 15 Euros (the second was not a deal but it's so preeetty)

Until our supper meetup in the evening I roamed again to see all the cute shops, passing by chinatown and the smaller streets

So much candy

So cool

Where do people come up with these things

Once again Lizanne could join us for supper. This time we went to the Snow Lion, the first Tibetan restaurant for all of us. Very tasty onomnom. It was on our favourite hipster street where Vinnie's is situated too, Haarlemmerstraat (check this street out if you ever go to Amsterdam).

Saturday, May 2nd

BONNE FÊTE PAPA!!!

Robert had an early flight so he left before any of us woke up :(

It was the weekend for Lizanne finally. I waited for the couple downtown.

With my classic hot chocolate...

And my notes.. because I still needed to study for my Monday exam

When they arrived, we hit up the outdoor markets but didn't buy anything... No more room in my tiny carry-on backpack. That is something that European cities have that we don't have as much in Montreal: markets that set up mid-day outside with fresh produce from farmers and all kinds of random stuff. We had the Atwater market and the Jean-Talon market though, I guess, but somehow it is not the same.