7/9/2016
Day 2- Amsterdam
It was so nice today to just get up and go-- no packing or traveling. We had breakfast at the hotel this morning- great salami and cured ham. I could really get use to this kind of breakfast. Nutella filled croissants, so many carbs- I love it. Soft boiled eggs-- Europe you speak my breakfast language.
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| Breakfast Views |
Our travel company has a bus for our travel today-- so no walking, just go outside and ride. It's even armed with wi-fi! We've been lucky to have wi-fi pretty much everywhere we go. We're able to upload our photos for the day. I'm terrified that I will lose my phone or accidentally delete everything. So I'm loading all photos to Dropbox each night :)
Today we took a driving tour of Amsterdam-- a lot we actually saw on the tram yesterday but it was really neat to get a little lesson along with the drive.
We took a canal tour-- sadly, it was raining but towards the end the sky cleared. This is such a beautiful city! It's so amazing how many canals there are, so neat, so beautiful. We learned so many cool facts about Amsterdam.... there are actually more bikes than people. They drag thousands of bikes out of the canals each year. Houses basically sink into the ground here. There is a really complicated way of building homes here but they still sink some... you can actually look at them and notice how crooked they are.
Back to the canals... most of the canals are actually man made, man dug(?!). Houseboats and boats are everywhere along them. However, Amsterdam only allows 20k houseboat permits. So the waiting list to obtain a permit is actually pretty long. Another fun fact-- on average, one car drives into the canal a week. You can now see why they put these 3-4 inch barriers to block you from falling in. How bizarre. Sounds like they should add a few more inches!
And THE BIKES. The bikes are everywhere!!! I can't believe I didn't get a picture of the cluster of bikes. We were told multiple times how often bikes are stolen. It's wild.
So the canal tour-- so cool. Very informational. Such a pretty city. Have I mentioned that yet?? SO many lush, beautiful flowers. I am very jealous of the green thumbs who grew and maintained all this. (I've only had my mums for a week and they are looking.. uh, not lush)
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| Laughing at this bad hombre. |
After the boat tour, we took the bus out of town a bit to a cheese factory and clog shop. They walked us through how to make cheese and had people actually putting on a demo. We got to try them all-- it was gouda heaven! My favorite was the smoked ham gouda. Brian loved them all, he went through the line 2 or 3 times. I actually lost count.
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| I think our guide was Jessa from Girls. |
The clog demo was pretty dang cool. The guy who did it was very high energy. Everything he said/did was to sell the clogs. He almost had me convinced that I couldn't live without a pair of blue and white hand-painted Holland clogs. For 20 euro they were a steal but I left them at the factory for the next person to enjoy.
Next we went to an old fishing village called Vollendam. It basically reminded me of the port of Cozumel. Tourists EVERYWHERE. In the most overwhelming way. Everyone looking for a meal and shot glasses that say Holland.
I enjoyed the outskirts the best. We had a Christmas card photo shoot.
We finally found a place to eat but our waitress wanted nothing to do with us. It was basically a disaster from the get go. I was so ready to leave! And that's all I wrote about this fishing village in my journal. Haha.
We did stop at this cool windmill on the way out of town.
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| Holly got artsy on this one and I stole it :) |
Once back to Amsterdam, Brian and I opted for our nightly ritual of a one hour nap, shower, ready for dinner, grabbed a drink before heading out to dinner with Scott and Holly.
We had reservation at Daalder in Amsterdam. This was such a cool, modern and innovative place. Their menu was awesome. You choose the number of courses you want and the rest is a surprise. We went with the 6 course dinner and additional wine pairings. I wish I remembered every dish we sate. It was simply amazing. I can't say just how good it was. I didn't even grab any pictures!!!
My favorite was the tuna tartare. It was paired with a crisp, refreshing white wine. OH and the bread! Yummmm. That butter, fresh sea salt and olive oil from Chile. So amazing... what else? Sea bass with asparagus and radishes- so phenomenal. Our 1st red wine paired with a gnochhi with hazelnuts and I'm really not sure what else but I would be totally thrilled to eat it again. The red wines were so perfect, I love a good red. I've missed it so over the hot summer months!
Our main course was duck and HOLY MOLY!!!!!!!!!!! The sauce sat for 5 days! We think for all the flavors to concentrate but honestly, we were in the place called food heaven, we couldn't remember what the waiter told us. It also came with some kind of amazing-ness that I don't recall now and then 4 HOURS LATER we ate dessert.
Again, I have no idea what it was but I know we all loved every ounce of this meal. Everything was so light yet so perfect and satisfying. Everything about the meal was fabulous and delish. It makes me so excited for all of our reservations in Paris and London.
After dinner we took a walk through the red light district. Wow. Not at all what I was expecting but after 2 minutes, I knew I had seen enough. We grabbed a cab and went back to the hotel.
Next stop: Brussels and Bruges.....
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