Day 20

Thursday August 16

8:00amish - woke up and took a shower.

9:00am - walked across the hall for breakfast. The owner Paul was there, and he served us. Coffee (or tea), a couple of types of bread/rolls, some ham and cheese slices, butter and 2 jams/jellies, yogurt, freshly-squeezed OJ, and a soft-boiled egg. Not exactly all my favorites but everything I ate was good and it was nice of him to serve everyone. And it was plenty to eat.

9:30ish - got on the Tram 4 to the Dam Square. Of course, it was pouring. Started a walking tour combining Rick Steves's and Frommer's city walking tours. Went through the Dam Square into the "Beehive" Department store (cool stuff but expensive), the Begijnhof, the Spui, a couple of the canals, and of course…

12noon - made it to the Red Light District and quickly walked through. That was enough for us. LOL. What's amusing is that it is surrounded by a couple of pretty big churches. Anyyyway, made it to the Centraal Station and took tram 2 to the Leidseplein, a big square like Rembrandtplein with lots of cafes and the like. Walked around, saw the cafes, and decided on a little place the next street over that I think was called Pancake Corner. I had a "salami baguette" which was a buttered ciabatta roll with salami. Pretty good and only 3 something. Also I tried some kind of lightly carbonated apple and peach juice that was an experiment but very tasty. The place was cute with long communal tables. For dessert we tried the mini pancakes called poffertjes. They were soooo very tasty with powdered sugar on top. I will have them again and will take a picture. Haha.

1:30pmish - took the #5 tram back to the Dam and found a shopping center where we tried samples of Dutch cheeses from a nice lady owning a cheese store, walked around and then made our way through the canals to do a combined Rick Steves and Frommer's Jordaan walking tour. The Jordaan is a part of town where people actually live and work - it's quieter, the people are locals, the streets are cuter, etc. On our way into the area, we stumbled upon the fancy chocolate shop I had read a lot The Anne Frank House is at the outskirts of this area and both times we've walked by the line has been super long. But it is open until 9pm in the summer so I am going to try to go around 7pm or so tomorrow, I've heard the lines are shorter. And whatever, I want to see it so I will just wait. lol. So we just sort of weaved in and out and around the Jordaan looking at the cute little cafes with limited menus, peeking in on people's apartments, which could actually see from the street level, and enjoying the peacefulness.

5:00pm - We looked at a few places to eat, were kind of hungry but not really. Walked around looking for places and I saw my little friend the pink pigeon again!!! Around 5:30, we found one on the corner at Prinsengracht close to the Anne Frank House and that area called De Oude something. It was similar to the place we ate lunch actually. I had chicken soup (was a little chilly), a "bacon pancake" (it was some canadian bacon on top of a big crepe-like pancake) and I tried the local drink "Cassis" - which is some kind of blackcurrent soda that pretty much tasted like the IZZE I drink at home. Very dutch meal I suppose LOL. But it was all pretty tasty.

6:30pm - walked about a half mile to the Vondelpark…on the way we stopped in a fun souvenir shop on the Leidseplein and I bought a hand-painted wooden windmill magnet that is purple!! It is very cute. So we made it to Vondelpark, which I had read so much about but found it to be a little disappointing. It's big and maybe we didn't delve far enough in but when we got into the park and sat down I looked at my map and saw a "fashionable shopping street" labeled on it, and it was just a block or so away from the Vondelpark, so we found it and because it was Thursday a lot of the stores were open until 9pm. This was like designer stuff so we didn't look too deeply but just window-shopped. Weaved through a few other squares like the Museumplein where the 2 major art museums in the city are located back to our hotel a little before 9pm.

9:45pm - Eurosport is showing "ski jumping" but it's not on snow. Yes I realize this is a totally random comment but it really just blew my mind!

10:40pm - as I was finishing up the blog entry for today a HUGE app 1-2 inch long spider ran across the floor. I killed it. But oh my god not sure if I have ever seen a spider that big outside a zoo or something.

Amanda leaves tomorrow :(