Amsterdam Adventures

We missed out on the four day President's weekend due to Aaron being on call but that's okay because he got the following Friday off and we were able to take advantage of this three day weekend just as much as if we would have had four days. We had our next trip narrowed down to Dublin, Belgium or Amsterdam and finally decided to give Amsterdam a go. We booked airline tickets through Ryanair again and to get the best deal we flew out Friday morning at 0655 and returned to London at 2000 on Sunday evening. In order to catch our flight on Friday morning, we did some serious rising and shining around 0330. We flew from Stansted into Eindhoven which was about a 1h45min bus ride to Amsterdam. We had planned on booking bus tickets through a company called Terravision, which is the same company we went through when in Rome. The only available bus time was 0900 which was when our flight was expected to arrive, so we held off on booking tickets online and figured we would just get them at the airport. When we came through arrivals there was no Terravision booth to be found. Super glad we didn't spend money on a non-existent bus company. We found a different company that had a bus leaving at 1000 so we were able to grab something to eat before catching the bus, it was mid-morning but we had been up for hours and were starved. The airport restaurants menu was completely in Dutch and we thought we might be in trouble when the clerk automatically started speaking to us in Dutch but she quickly switched over to English, probably as soon as she saw the petrified look on my face.
The bus ride was mostly highways, but I did catch one glimpse of a windmill. We arrived at Central Station right before noon and decided to head to the recommended Pancake Bakery for lunch. Before reading our guidebooks and researching places to eat, I had no idea how popular pancakes would be here. It seemed like many of the cafes were advertising pancakes so that made me happy! The Pancake Bakery was amazing. Beyond amazing. I decided to order a banana and nutella pancake and Aaron got an omelet (to balance between sweet and savory and also substantial nutrition vs a sugar coma). The pancake was ginormous. It resembled a crepe more than the fluffy stacks of pancakes we are used to in the States. It was delicious in every way imaginable and Aaron's omelet was just as tasty.

After lunch, we were refueled and ready to hit some of the sights. While waiting for the bus at the airport, we bought "I Amsterdam" cards which are definitely something to be looked into if ever traveling there for a short 2-3 day trip. We choose the 48-hr card which was a perfect for our travel itinerary. The I Amsterdam card includes free entrance to over 30 museums, a free canal cruise, free public transport, free entrance to 5+ attractions and discounts at select places. Our goal was to break even on the cost of the card and all of the attractions (obviously) but we ended up getting the value and much more when we sat down and calculated the cost of all of the places we went. We would have had to buy transport tickets as our hotel was on the outskirts of town so it was a plus just to have the free, unlimited public transport.
Our first stop was The Tulip Museum, but we were bummed to discover it was under renovation expected to be done next week which didn't help us at the time! So we explored the gift shop and headed to Woonboomuseum, aka The Houseboat Museum. Houseboats line the canals of Amsterdam, it was truly amazing to be introduced to their way of life on the water. I actually looked into staying on a houseboat vs a hotel while in Amsterdam but couldn't find any to fit our budget. I'm sure it would be quite the experience!

 Inside the houseboat, to the left and right are the beds where the family of four slept!

 Standing on top of the houseboat.

Next, we went to the Amsterdam Museum which was a great introduction to Amsterdam and the Netherlands. The museum was interactive and had English translation stations every spot you went to. We ended our afternoon at Bloemenmarkt which is the city's floating flower market. It was amazing! Lots of flowers, souvenirs and quirky little shops. We stopped at Old Amsterdam's cheese shop to take in some samples - yum!

We attempted to take public transport for the first time and hopped on a tram to head to the hotel. We ended up going one stop too far, but we arrived at the hotel despite this. We stayed at Westcord Fashion Hotel which was near the Westcord Fashion Center. The hotel had plastic fashion models all over the place, slightly creepy but understandable decor. We ventured back out for dinner and went to bed entirely too early but we were exhausted and both slept great!
On Saturday, we woke up to rainy weather but decided to proceed with our plan to visit the zoo in the morning before our 1pm tickets to the Anne Frank museum/house. It doesn't matter where you are, the zoo never gets old. It was fun trying to translate all of the animal signs into what animal we thought they were.

We stopped for a quick lunch in the Prisengracht area near the Anne Frank Huis. Our e-tickets allowed us to skip the line and go right in which was great because by then, the rain had cleared and the line was quite long. We found out during our 30 minute introduction that due to fire regulations only 200 people can be in the building at a time so that explained the line. The tour that we booked provided us with a 30 minute intro with an educator that usually gives school tours during the week. She brought to life the big picture of the time period with the second world war and also broke down the details of the small picture of Anne and her beginnings in Germany and what brought her and her family to Amsterdam and then finally into hiding in the very building we were about to take a tour of. It was an unforgettable experience. Aaron did not read the book but he enjoyed the tour and museum just as much as I did. In one entry, Anne says, "I want to go on living even after my death!" Thanks to the Anne Frank Foundation, her wish has come true! Approximately 1 million visitors each year make their way through the bookcase that concealed their hiding place.

Trying some traditional Dutch apple pie!

After Anne Frank Huis, we decided to take advantage of the weather and go on our free canal cruise. It was about an hour long and such a wonderful way to both rest our feet and see the city from a different perspective. Who knew there were so many canals! The architecture of the canal front is astounding. After the cruise, we returned to Bloemenmarkt to buy some cheese to take home which we were both pretty excited about. We ate dinner at Burger Bar, a recommended Trip Advisor eat. It was yummy, but nothing beats Five Guys - which we miss, so much.

Bikes are everywhere in Amsterdam. It was truly astounding to see the many different ways one can travel on a bike. We considered DC to be a pretty bike friendly city but if there is a bike friendly city it is Amsterdam for sure. They have entire lanes throughout the city dedicated to their travel method. At one point, I saw a family of four on a bike. Some bikes had little ledges on the back where another grown adult could ride side saddle like. Central Station had a parking garage, just for bikes. We learned on our canal cruise that the parking garage housed 2,500 bikes but that didn't compare to the 9,500 parked near the Central Station area due to there not being enough room in the parking garage.

On Sunday, we had e-tickets to the Van Gogh museum at 11am. Our I Amsterdam cards were due to expire at 215pm and we needed to catch the bus back to the airport around 315pm. So we caught a mid-morning breakfast at The Pancake Corner, a place we had spotted while riding the tram back and forth. Once seated, we realized "The Pancake Corner" was just another name for a greasy sports bar. They did have pancakes though and Aaron decided to go big with the "Dutch pancake". It was a pancake with vanilla ice cream, cherries, whipped cream and cherry sauce. Talk about sugar overload, for sure. It was delicious though and worth the carb overload. I ordered eggs and toast to balance things out.

The Van Gogh museum was pretty great. We were able to skip the line with our pre-booked tickets (which cost nothing extra to do) and take our time wandering through the world's largest van Gogh collection. It was pretty great to trace van Gogh's style through his short time as an artist. The famous Vase with Sunflowers is currently in Paris, so we had to settle for seeing a fake on the wall.

 We had some time to kill after leaving the museum so we went to see a windmill on the outskirts of town and after that we checked out the Bijbelsmuseum - Biblical Museum.

We wandered for a little bit after that and bought some delicious fries or frites in a paper cone drizzled with cheese. While waiting for Aaron to get the fries, I couldn't help but notice the smell of pot (brought back so many RA on duty memories, thank you East Halls) permeating the air. I finally realized there was a coffee shop right across the street. The possession and purchase of small amounts of marijuana is allowed in Amsterdam and usually happens in these coffee shops. When talking to people about going to Amsterdam, most had something to say about this marijuana reputation and also the Red Light District which we didn't even come close to being near. We caught the bus back to the airport around 315pm and arrived to Eindhoven around 5pm. We did some serious time travel at 8pm when we left the Netherlands and arrived in London at 8pm. My backpack was searched at Eindhoven, apparently the cheese we bought set off some sort of alarm. We had no issues coming through the border this time around, as I obsessively checked to make sure my visa was packed several times throughout the trip. We had a really great time in Amsterdam, it went beyond our expectations of a short, weekend trip and would definitely recommend it to anyone as a place to visit!