Amsterdam 2018

December 8-10, 2018

Heyyyy, long time no see.

Life kind of got in the way between I posted about my Paris trip and now; in between Thanksgiving and Christmas and my dad losing his job and getting a new one meaning that I had to find a new place to live, and moving out, and moving in, and two other trips...  It's been a really crazy past few months.

I'm going to try to make up for it in posting a lot in succession.  Maybe.  Who knows.  We'll see.

The design overhaul I'm trying to work on as well is coming up, but that's going to end up on the backburner for a good long while.

Anyway.  On to the Amsterdam/Netherlands trip.  I'm not sure whether I should call this a Netherlands trip since I did not spend all my time in Amsterdam, or an Amsterdam trip since most of our time was definitely spent in Amsterdam.  The graphic says Amsterdam, so that's what I'm going with on this one.

S is a huge fan of the Netherlands, pretty much all for personal reasons, and she really wanted to share this with me.  So she booked the tickets out of JFK with Norwegian (our favorite airline!) and she spent time talking to me about her special Dutch friends.


December 8

We arrived at Schiphol around 1:30 PM, and then proceeded to catch the train to Utrecht, where we'd be spending the next few nights (two in total).  It's a city about 45 minutes south of Amsterdam, or at least it is unless you mess up and take the local instead of the express.  Oops.  So we arrived in Utrecht at around 4, went to visit one of S's friends who lives in Utrecht, and then checked into the hotel, before catching the regular express train to Amsterdam again.

We had tickets for the Anne Frank Huis/House for 6:30, and it was the only "touristy" thing we actually did.  It's definitely a must-see, making everything you've read about the Holocaust and the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands and just the entire "story" of Anne Frank that much more real.  Thankfully pictures are prohibited, so no obnoxious selfies in the museum, though we still had to deal with really obnoxious Londoners during the wait to visit the Annex (it's so cramped and small up there that you have to wait in line, but honestly, I think that's part of the power of the place; two families living in these extremely cramped conditions).  Oh well.  Annoying people are everywhere.

After the Anne Frank Museum, we headed across some of the canals till we came across a wine bar specializing in Italian foods and wines, and since we do love our wine, we stopped in and got food and drinks.  It's called Wijnbar DiVino, and their house selection of wines is top-notch.  This is of course coming from someone who generally prefers Spanish wines over those from anywhere else, but wine is wine, and good wine, well... I don't care what country it's from (but Spanish wine is still the best, y'all).

The Spaniard in me will always order olives.

After our tipples and food (I wish I could remember what we ate besides the olives.  Now I know why I like to take pictures of my food when I travel.), we wandered around again, and took pictures of the canals at night.

This was for an open-air public gallery, which featured light designs, many of which were based on famous Dutch painters.  This one should be self-explanatory.

They really are stunning at night, especially when there's all kind of light art going on to reflect off the water.

After walking around some more, we stopped by a fries place, because like your shawarma in New York, the Dutch love them some French fries, especially when smothered in mayo and ketchup.

We got ours flavored with curry powder at Chipsy King, a popular fries chain in the Netherlands.

It looks weird, but OMG.

So I am not normally a fan of mayo.  Like at all.  But I am a fan of this concoction.  I approve of Dutch junk food, is all I'm saying.  Y'all got me to appreciate mayo.  I am impressed.

Needing to work off just a little bit of those empty calories, we wandered around the center for a little bit, to catch some of the Christmas lights.

We decided it was finally time to head back to Utrecht, where we promptly crashed.

One of the reasons we did decide to stay in Utrecht was because lodging in Amsterdam is actually quite expensive, and given that the Netherlands is a small country geographically and everything is within like 45 minutes of Amsterdam, we found a great deal on an NH (a Spanish chain) right next to the train station, so it worked out quite well for us.

Dark blue is train, light blue is walking.

December 9th

After waking up and getting ready, we got back on the train to head to Amsterdam, so it could be enjoyed in the daylight.

Honestly, we just spent most of the day walking around, kind of aimlessly.  S knew the city much better than I did (since I had never been there before, it made sense) so she basically knew where we were going, and I was just following.

We tried to find a place for waffles for breakfast, but just ended up getting pastries instead, and walked around the area by the Rijksmuseum and the Museumplein, and really just wandered.

Amsterdam Centraal, otherwise known as one of the most beautiful train stations in Europe.  Probably.

Views from the canal right outside the train station.

Downtown

Outside the Rijksmuseum

Inside the Rijksmuseum passageway; this is the entrance to the gift shop.

Fun fact, they'd removed the "I AMSTERDAM" sign just before we got there.  I was okay with not seeing it.  Probably way too touristy.

Museumplein

We did have to buy stroopwaffels though.  Because of course we did.

Quiet alleyways

Classic 17th-18th Dutch buildings

After spending all morning and most of the afternoon in Amsterdam, we headed to Haarlem for the Christmas market, which is a two-day event that is well-known throughout Europe for being one of the best on the continent.  Yaaaaaay us for getting tickets for the perfect time!

We met up with another of S's friends, and then stopped for lunch at Jetties.  I had this lovely pesto, mozzarella and bacon panini/sandwich, everything made with organically-produced ingredients (if you're into that kind of thing).

I'm only basic when I travel, okay.

Once we felt sufficiently nourished, we headed towards the Christmas market, which actually takes up most of the downtown/city center area.

We found all kinds of cool stuff to bring back as Christmas presents for family members.

When the market began closing up shop, we stopped into a hot chocolate chain called Chocolate Company Café, and if you like hot chocolate, chocolate, or both, you can take your pick of all kinds of different flavors and type of chocolate that the workers then pour boiling milk over, and you stir the chocolate into the milk while it melts.  It's a pretty cute concept, really.  And the hot chocolate felt so good on a cold, wet December day.

After that, we headed back to Utrecht for some sleep.  Well, I didn't get much because of jet lag reasons I guess.  Anyway.

December 10

Our flight wasn't until later that afternoon, which is one of the wonderful things about Norwegian; the flights are often very late, later than usual for traveling west, but it means that we have significantly more time in the city we're visiting.

So we headed into Amsterdam for one last time, leaving our bags in consignment at Amsterdam Centraal, and wandered through the city for the morning.

Amsterdam on a damp morning.

You can't see the rain; it was kind of gross.

I hadn't slept well, so I got myself a cappuccino at a little café that was far from overpopulated on a Monday morning, and we shared a croissant.  Yum.

I'd link the place, but apparently I "checked in" to the wrong place on Swarm, and my Google Maps timeline was of no help either.  Sorry!

We did need to head back to the train station to catch a train to the airport, so we walked there.

And that's it.

A short stay, but this is how we do our trips.  For one weekend + one day.  Generally works for us.

After this trip, we did Barcelona in January over MLK Day Weekend (mostly me, but still, it was the both of us ultimately; she just spent most of the week skiing in Andorra with family) and then Segovia and Madrid the last weekend in March, and we just got back from Rome and Lisbon.  Oh, and we're going back to Amsterdam in May.

So I should be posting those shortly.  Hopefully.  Maybe.