Amsterdam

What a wonderful weekend!  I am on my way to Rome/Italy, for a week of work and a week of play, and decided to extend my couple hour layover in Amsterdam to be a weekend layover.  What a good choice that was!!!  I came with my friends Carol and Jo, and met four of their other friends over here (all initially from Australia but are living around the world now).  Trip started off a bit rocky with a couple hour flight delay so we didn't actually get into Holland (aka the Netherlands) until after 9pm.  But from that point on it was fantastic.  We rented a townhouse for the weekend so we could all stay in the same place and have a spot for us all to hang out and relax when we were not out and about.  I am the last one here laying on the floor in the living room, besides when I was sleeping this is the most time I have spent in the house all weekend.  The others spent more time hanging out here, but I really wanted to explore around and make the most of it for me, so I ventured off on my own often  :-)

Day 1 - We had stayed up late the night before exploring the nightlife, and wandering the red-light district till about 4am, so everyone was sleeping in...  I however all of a sudden become a morning person and am awake at 9am and am ready to get my day started.  So I get up/shower and head out for some breakfast.  We stayed right by the Museum quarter, which is a very cultural area, and has the Van Gogh Museum (which constantly had wayyyyyyy too long of a line for me to consider it worth it to go wander around inside when it was so beautiful sunny outside).  After a long, cold, dark winter the sunshine was like a happy drug.  So I found a cafe in the square and got a coffee and some cute little Dutch pancakes and some fresh fruit and sat in the sun reading my book. Cafe was just behind the trees on the right...

 Fun tourist stop for the "I amsterdam" sign

After about an hour relaxing and enjoying breakfast, my book, and the sun, I wandered around checking things out till the others got up and texted that they were ready to head on out.  We made a quick pit stop at the sign again for our own photo op...  Oh yea, that's me in the "m", not that you can tell. haha.

We spent the late morning/early afternoon just wandering around the outdoor market and enjoying the sun.  Carol and I decided we wanted to go on an adventure out of town for the afternoon to the Keukenhof Flower Show which is in a little town called Lisse just outside of Amsterdam.  The flower show is only on for 2 months a year when all the tulips, daffodils, and other flowers bloom in the spring. They boasted 7+ million bulbs planted in the gardens.  I can't even imagine how many gardeners they must have in that place over the spring to get that already for the opening in March, and keep it looking so wonderful during the time the park is open.  There was such a pretty mix of flowers and was fun to see the artistry in how they laid out the park and arranged the flowers.  We spent a couple hours out there just wandering around looking at everything, and drinking in the sweet scent of all the blooms!!! 

View of the tulip fields surrounding the park

 Naturally I loved the fountain at the entrance that looked like a great big dandelion :-D

Jess this one's for you.  I smiled big when I saw the butterfly in the brush like it was saying hi to me from you  :-)

Old school windmill!! There was a gospel choir singing in the square just in front to add to the ambiance of the beautiful sunny day

 

The trees blooming were just beautiful too.

Tree hugger. hehehehe

 There were cool sculptures all around that added to the decor of the park  :-)

 Alright time to overload on other flower pictures.. but it was just so beautiful I had a hard time picking just a couple...

We had quite the experience with the masses of people heading back into town on the bus though.  Note for anyone every doing this and riding the bus instead of driving... go home early before all the masses want to head back into town!!!  There was a long line of people waiting for the next bus to come and we were near the front and could see the line winding behind us, and could tell that there could easily be some trouble with people trying to cut in line.  Totally not a very good set-up as there was no rope to keep people in line or anything.  Some people are so rude, it is crazy.  As soon as the bus came up the assholes who didn't feel like they needed to follow the rules crowded up and tried to push their way onto the bus.  Some of us were vocal about our displeasure and managed to block some of them out (but yet I did see a couple of them on the bus anyway after we got on so my pushing them away did not solve the problem in the end).  I really hope that they get what's coming to them..

I saw this graffiti later and it totally made me smile, I hope that their Karma does come back to them...

After we got home to find almost everyone else in nap mode we decided to head out for a nice steak dinner.  Dave one of the guys with us was the only one down for the adventure out, the rest were going to "rest" and then meet up later (which so didn't happen, they were down for the count).  We went for a nice little evening stroll down to a place called Roots and got extra lucky when we got to sit near the open kitchen.  I know I am no chef, but I LOVE watching people cook.  They are always so busy buzzing around.  Every single thing that came out of the kitchen looked amazing... have I mentioned that I love food??  I may have a problem, haha.  Anyway, we got a nice Malbec to share and all ordered the organic steak because it looked to die for... and it was... num num num.  Presentation was gorgeous, and was so not a ruse to distract from the food.  Even the desert was great, a plate with five different little things which we all tasted and shared.  Yea good chill night out, it is fun to spend several hours at dinner  :-)

Day 2 - Carol took off early in the morning to head off to Singapore for a conference for the week so the rest of us spent the morning walking around and having breakfast on one of the many canals through the city.  After lunch I decided it would be fun to take one of the little boat tours through the canals so I headed off for some more adventuring on my own.

Oh yea, captain Alia... (well ok not really, I just wish.. next time I am totally going with a crew who wants to rent a boat of our own for the day and just cruise around on our own all day).  Not sure why I didn't take a picture of our little boat but the one in the back on the left is the same kind of boat we were in (holds max 12, we only had 8 though)

 All the little canals were so peaceful

 Bigger canals not so peaceful, but still were fun.  Rush hour with boats... everyone was out and about on the water, with such a great weekend people were taking full advantage of it as it is the nicest weekend of the year so far.

There were so many bikes everywhere, I remember that from my first visit, just still is amazing just how many there are.  I mean there are parking structures just for bikes, and they are not small, they are multi level.  Very impressive.  And so you always have to be on the look out for oncoming bike traffic as they come from everywhere!  We thought of renting bikes the first day but after trying to walk around in town that seemed like enough of an adventure, didn't want to die, or kill anyone on the bikes.  So made good use of the walking legs all weekend instead!  That is the greatest thing about traveling I think. Just how much you walk everywhere because you really just want to soak it all in and somehow walking gives me more of a sense of the city.

All throughout Amsterdam there is a lingering scent of herb, I am glad I like the smell so it is an ok smell for me.  Just is interesting to be somewhere that it is legal so people can just smoke anywhere.  Smoking cigarettes is not supposed to be allowed inside anywhere though which is interesting, not that it seemed that was followed everywhere, the first night in the bar everyone was smoking cigarettes (I still hate that, and feel like once i get home I should take a shower before going to sleep smelling like an ash tray when I wasn't even smoking anything).

Really was an amazing weekend, got lots of exploring in, and got out of the city, and got a lot of vitamin D from the sun!!!  I did get a funny burn on my chest from where my necklace was all day though.  Oops, guess I will need to get some sunscreen in Italy to make sure I take care of my skin!!!  It is supposed to be sunny and in the 70s while I am there, fingers crossed that is right (at least most of the time)!  :-)

Final note... I think I am now a prude... Some of the folks we were with were partaking in the legal herbal products, so I figured I would just go in with them for fun and take a look at one of the "menu's" which lists out all the different kinds you could get.  When all of a sudden I started to feel funny from just being in the room with so much smoke in it, and pretty much dropped the menu and ran out of the place before it started getting more intense.  I am sure the folks I was with got a good kick out of that, so that is when Carol and I ventured on our own and just explored outside in the sun  :-)