Amsterda-ym, gurl

We took a long weekend in October in order to visit Amsterdam, and it was pretty much awesome :) Arrived Friday night and got a tram to our hostel, and then popped up the road to a local place for dinner. The waiter was lovely and translated the menu for us – denizens of Amsterdam pretty much all speak English so we were fine without much Dutch – and the food was tasty indeed. Went back our room, which was a private top floor room with a TV and windows that overlooked a lovely park. Interesting tidbit – our tram stop was right outside a theatre that during WW2 was the place where the Jews had to gather when they were carted off to the death camps :( It is amazing to be confronted with that sort of thing while you're doing something as mundane as catching a tram.

Saturday we headed to town and wandered. Had delicious pancakes for brunch from a pancake house that was very touristy. While there we overhead someone asking for directions to Anne Frank's house – neither of us realised that it was in Amsterdam so this was very lucky! Turned out to be just down the road, so after mopping up our syrup we wandered down the road and found a huge queue of people snaking down the road and round the corner. Not wanting to spend the day in a queue, we decided to come back on Sunday.

We spent the rest of Sat wandering around the canals, doing some Christmas shopping and admiring the red light district, very... average. Well not average, but I think I was expecting something a little more shocking from the stories I have heard. Lots of ladies beckoning men from their shop windows, hardly any women on the street, it was mostly gangs of men most likely on stag parties from Britain, and some interesting adverts for sex shows.

Next day was a bit quiet, went to a funfair and rode on some rides and had some chips with satay sauce from a street vendor which were delicious! And apparently very Dutch, or at least Amsterdam-ian :) Got some tulips and a Miffy book – I LOVE Miffy so that was a bit of nostalgia for me and exciting to find out she's Dutch :)

Also on Sunday and Monday morning, we went to some museums which was cool, Anne Frank's House (really fascinating), Van Gogh museum, the big Dutch art museum which has a fancy name but it escapes me at present. Then off to the train station to get back to the airport.

A very brief account of events but sadly as it has been so long I can't remember it play by play :) There are of course photos up that you may have already seen, given that I am so much better at updating photos that I am the blog!