Amsterdam

The train ride from Paris to Amsterdam was quite beautiful, yet scary as the entire route was covered with either snow, hail or frozen ice on the ground. Especially passing through Brussels, which was to be our next destination, we realized the weather was not looking so good. We got to Amsterdam and it was freezing and snowing, but because the snow was so beautiful we weren't too upset. We spent most of our time there wandering around the gorgeous compact city and admiring the array of mansion on every single street. We decided that there was not one unattractive building in all of Amsterdam and deemed it the prettiest city we had seen yet, with Venice as a close second. Similar to Venice, in fact, the city is sprawled over many canals with loads of foot bridges for the infinite number of pedestrians and bikers.

We got to try some Dutch beer at this really cool bar we found in a nice part of town. We were able to do a beer tasting while playing Scrabble (with the Dutch alphabet, which made it quite challenging to create English words.) This was an awesome environment with delicious unique micro brewery beer, some of them even made coriander, etc.

We didn't really eat much Dutch cuisine besides some yummy aged Gouda cheese which we carried around with us and snacked on from time to time. We did indulge in pancakes, which were pretty good, but we had one incredible meal at a random vegetarian place we encountered on a search for cheeseburgers. It smelled so good and looked so cute, we just couldn't resist, plus is was the healthier option. It inspired us to eat more vegetarian and vegan meals when we return to the states.

Touristy wise, we took a canal tour through the city on which we learned basic information about many of the houses along the canals...wasn't too informative, but it was relaxing and we were able to enjoy our favorite beer, Heineken, while we toured along. We visited the Anne Frank House, which was very interesting, except for the fact that the entire museum were replicas as they were experimenting with climate control and could not allow the real artifacts to be viewed. We assumed it was the real house, of course. We went to the Van Gogh museum, which was really good and featured about 200 of his paintings, as well as some sketches and letters to his brother.

My personal favorite part of the city was the Red Light district where you find prostitutes behind red tinted glass windows wearing nothing but bikinis and waiting for "clients." Some of them I am not sure were even women...classy!

We still have Brussels to write about, and we are now in Berlin and will update the blog when we have more time and energy. We really enjoyed Amsterdam, it was really beautiful small and relaxing.
J and E