Amsterdam 2007 - Day 2, Getting Situated

Hallo, from Holland! :) This was a great day today in Holland, since my sister and I were getting situated. First, there was the time change for the winter solstice, so we got an "extra hour" of sleep. I fell asleep a little after midnight and woke up at 9:30am--so that was definitely enough, and felt like a whole new person compared to yesterday. Sis and I ate a little bit of oatmeal in the room (yes we brought it with us, as we did a little ramen and granola bars... we just like to be prepared and have some "comforts" of home"). That way, we could just get ready at our own pace and get ready slowly.

Then, C and I went to Albert Heijn grocery store to get some water, chocolate, and chips for the room. They have weird flavors here like "heinz ketchup", balsamic (we got that because it's the closest to salt and vinegar), and I think something like barbecue chicken. I can't remember... they were weird. Oh yeah, and a "vegetable" flavored potato chip... so, a potato flavored potato chip? Heheh, I dunno. :) We dropped off the stuff in the hotel room before we headed out for "pre-shopping".

So, our pre-shopping for me is a mental cataloging of the things we would buy. Of course, we would be going to museums and such, so we also didn't want to carry anything around. We went to Peet & Cloppenburg, a pretty large clothing store in Dam Square next to Madame Tussaud's wax museum (which I do not plan ever on going to) where they sold Mexx clothes. There was also a sale and some possibly cute kiddie clothes.

I then went on the hunt for my usual cheap postcards that I send. Yes, I get the cheap ones (you are lucky if you get anything--so no complaining! :P). It is essentially 3.50 euro for a pack of 14. I usually bring scissors because I need to cut the cards separately--but there is a new design... they are perforated!! Now, this is quite excellent except there is a lot of little paper flecks when I tear the cards apart. And, you still have to cut cards 1 & 2 away from the pack... so it's still not the best design.

Then we made our way down one of the major shopping streets, Kalverstraat, on the search for the English department store, Marks and Spencer, which we were not able to find. After browsing in a few shoppes, we went to lunch in the Kalvertoren (Kalver Tower), where I had two kroketten. For anyone who doesn't know... kroketten is like... fried breaded gravy with meat inside. It's rather yummy and just a typical dutch thing that I only eat when in Amsterdam, so it makes it kind of special. I am even on the hunt for a special store that sells a special brand of kroket, Van Dobbin.

After lunch, we took a walk to the movie theater because we wanted to see what was playing and perhaps catch a movie. I've heard the theaters in Amsterdam are really nice (used to be old classical theaters I believe), but there was not a single movie that we wanted to see!

So, we made our way to the museum of the day, the Van Gogh museum, and it was rather fabulous. Van Gogh is actually my favorite painter, but we usually go to the larger Rijksmuseum (but it is still under construction... it's been on construction ever since my first time in Amsterdam in 2003). I highly recommend the Van Gogh museum because I would say that 75% of the art in there is fantastic, and it tells a very cohesive story. You can see the art laid out with the perspective of Van Gogh's life. I addition, there are works by other impressionist artists like Monet and Van Gogh's friends at the time, and you can compare works and styles side by side. You can see how even though Van Gogh and one of his collegues used the same strokes, the works are very different. Unlike other bigger museums that have lots and lots of works, and you like only 10% of everything, this was a great focused display are art. It's realy a plus if you like Van Gogh and his style of painting... yeah, so if you don't--you should probably skip the museum :p.

As we often do, we stopped in the museum cafe for some coffee. We made our way to the Leidesplein and there was an awesome set of street performers. It was kind of soft electronic-y techno-y stuff, but it was really good and had a great beat. It was at that moment that the feeling of vacation really sunk in on me... being in a nice little crowd (not overwhelming at all) with other people, Dutch and tourist alike, and just being on vacation! Then, time for more coffee, we went to the Three Sisters on the Leidesplein for more coffee until it was dinnertime. This was not the Three Sisters on my map, but another one :p.

After a long coffee, we went to Wagamama for dinner, yay!!! Love Wagamama. It's one of the few non-smoking restaurants, which I just love. However, the had no sake and their coffee machine was broken... so it was pretty disappointing. So, I had iki beer (made from green tea and other japanese fruits), which I pronounced "icky" :p. We also had duck gyoza and shrimp katsu as our side dishes. I had the chili beef ramen, of course :p. For dessert, I had banana katsu (so, breaded fried bananas) with yuzu ice cream... super yummy!