Amsterdam 2007 - Day 5, Utrecht

This was another great day of holiday. In the morning, I had a little bit of oatmeal because I felt that I had been eating too much stuff. Then, sis and I went out shopping, and we were feeling in need of a snack after a little bit, so we got apple beignets (apple doughnuts essentially). We just got some small stuff here and there, nothing big.

Around noon, we took the train to this town outside of Amsterdam, called Utrecht. Coming out of the Utrecht Centraal train station, you are right inside a mall--the first mall I've ever seen in Europe I suppose. So we did a little walking around and shopping in weird mall shops.

Utrecht was a really nice old town--pretty typically Dutch, I would say. There were a lot of small shopping streets and nice houses. The canals were interesting because, unlike Amsterdam, the street is much higher than the canal, so that there is a lot of lower groung right next to the canel (between the street and the canal), where there are many terraces for restaurants and such. However, these are closed right now because it is just much too cold to sit outside and right on the canal.

After we walked around for a bit, we had a typical dutch lunch of broodje gezond -- a "healthy" sandwich of bread, ha, cheese, and hardboiled sliced egg. It was really yummy. After lunch and some coffee, we walked around some of the shopping streets in Utrecht, and low and behold--what do we find? My favorite Dutch department store, de Bijenkof! :) But, it was awesome because this de Bijenkorf had the bag that I wanted in the perfect style AND color! It's this faux-crocodile handbag that they make in several sizes and a few colors--but the de Bijenkorf that was right by my hotel didn't have it in exactly the right size and color, so I was really happy to get this one! After walking around some more, we stopped for another coffee, of course. :)

Then, we headed back to Amsterdam among the rush hour working people--which was pretty interesting. We relaxed a bit at the hotel before heading to Lucius, a Dutch seafood restaurant for dinner. It was absolutely fantastic! We had a Muscadet wine, which was really quite nice to go with the fish. As our starters, we all ordered the same thing--mussels in a cream sauce. Where I'm used to getting mussels int he shell, they removed all the mussels from the shell (except one for decoration), and the sauce was wonderful. Then, as my main course--I had a fish stew in tomato stock with cilantro pesto. It was sooo yummy (I'm still full from dinner). For dessert, I had this pina colada mousse with pineapple ice cream. Mmm, so yummy :). Then, we relaxed in the hotel and watched one of the stupidest movies ever. :p

Side note: in the business center, when someone walks in--why do they say hello to me? I don't know them. So, I just ignore them :).