take me back?

so i guess you want to know how amsterdam was? it was only ok. 

just kidding! it was so good. let me show you some pictures. 

the trip started off well, flying over the dolomites with clear skies is always fun.

a little prosecco while you fly? yes, please! thank you air dolomiti!

we arrived in amsterdam in the late afternoon.  after getting settled and investigating our exact location in reference to the city center, we headed into town. our destination? la margarita mexican restaurant.

[note: i'm not entirely sure what traditional dutch food is.  i've heard that it's a lot of greasy fried fish and the like (not my ideal choice for a meal).  however, in amsterdam, there are a plethora of mexican and thai restaurants.  since the presence of mexican and thai restaurants in trieste is rare, we jumped at the opportunity to get our fix in amsterdam.]

first meal in amsterdam = some of the most delicious mexican food i have ever had (definite competition with tijuana in florence)

on monday, we took a bike tour through the city.  there were 8 of us in our tour group and it lasted about 2 hours. using a bike as legitimate transportation was so great -- i wish i could do that all the time.

the canals there are so pretty and there are houseboats along the sides of all of them.  some of the houseboats are really fancy and artsy-looking while others are dingy shanties and it's confusing how they're still floating.  

the fall colors were also gorgeous.  we had pretty gray/dreary weather (see sky) the whole week, but the trees were such bright colors of yellows and oranges that it didn't seem like it was that dark and damp.

riding through vondelpark. vondelpark reminded me of central park (but smaller).  you can see a pond straight ahead (below, right) and there were paths winding through the whole park past playground sets, 

restaurants, open fields, etc. 

the "i amsterdam" sign in front of the rijksmuseum.  

i climbed on the "a"

illy! i stalked my favorite triestino coffee all over amsterdam (it wasn't hard, they had it everywhere)

mexican meal #2: rose's cantina. free salsa at this one! 

spinach and goat cheese enchiladas? don't mind if i do. 

this is a giant billboard on the front of the bicycle "parking garage" at the central station.  it's 3 stories tall and holds about a hundred million bikes but it's still incredibly inadequate because everyone in this city rides a bike as their main form of transportation (isn't that cool?!)

the architecture is awesome, love the townhouses along the canal.

each townhouse has a hook at the top of it that is used for moving furniture in and out.  historically, all the staircases were too narrow and steep to get furniture and other large things in and out so this is how they did it! and they still build houses like that and use the hooks. 

me and K in front of i amsterdam on our day full of museums (friday)

adorable dutch street. aka, my future home.

checking out the map.

really cool market with tons and tons of old/used/foreign/english books

mexican meal #3. mexicanse beans?

the decor was..... interesting.

the food was also..... interesting. 

in a non-delicious way. it's ok though, 2 out of 3 delicious mexican meals is good enough for me.

more illy coffee stalking: 

literally everywhere! so tasty.

wahoo wah!

the last night we were there (saturday), most of the museums and galleries in the city were open until 2am with special exhibits (in addition to the always-there exhibits) and djs and food and drink.  you bought one ticket that got you access to all the exhibits (45 different museums!) and public transportation until 6am the following morning!

here we are at the beer temple developing our museum night plan of attack.

stop #1: van gogh museum.

we visited the museum the day before so we only went for the special exhibits (we danced around for 5 seconds and then made a flip book of all the pictures that were taken during the 5 seconds!) and bands/djs that were playing here.

a band called "el moustache" we were really excited that they were going to be really cool and exciting and have really insane moustaches. but a) none of them had a moustache and b) their music was only ok. 

unfortunately, i don't have other pictures from museum night but we did go to 2 other museums:

stop #2. the stadsarchief: i actually have no idea what this is a museum of....we just hung out, drank prosecco, and jammed out with the dj (the pony peaches) and watched people who were dancing funny.

stop #3. FOAM photography museum: this was a really cool space -- all the photography was awesome and then they had set up a bar downstairs which had a completely different vibe from #2 (which was electronic, dance party) -- this was more of a laid-back bar with much quieter music so we got to meet some cool people and actually hold conversations. also! at one point a girl came up, took our picture, and then 5 seconds later returned with a keychain of our picture. so that was fun!

to sum up: amsterdam = incredible. so much culture (many different cultures meshed together), dutch people are really nice, bikes! can't wait to go back. 

xo!