Bloggers in Amsterdam

Hot Dam

Some favorite things we did:
- Walked as many neighborhoods as we could (like 10 miles a day.) The trip sponsors put us up at the Krasnapolsky, a fantastic hotel in the heart of the city. So it was easy to hit lots areas.
- Anne Frank House - So moving and touching, almost surreal. Connects you with Amsterdam's history and life during WWII.
- Symphony at the Concertgebouw - Amsterdam's beautiful concert hall and fantastic symphony orchestra. Mostly local crowd, incredibly polite, the audience held their cough's until the end of each movement. The hall is stunning with impeccable sound.
- Van Gogh Museum - even having seen many Van Gogh works, we weren't prepared for the intensity of walking through rooms of his work and moving through his life, madness and genius.
- Rijksmuseum - Great Dutch masters, the Rembrandts are incredible. Seeing all the art reflecting Dutch life throughout various centuries (city and county, people and places) added interesting background and richness to the whole Amsterdam experience.
- Canal Boat Tour - Tour is nice, you see a lot from an interesting perspective, but we were mesmerized by the precise navigation and maneuvering of the boat through the tiny canals and bridges.
- Markets, the city has tons. Big and small - food, junk, flowers; a couple are open all week, but Saturday is the big day. Loved a small one at the Wagg that had lots of local cheese, fruit, wine, bread. Vast varieties of bulbs are for sale at the central flower market.
- Red Light District - Wild, fun, all kinds of women in the windows (most work for themselves), negotiations going on. The sex shops have some hilarious toys and displays.
- Great coffee everywhere we went. The pastries were awesome too, the Dutch know flakey and buttery. Ditto the cheeses, chocolates and other stuff... (more food in a separate post)
- Smoke cafe tour, a do-it-yourself version (more coming on that too)

Chow Holland

Completing our trip triptych today... here comes our Top Ten Amsterdam Food Experiences, told in photos!...

In no special order...

1) Coffee & Pastries - every cup of coffee we had was excellent, rich flavorful and freshly made. Same with the pastries, we tried too many, all were great, don't miss the cheesesticks (there are 2 great shops right off the Dam on Damrak)

More after the jump!

Amsterdam is well known for it's tea choices

For someone who has drank less and slept more than any other time in my life, I certainly am tired.

We're seeing all sorts of things. The museums, the canals, dog crap all over.

I dont' have time to write. I dropped Alice for her nap and headed out on my own for a while. For a suburban girl I'm fairly savvy about finding my way around, I'm impressed with me.

I have some flickr photos up for now and I hope to get some more writing done, maybe tonight while Alice has her tea after dinner and I wish for Logan to be here to head to bar so I can have nice loud conversations and people watching.

– Suburban Bliss

Scenes from the Noordermarkt

"Thanks to a tip from Heidi, we headed on Saturday afternoon over to Amsterdam's Jordaan neighborhood in search of the Noordermarkt, an outdoor farmer's market located along the Prinsengracht canal. The market is just a short walk away from the Anne Frank House, which we returned to on another day. By the end of our trip, the Jordaan turned out to be our favorite place for walking and shopping, randomly exploring its narrow streets lined with charming townhouses.

The Noordermarkt occupies a triangle overlooked by the Noorderkerk, a large 17th century church designed by architect Hendrick de Keyser. Though we arrived late in the afternoon, the market was still going strong, filled with stalls doing a brisk business selling an impressive variety of produce, cheese, baked goods, and meats."

Don't miss the photos at The Food Section.

Verse Vlaamse Frites

"Afterwards we went to an Italian restaurant and ate dinner. Then it was off to find a bar to have some drinks. We checked out a cool little Vodka bar near the Flower Market, but it was pretty dead and they started playing Herbie Hancock, circa Beverly Hills Cop Part 1, so we decided to try another place. Just down the street was a really cool looking place called Soho. As soon as we walked in Trent and David looked at each other and said, 'It's a gay bar!"

I was like, "How do you know?"

They were like, "Look around!"

I was like, "Oh..."

The place wasn't very busy so we got our choice of seats upstairs. The whole place was really beautiful, with dark wood and red leather everywhere. We were having a great time, Trent kept getting recognized, and then the most curious thing happened. The lights flashed. The next time we went to the bar to get a drink we were told it was happy hour. At midnight? So my one shot of tequila and vodka tonic turned into two shots of tequila and two vodka tonics, the same was true for my companions - here's the damage..."

Rachel, from Scenestars

dear amsterdam,

im writing you from your airport which is mellow and quiet and bright and clean. i miss you already.

last nacht you showed me whose boss. you led me to your bars and you sat me down and made me drink 130 of the 150 dutch beers that are worth a taste. they were all delicious...

... i seriously cant believe that i got to come here for free. a week wasnt long enough, which is odd to say for a small city, but theres so much to do here, theres so much to experience. i do hope i can return when its warmer, but after the first day the weather was no longer shocking, if anything it helped make the nacht stay longer.

i will miss you amsterdam, i will buy your flag from ebay, and i hope to get a tshirt before i get outta this airport.

all my love,

tony

bicyclemark was the mvp of the week

"On our final night in Amsterdam we had the immeasurable pleasure of meeting up with the one and only Jaap van der Molen at his house in the city. This is a picture of Jaap at dinner right before he told us that Scarlett Johansson wouldn’t be on his List of Five because her boobs aren’t big enough, at least not as big as the European boobs he’s used to. Which suddenly makes me very frightened of European boobs."

from Dooce

"people watch soccer here. they stand out in the cold and watch it being shown in restaurants. wednesday night soccer. you dont see people standing outside on a cold chicago spring night watching baseball. or basketball. so props.

i also like the flag of this city. its red and black and has three x's on it.

it looks like a pirate flag. like someone saying our flag is a treasure map and we have three treasures here. sex is legal, drugs are legal, and our art is better.

i like the windy streets but i dont understand them. how did they get that way? did people build ten feet of street and then got bored of making it go straight? was it to make invading armys confused? whatever it is i like it. i feel like im on the stage of a shakespeare play."

musings à la Tony Pierce of Buzznet

At the gay bar

"Afterwards we went to an Italian restaurant and ate dinner. Then it was off to find a bar to have some drinks. We checked out a cool little Vodka bar near the Flower Market, but it was pretty dead and they started playing Herbie Hancock, circa Beverly Hills Cop Part 1, so we decided to try another place. Just down the street was a really cool looking place called Soho. As soon as we walked in Trent and David looked at each other and said, 'It's a gay bar!"

I was like, "How do you know?"

They were like, "Look around!"

I was like, "Oh..."

The place wasn't very busy so we got our choice of seats upstairs. The whole place was really beautiful, with dark wood and red leather everywhere. We were having a great time, Trent kept getting recognized, and then the most curious thing happened. The lights flashed. The next time we went to the bar to get a drink we were told it was happy hour. At midnight? So my one shot of tequila and vodka tonic turned into two shots of tequila and two vodka tonics, the same was true for my companions - here's the damage..."

Rachel, from Scenestars

Dear Amsterdam

dear amsterdam,

im writing you from your airport which is mellow and quiet and bright and clean. i miss you already.

last nacht you showed me whose boss. you led me to your bars and you sat me down and made me drink 130 of the 150 dutch beers that are worth a taste. they were all delicious...

... i seriously cant believe that i got to come here for free. a week wasnt long enough, which is odd to say for a small city, but theres so much to do here, theres so much to experience. i do hope i can return when its warmer, but after the first day the weather was no longer shocking, if anything it helped make the nacht stay longer.

i will miss you amsterdam, i will buy your flag from ebay, and i hope to get a tshirt before i get outta this airport.

all my love,

tony

bicyclemark was the mvp of the week

David and Rachel

Dooce & Jaapy

"On our final night in Amsterdam we had the immeasurable pleasure of meeting up with the one and only Jaap van der Molen at his house in the city. This is a picture of Jaap at dinner right before he told us that Scarlett Johansson wouldn’t be on his List of Five because her boobs aren’t big enough, at least not as big as the European boobs he’s used to. Which suddenly makes me very frightened of European boobs."

from Dooce

Amsterdam canals

"people watch soccer here. they stand out in the cold and watch it being shown in restaurants. wednesday night soccer. you dont see people standing outside on a cold chicago spring night watching baseball. or basketball. so props.

i also like the flag of this city. its red and black and has three x's on it.

it looks like a pirate flag. like someone saying our flag is a treasure map and we have three treasures here. sex is legal, drugs are legal, and our art is better.

i like the windy streets but i dont understand them. how did they get that way? did people build ten feet of street and then got bored of making it go straight? was it to make invading armys confused? whatever it is i like it. i feel like im on the stage of a shakespeare play."

musings à la Tony Pierce of Buzznet