Going Dutch
To celebrate my great escape from the Frangi-pane Lab, Tyler and I spent 5 days in Amsterdam. We were both pretty torn about where to take a last minute get-away, but were convinced after our local Amsterdam expert, Maaike, told us about the pancakes…
We took advantage of our one and only clear day in Amsterdam by heading from the airport to the hotel and then directly to Koog aan de Zaan for some in-line skating along the canal roads near the local windmills.
Thanks to Maaike, we saw as many things as we could possibly fit into our brief stay; we enjoyed everything – except for the rain. We spent most mornings wandering the Tulip market and most afternoons wandering through the different neighborhoods The Jordaan, Vondelpark, BeethovenStraat and Pijlsteeg, a quaint little street from de Dam to the Oudezijds Voorburgwal. We spent a day at the Rijksmuseum which provided an excellent overview of the most well-known Dutch painters and a rainy evening in the impressionable Anne Frank house.
Most evenings, we stopped into the Wijnand Fockink (de jenever stokerij) jenever brewery for a glass of spirits before heading to dinner. We didn’t linger in the Red Light district, but we did manage to pass through one evening at about 10 PM to see what all of the fuss was about. As Maaike had warned us that Dutch food might not suite our vegetarian tastes, we focused on big brunch-style breakfasts and ohhhhhhhhhhh the pancakes, the poffertjes, stroop waffles and the appel flaps. We also found an authentic Thai restaurant run by a sweet family that served up some much missed favorites like green curry and pad thai.
