Weekend in Amsterdam

Oh. My. God!

Amazing holiday!

We had such a fantastic time in Amsterdam and I can’t believe we’re now both back at work and it’s over.

Last Thursday I headed over to Jeff’s house after work, we cooked, he packed and we went to bed relatively early (after filling up all the bird feeders of course – the birds would get hungry if we left them for a few days!) We set the alarm for 06:15, but I was awake before then, as was Jeff. We set off, drove to Heathrow and parked in the Long stay car park – If you haven’t tried driving to Heathrow and using their car parks I would certainly recommend it. Whilst there is a mini bus journey of 3-4 minutes to reach the terminal, the mini buses were really frequent and we were standing at the mini bus stop for about 30 seconds before one trundled up and picked us up!

The flight was only 45 minutes and we got a taxi to the Hotel. The hotel was brilliant. We stayed at the ‘Convent Hotel, Amsterdam’ which I had found on Expedia and checked it out on Trip Advisor. At the time, it was ranked 20th out of over 300 and I’m pleased to report it certainly didn’t disappoint us. The room was immaculate, really clean and the bed was exceptionally comfy. It was also in a wonderful location so we could walk to Ann Frank’s house within 10 minutes, the red light district within 15 minutes and a pancake house within 10 seconds!

We arrived at our hotel just after midday and true to our ‘usual’ holidays were out the door, investigating instantly. ‘Let’s go to the Heineken experience’, I suggested to Jeff and with that, we walked out the door, turned left and off we went to sample Amsterdam’s most famous beer. On our way to the brewery we found the most amazing ‘arcade museum’ if you’ve played any console in the past 30 years you’d be pretty amazed at how many feeling can be invoked by playing some of the console games you played as a child. I used to have a Nintendo, whilst Jeff was apparently a whizz at the SNES. We wandered round and played on various consoles for a good 45 minutes and it was brilliant fun – I even beat Jeff at Super Mario cart :-) I don’t think he was overly happy with that... Hehehehe.

We continued to walk down to the Heineken brewery and were able to bypass the queues as I had bought our tickets online. The tour was pretty cool and I certainly learnt a lot about beer, even though I don’t drink it myself. You learnt the history about the beer, how the beer is bottled, what goes into the beer and you got a funky wristband with two tokens which you could exchange for.... Heineken! You even got to 'be the beer' and were shook around, had water sprayed on you and were 'bottled', which was quite amusing.

After the tour we decided to go and get something to eat and on our way to the brewery had found a pancake house about 2 minutes away. We popped in there and had our first Amsterdam pancake – For Jeff, he had a savoury one with cheese, bacon etc, whereas I kept with tradition and had one smothered with chocolate. One of the odd things about Amsterdam, as well as a lot of other European countries is – where on earth is the fresh milk when you get tea? I am a bit of a tea fiend and I found that I had to ask for fresh milk, else I got random condensed stuff. Still – it certainly didn’t ruin our holiday and when in Rome....

After the pancakes we decided we’d do a canal boat trip as there was a canal boat stand opposite the Heineken brewery. We bought our tickets and popped into a small pub for 45 minutes to wait for the canal boat trip to start – it was about 1 degree outside so there was no way we were going to wait outside and freeze! The canal boat trip was lovely, however both Jeff and I were incredibly tired as we had got up very early that day – also, there were 2 very annoying children in front of us who wouldn’t 1) shut up and 2) stop fidgeting around – unfortunately the boat was a glass boat with no open windows so there was sadly no opportunity to throw them overboard. As we were listening to the tour, it got dark which made Amsterdam look even more beautiful, but also made Jeff even more tired so he kept falling asleep! I think we were both glad to finish the tour and walk back to our hotel for a break.

That night (Friday) we decided we wouldn’t eat far from our hotel so went to an ‘all you can eat’ Japanese restaurant which was brilliant! You had 5 ‘rounds’ and could order 5 dishes per person, per round – so between Jeff and myself we could order 10 plates each round. We ordered loads of really odd things like ‘Octopus balls’, ‘Squid balls’ and marinated lamb chops – all of which was utterly divine. We were so stuffed when we came out and were very glad our hotel was only a couple of minutes walk away. The first night I slept pretty well which was surprising as one of the things that I was really nervous about was sleeping in the same bed as Jeff as throughout our relationship before – he snored really badly. Thankfully the £50 of snoring stuff he had purchased just before the trip seemed to do the trick and we both managed to get some sleep – it also helped that the bed was really, really comfy.

So – Saturday morning. I had booked Ann Frank’s house tickets online so we had to be there at 10:45 in the morning. We were out of the hotel by 09:00 and headed out to find some breakfast. We found Ann Frank’s house and right next door was a pleasant looking cafe so we headed in there for some munchies. We ordered some pastrami with cheese and gherkins on bread – not my favourite Dutch breakfast but at least I tried it! Jeff had the same, just without the cheese and he decided to try the Dutch hot chocolate ‘Chocomel’ which was quite nice, but personally I don’t think I topped the Italian hot chocolate I tried in Rome last year.

Ann Frank’s house was very moving – I had been there before when I was last in Amsterdam but as Jeff hadn’t ever been to Holland before, I thought it was a good idea to make sure he had done the ‘Top Ten’ bits and I think he enjoyed it too. I was again, glad I had booked the tickets online as the queue was pretty massive! After Ann Frank’s house we wandered down the canal and decided to go to the Rijksmuseum which if I’m honest, I was a bit disappointed about. They’re currently doing renovations, so a lot of the museum is closed and we managed to go round the entire Philips wing in about 30 minutes! For 12.50 Euro’s each, I just thought that was a bit of a rip off and whilst the paintings and exhibits on display were very interesting, it was just a shame there wasn’t more there – Still, at least we did what we could.
After that it was lunch time... However, rather than eating, I was obsessed with trying to find the Dutch ‘Cat Boat’ (Poezenboot) which is where all the stray cats stay in Amsterdam. It was only open between 1pm and 3pm and I was desperate to find it as I am rather keen on the 4 legged creatures :-) (http://www.poezenboot.nl/?taal=uk) After a few wrong directions, we finally managed to find it – we were rather knackered, having walked for over 90 minutes trying to work out where it was, however I thought it was worth it. We managed to get there whilst it was open and stroke the stray cats inside – obviously I stole all of Jeff’s change, combined it with whatever I had in my purse and left it as a donation – if I could have taken the cats home with me, I would have done! What a wonderful thing to have seen – all the stray cats being well cared for and hopefully finding new homes.

Once I had seen enough cats, both Jeff and I agreed it was time for food, however we just couldn’t find anywhere nice to eat and the places we did look at, looked very full. Both of us were very knackered and Jeff seemed to get a bit snappy, which meant I went rather quiet and subdued – after just not finding anywhere nice we headed back to the hotel and just chilled for a little while before heading out again and grabbing a pancake from the cafe right next to our hotel. Thankfully this time around Jeff and I seem to be better at communicating with each other and sorted out the ‘issue’ – he apologised for being a bit snappy and explained why and I made sure I didn’t harp on about anything and stopped being quiet – I’m not counting this as our first ‘argument’ as both of us listened to the other person and it seemed to blow over pretty quickly – which is VERY different to how we used to discuss things.

The pancakes were brilliant and after a rest in the hotel I took Jeff to the red light district. Jeff was very ‘gentlemanly’ about the entire experience and not once did he say anything rude or derogatory about the prostitutes. Nor did he comment on how they looked, which I appreciated as I’m not the most ‘secure’ person about my looks and being with someone who kept saying ‘Corr, she’s a bit of alright’ or ‘Wow, she’s stunning!’ would probably not have been a pleasant experience for me. We wandered around for a bit longer and Jeff bought me a waffle from a kebab shop – was this a ‘normal’ waffle? Hell no! It was the best waffle I had ever tasted and after this weekend I have to say that the Dutch seem to have got the whole pancake / waffle thing down rather well.

Unfortunately Saturday night did not bring very good sleep as Jeff’s snoring kicked back in – this left me rather knackered on Sunday morning! We checked out by 10:00 and went to the Sex museum which only cost 4 Euros and was good for a laugh. We did try and find some more pancakes but actually opted for a lovely cafe in Dam square and ordered a ‘full English’ which I don’t usually like doing as prefer to actually try some of the local cuisine, rather than the stuff you can get at home – that being said, the breakfast was lovely and when we had some food inside us, we went to the floating flower markets. We actually bought some tulip bulbs – some black and blue ones and some red and yellow ones – we’re planning on planting these in tubs, in Jeff’s garden in a few weeks time so watch this space! We also bought some sweet pea seeds as I thought they would be nice to grow and they smell gorgeous.

Our last lunch in Amsterdam and we decided on the most famous pancake place – ‘The pancake bakery’ which is close to Ann Frank’s house and has over 100 pancakes on the menu. It was really busy and in order to get a table we had to agree to share it with another couple which was fine with us. Jeff went for a ‘Brazilian’ (oo-er missus!) which had pecans and amaretto in it, whereas I decided to make my own with ice cream, chocolate sauce and amaretto – it was absolutely gorgeous, however I couldn’t finish it, nor could Jeff! We left feeling totally stuffed 

We headed back to the hotel, got our suitcases and got on a train to the airport. Our flight was ever so slightly delayed and the queue at passport control in England was utterly horrendous! I think we were standing in a line for nearly an hour which seemed really stupid – God knows why Boarder Control can’t sort it out! Ahh well... I think both of us were too tired to be annoyed.

We got back home at 19:00 which wasn’t too bad at all – I immediately filled up the bird feeders which were totally empty (not surprising) and Jeff sorted out things for work and dealt with ‘house things’ before I cooked, we watched some TV and went to bed by 22:30. Jeff had to be up by 05:30 so he left me in bed and said goodbye whilst looking very gorgeous as he has a job interview today.

It was an absolutely wonderful, wonderful holiday and I can’t wait until our next one which is in April – We’re going to Northumberland for a few days to take photographs of Puffins, visit castles and generally enjoy spending time together.

-Molly