Three Days in Amsterdam
No flight this time, we were taking (my first ever) high speed rail to Amsterdam! We had another early morning (we are getting better at them, though) and enjoyed a fast ride through Rotterdam to Centraal Station. Nearly every decent place to stay in Amsterdam was out of our price range, so we used some of my credit card points to get a hotel right on the main drag by Centraal Station. The hotel, Hotel The Exchange, was designed by students of the fashion school and every room has a different theme! The room we got was designed by the goth kid, apparently, because it was completely black… our cave for the weekend. After dropping our bags, we made a pit stop at Bulldog Coffeeshop to affirm that we were actually in Amsterdam, then walked to Vegan Junk Food Bar for an easy lunch.
The weather was truly nuts the whole time we were in Amsterdam. Day one was intense wind and occasional rain, so we needed shelter as much as possible. We found Blue Amsterdam, a cafe that’s an elevator ride up from a shopping center. From there, you can enjoy amazing views (or watch the storm clouds roll in and out) with a coffee and Dutch Apple Pie. When we couldn’t catch a break in the weather, we found Barraka Coffeeshop to relax in while we watched the hail. To be clear - in Amsterdam, a cafe is a place to buy coffee but a coffeeshop is a place to buy and smoke cannabis. There have been efforts lately, we learned, to ban tourists from being able to access coffeeshops, so it will be interesting to see the next time we visit if it’s still allowed!
At some point on our walk, we passed a bar called Law & Order bar, to which I was like “oh hell yes, I love that show, we should go there”. Marcus was more intrigued that the window mentioned “members-only” hours, but either way, we agreed to head there before dinner. I had a delicious drink with passionfruit and a champagne and caramel foam and was very satisfied with the experience. As we were putting on our coats to leave, a man gets loud and the bar goes silent. “You are all in for a very special treat tonight, we have guest bartenders from the #25 bar in the world, here for you and we will be switching out the menu!” Marcus and I looked at each other and took our coats off. The guests, from Handshake Speakeasy in CDMX, made us delicious drinks with fresh ingredients (a fig leaf martini for me and some amazing delicious Tequila concoction for Marcus which was clear but smelled just like a fresh tomato). It was hard to leave but we had a dinner reservation to make.
Dinner at Cafe Schiller was good enough that we weren’t sad to be missing more delicious cocktails. We got oysters, tartare (me) and steak (Marcus). That restaurant was definitely a highlight, partly because the service everywhere we went after that was pretty bad. Though I suppose if I have to choose between bad service and bad food, I’d take bad service. A quick jog home in the rain and we were resting up for a big day of (gasp) planned activities.
The Keukenhof Garden is only open from mid-March to mid-May, so when I realized that our trip would overlap, I had to get tickets. As the world’s largest flower garden, there were a lot of people there, but enough flowers to go around. 75% of my camera roll from Amsterdam is tulips. It was really a spectacle and definitely worth the trip to Lisse. In this instance, I think pictures will convey much more clearly than words.
When we returned from Lisse, we had some time to kill so we walked through the Albert Cuyp Market. This street market was part farmers market and part flea market. We found a delicious chicken sandwich for only 5 Euro from Benny’s Chicken to keep us going. At five, we had a date with the Heineken Experience, an interactive brewery tour with all kinds of experimental elements. And beer of course. It was interesting to learn the history, but their use of technology in the tour was even more impressive. It’s definitely worth a stop if you’re in Amsterdam.
We had a relaxed walk out to a beer spot Marcus wanted to try, Proeflokaal Arendsnest, where they had 52 Dutch beers on tap. We got (basically) adult Lunchables of cheese, sausage and crackers to go with our beers as we killed time before our dinner reservation. Another time-kill drink at Deus Cantina (are you noticing a trend in how we kill time, especially when the weather is bad?) and it was time for dinner at Bleu. I go out of my way to mention them because honestly the food was great. But the service…. I can count on one hand the times in my life where I’ve asked for an adjustment to the bill due to service or quality. This was one. C’est la vie, when you’re eating out for every meal it’s bound to happen.
Our last day, we had to dodge the weather again. We got a quick breakfast, ran an errand, and then headed to Foodhallen to warm up. This massive food hall has all kinds of stands (fried chicken, tacos, pizza, dim sum, you name it) and drinks as well. We had a nice variety of snacks to compliment our Gin & Tonics before I hit my wall. It wasn’t just a wall of “it’s been a long day” but more “it’s been a long couple of weeks”. It hit me like a brick and we ended up walking back to the hotel to rest.
I was able to rally for dinner (Vatten Ramen) where we were seated in front of a window overlooking the canal at sunset. Not a bad last meal, and well worth pushing through for. With my last bits of energy, we had one last wander around the Red Light District which was LIVELY despite the weather. And that’s the note we ended Amsterdam on. A six am call time the next day had us in bed by midnight to rest for our last flight for four weeks.
