I Amsterdam

Our second day in Amsterdam was sadly Matt’s last day, so we jammed in as many things as we could fit in one day, starting with the famous I Amsterdam sign at Museumplein and the nearby Van Gogh museum…

Since it was past noon when we texted Matt to meet up, Paul and I decided to grab some take away noodles from a fast food chain called Wok to Walk for lunch so we wouldn’t waste anytime.  We had tried Wok to Walk once back in Barcelona and loved it (so much so that we looked into buying a franchise store when we get home but the franchise start-up fee is too high for our risk tolerance), but today we were not nearly as impressed.  I figured that with a franchise the sauces would all be standardized and taste identical, but our noodles today didn’t taste nearly as good as the ones we had in Barcelona, even though we ordered the exact same thing.  Looking back, I’m glad we scrapped that idea!

When it comes to the I Amsterdam sign, everyone climbs on top of the letters to take pictures (at your own risk of course), and Paul has even seen some YouTube footage of a guy jumping from letter to letter.  When I went to climb up the letter “s” (which is seemingly the easiest), I discovered that it’s much harder than it looks because the surface is kind of slippery and there’s nothing to grip to pull yourself up!  We couldn’t figure out how anyone climbs on top of the “I” to jump all the way across from letter to letter (Matt is a pretty tall guy and even he couldn’t reach the top to pull himself up), never mind land a jump from the “I” down to the “a.”  There was definitely no way I was trying to jump!

Once we took our pictures on the sign, we made our way to the Van Gogh museum, an art museum dedicated to the works of the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, one of my favourite artists.  We coincidentally got there for the last day of a special exhibit called “Van Gogh and the colours of the night,” which meant that tickets were more expensive, but I’m glad we saw the special exhibit because it also meant that several of Van Gogh’s most famous paintings, including The Starry Night which is normally at MoMA in New York, were brought in temporarily.  Personally I felt that the special exhibit was the only part really worth seeing and I would have felt slightly ripped off at the normally high €12.50 entrance fee (the Louvre only charges €9!) if there was only the permanent collection because it’s not that big and doesn’t include many of Van Gogh’s most well known works.  I know there’s a lot more to an artist than his most well known works, but when you pay a lot of money to go to a museum you kind of hope to see some of the famous stuff!

Halfway through the permanent collection, the three of us all agreed we had had enough art and picked up the pace through the rest of the museum before heading over to Amsterdam’s floating flower market, the only floating flower market in the world.  Since Matt and I had developed severe hay fever allergy symptoms since arriving in Amsterdam yesterday (I think there’s something about the air here) and we weren’t going to buy flowers anyways, we walked through the market rather quickly.  Unless you’re shopping for flower seeds, there’s not much to see here but it’s an interesting place that’s worth a quick visit.

We decided to go have a beer at Café Gollem, the first pub in Amsterdam to serve specialty Belgian beers back in 1974 and now a popular stop for tourists.  I savored what would likely be my last taste of Kriek (sadly they were out of the peach flavored beer), before heading to Van Dobben for some of Amsterdam’s most famous croquettes.  In case you don’t already know, a croquette is a small fried food roll made with mashed potato and minced meat of some sort, encased in bread crumbs.  We first discovered croquettes during a stop in the Dutch colony of Curacao in the Caribbean on our honeymoon cruise.   Ever since then Paul has anticipated coming to Amsterdam for croquettes because no one makes them as good as the Dutch (although it is said the French invented the croquette), and what we’ve tasted so far has not disappointed us!  I might miss these croquettes as much as I will miss Belgian beers when we go home…

We finished off our night with some disappointing Chinese food in Chinatown, the second Chinatown we’ve found so far on our trip (we stumbled upon it yesterday night while wandering around the red light district).  My great-aunt in Edmonton once told me that she found the best shrimp dumplings she’s ever had while visiting my cousin when he was living in Amsterdam for soccer, and even though I didn’t know the name of the restaurant, we were hoping we would luck out and find the right restaurant, which totally didn’t happen!  Sadly for Matt tonight’s crappy “ho fan” and shrimp dumplings will be his only memory of Chinese food in Amsterdam, but Paul and I will come back and try to find the amazing shrimp dumplings again!  Maybe I should call my aunt and get the name of the restaurant…