Amsterdam part 1

April 13th, 2011:

This was the morning  when Tim's leaving Amsterdam... Tim and I got tipped off about this awesome pancake house near the Heineken beer museum... so we head straight to it that morning.

I went for the more trusty English breakfast,  Tim always makes fun of me for not ordering anything new. I do have to note that English breakfast tasted better in England.

Here's the salty pancake we were tipped off about. Apple-bacon-butter pancake. Tim loved it. 

My freshly squeezed orange juice. 

Tim's freshly opened morning redbull.

Then we hopped on the train and went to the airport. Tim left...

I checked into a cheap hotel close to the train station. It reminds me of Harry Potter:

Near vertical stairs

See? this room. very harry potter like, dont you think?

Then started walking around town looking at buildings, canals, people and such.

On the Amstel:

The side canal:

Looking down a canal

Houseboats!!!!

When you live in a houseboat, you get swans and ducks in the front of the house, instead of rabbits and squirrels.

On the Amstel.

It is not optical illussion: the houses are really leaning forward. They said doorways and stair cases in Amsterdam are too narrow to move furniture through, so "when people move, everything goes through the window." Hence these leaning houses and the magnificent large windows.

Playful side walk.

I gasped out loud at the sight of this flowershop. It smelled like heaven, it looked like a glimpse of heaven. I want all of those flowers. Yes all of them. I dont know what to do with them, but I want them - fresh, alive, in my house everyday! I must have stood at the door way of the flower shop for 5 mins, hovering, smelling. calculating in my head to see if there's ANY WAY i could take these home...

 

Then i went to a square to recover from the floral over-dose. Just watching people was sort of relaxing...

I opted out of eating in a restaurant. The weather was nice, so I grab a cheap togo meal and sat outside to eat.

Here's the floating flower market in Amsterdam toward the end of the day.

On the side of it, there's this all-year-round Christmas joint... my head started ringing christmas songs... then it started to hurt ... i quickly walk away to flee the sight.

I went to the groceries store for some pain killers. here is the outside of it, along with the "parking lot".

I stopped at this highly rated Indian restaurant for dinner. You should have seen my face when all this food was brought out. I saw other patrons quietly smiled at my reaction... but it was one of my few chance to eat Indian food. Tim wont ever go to eat it with me anymore... I told him, next time i get married, liking indian food will be one of the qualifying criteria. Sigh.

Then I head back to the hotel before night fall... I wasn't an enthusiastic lone traveler.

But here are a few more pics I took randomly through out the days. I have a couple more series of photos i need to share, specially the "Amsterdam people and their bikes" I had fun hunting these bicycle pictures. Will post soon.

Man on bike after hours.

Bike shop out of a van.

Young woman on bike.