What a Trip! in Amsterdam

It's taken quite a while to finish this episodic tale of our little jaunt around a few random European countries. It's been a particularly busy time lately and we've had a few weeks of various colds and flus etc. Thanks Winter, it's been real swell...

In case you haven't had the chance to catch up with the rest of the trip, this final chapter is part 5. Seriously? I didn't mean to drag it out THIS long!  

The 1st ones are here:



So let's wrap it up!

Amsterdam!

In looking for cheap but comfortable accommodation, we ended up finding an Airbnb place in the village of Overveen, just 25 mins by train west of Amsterdam.

In Melbourne we live about 22mins out of the CBD by train, so this is a pretty comfortable timeframe for a commute and have used the 20-30 min benchmark whenever we look for reasonably priced accommodation with all our trips overseas. 

I mean we could pay $350 aud a night and stay in a small hotel room in Amsterdam, or spend less than $200 for a bungalow in a beautiful village that looks like this...

To be honest this was a bit of a splurge for us. But all our other accommodation up to now had been pretty good so we had a bit left over in the accommodation budget.

And it didn't disappoint. 

Overveen is a gorgeous village with adorable cottages and house, tall trees and cosy greenness

Our airbnb hosts left a lovely vase of baby's breath and peonies. My favourite flower! Sadly the Bear started sneezing almost immediately, so they had to sit on a table outside during our stay. 😖

Ridiculously pretty 💖
On our first day, we jumped into a canal boat tour to get an overview of the inner city. As much as you can with these funny slotted windows!
The tour was an hours leisurely cruise around the main canals where our guide told us about some of the history and interesting landmarks.

We then hit the road and set out to see the sights for ourselves. 
Being a wheels man, the Bear was smitten with these tiny cars. 

Amsterdam is a lovely city. Being Spring, everything was green and flowering. 
Oh Clematis! You got me in the feels! 
There were a zillion tourists. Like us, some would say! But because they weren't us, THEY were the annoying tourists. WE were simply random Australians who decided to spend a few days in the general vicinity, walking around and looking at things, buying things and taking some photos. Not tourists by any stretch of the imagination! 
The old and the new were equally as fascinating. 
I found it intriguing that tourist shops were able to market so many different things as bongs.
Nothing was off limits. 
Aliens, penises, even Baby Yoda could all be converted into an implement to inhale dried plant matter through. Although I found an alien having a joint mildly amusing, Baby Yodas pot of soup reimagined as a cone filled with finely chopped 'herbs' was a little soul destroying...
Amsterdam tries to cater to everyone. There was a wealth of museums for art lovers. 
We didn't visit any of those. The closest I think we got to viewing art was what I thought was an interesting drawing of the letter 'A' on a toilet door in a cafe. 
I was looking at it thinking, "Is 'A' the first letter of the dutch word for 'mens' or 'womens' ?  And then I realised I wasn't looking at any letter of the alphabet....
For the crafty: Oof! Hit me with a 2 in 1 here: Crochet AND Miffy! 
And more crochet! Bags in a vintage clothing shop.
Oh the Delft! Delft stuff is just divine! But oh so expensive!!!
I found a gorgeous little shop that only sold 2nd hand Delft stuff.
These Delft tiles are just divine and soooo expensive.
Just the stuff in this window would have been worth kazillions of euros...
For the food lovers there are delicious pancakes...
and frietje met (Dutch fries).  I think this queue was for a dutch fries shop some "influencer"* posted about the week before. The line went up the street (to the left), there was a gap on the road, then continued on the otherside and over the bridge of the canal.  
*I kind of don't like that term but they certainly 'influenced' here.
We saw lots of lovely houseboats. 
Florists, plants and gift shops 
Before our trip, some of the Bears work colleagues started up the whole "...so you're going to Amsterdam, hey? Wink wink... are you gonna buy some 'cakes'? Wink wink! Go on!" So he had mentioned a few times that he'd never tried any illegal substances and wanted to at least try some of Amsterdam's finest bakery offerings.

My line of thought was that I was absolutely NOT interested in nursing a 50 something year old through his first high, and if he happened to 'green out', there was literally no way I was patient enough to deal with vomit or bad trips. I just don't deal with other people yacking their guts up.

You feel me, yeah? You know that friend who holds your hair back while you spewed after an epic night out on the vodkas? That was not me. I would start dry retching at the stench. I am the friend who straight away says "Nope!" and walks quickly in the other direction leaving you with stringy gobs in your hair. I'll happily punch your nasty ex-boyfriend in the old pants python, but I'm gone for voms.

But after a couple of days of him 'occasionally mentioning it in passing'. And me doing a bit of googling into decent places to get 'Spacetries' around town, I gave in and we visited Boerejongens' coffeeshop that had an excellent reputation for good quality baked goodies and helpful staff. 

It was like entering a boutique bakery/ tea seller.
The staff behind the counter were all wearing snappy, crisp shirts, suspenders and bowties.
On the back wall was a vast menu board listing their wares, strengths and prices.
When it was my turn, I decided to front up. I told the staff member we were looking for a cake suitable for a first timer. He suggested any of their cakes would work but to just start with a quarter of a cake, then wait an hour for it to kick in and see how he goes.

We chose a delicious looking salted caramel cake. It was served in a pretty white box with gold lining for 10 euros...
In the Netherlands, a café is like a bar which sells liquor, cocktails, wine, and beer, a 'koffiehuis' serves coffee, and 'coffeeshop' sells cannabis products.
 And off we went. Feeling like naughty school children... naughty middle aged school children.

But it's such a pretty little cake! And delicious. A lovely thin pool of salted caramel sauce on top and a soft spongey cake.
On our way home that evening, we each had a quarter piece of this little cake. Yeah, ok. I had FOMO and I'm also a notorious sweet tooth, so was pulled more by the appeal of cake than anything.

About an hour later, we were sitting up in bed watching that new Jerry Seinfeld movie Unfrosted on Netflix.
It is a really not funny movie.
Just stupid.
However I found it HILARIOUS! And the floor would not stop moving when I tried to walk to the kitchen. And all my normal joint aches were gone. And I felt GREAT!!!

The Bear asked, "So what am I supposed to be feeling? Nothing's different."

The delightful little cake didn't affect him at all. He simply watched the movie, felt a bit shortchanged and so rolled over and went to sleep. He did say the next morning that his sore elbow was no longer sore...

The next day we booked a tour to see the windmills at De Zaanse Schans.

This is one of those 'very touristy' places where your tour bus pulls up into the car park where 20 other tour buses are already pulled up. But it was a nice day and it was very pretty.

There is Kooijman Wooden Shoe Workshop with clog making demonstrations.
If you're interested in the history of clogs and clog making, I found a delightful article written by Tammy Tour Guide.

After umming and erring at the tacky wall of clogs, we decided for the heck of it to buy one big ass clog...

And I clomped away with a much more comfortable pair of 'medical clogs'. I did try on a whole bunch of gorgeous (and less clumpy looking) wooden soled clogs, however I found them too hard and uncomfortable. 
So I bought a pretty pair of 'medical clogs'. Apparently designed for nurses with orthopedic sole and soft base for walking quietly around hospitals. Who knew I'd buy actually sensible footwear? I chose them as I didn't sound like I was walking around on planks of timber and they are covered in Van Goghs 'Starry Night'. How freaking touristy of me!
I would love to find this print to hang up at home! 

A few minutes walk away was the cheese shop. 
We heard a quick chat about Dutch cheeses and tasted a few but we really were here for the windmills and didn't want to run out of time... 
And they are magnificent!
The Bear particularly wanted to check out the centuries-old wood saw mill De Gekroonde Poelenburg.

It was perfect weather...for windmills.
Windy.
Bear said, "Hey babe, walk down into this long grassy reedy stuff. We'll take a nice photo!
I said, "Um, I think there's stinging nettles down in that patch that you're standing in wearing only shorts..."
"Really? I feel fine! Let's take a photo!"

5 minutes later he says, "Hmm, my legs feel a little itchy..."

Also sweet cottages nearby which people actually live in.
I would happily live in one of those cottages with river frontage!

Too much cuteness.
With the Bear still feeling disappointed after his first attempt at eating a Spacetry, once we arrived back in Amsterdam, we decided perhaps he simply needed to try a bit more. So we picked up a delicious Red Velvet cake from the same coffeeshop.
They really do package it very nicely.
This time, he started with half a slice.  An hour later, he had another quarter.
Another hour later he had the last quarter.
And as we still had a quarter left from the Salted Caramel sponge, he ate that too.
Absolutely nothing. The bear ate 1 and a quarter slices of cake and to his greatest disappointment, didn't get high.
However, he did report the following:

1. waking up for a 3am pee that reeked of the *special herbal ingredient.
2. no joint or muscle pain for a week and a half.

Which is probably the best outcome actually! He wondered if there was anything at all in the cake and if we were sold a dud. I ate a quarter each evening and I had a fantastic time so they weren't duds...
A google search revealed that a small percentage of people have a rare liver enzyme which blocks the effects of getting high from eating these things. He may be one of these people. 
And so Bears quest to sample the 'forbidden fruit' (so to speak), came to an end...

And so did our trip. 
Our last afternoon before returning to Australia, we had a quick walk around the northern end of the vast Het Amsterdamse Bos, a huge park in the south of the city. 
We saw kids playing in an extensive tree climbing forest filled with bridges, ladders and zip lines.
There are about 5 or 6 zip lines from tree to tree across this river!
The park is beautiful. So serene and green, filled with walking trails.
Yellow irises and buttercups line the edge of the man-made rowing course called the Bosbaan to the north of the park.
I actually wanted to visit the park to try and see the Scottish Highland cows that roam some parts and also hoped to spot a squirrel. I hadn't seen a single squirrel in the whole trip! Not one!! 😭
However after 3 and a half weeks of walking all over Helsinki, Talynn, Malmö, Copenhagen, Bremen and Amsterdam, the Bears legs couldn't handle anymore and begged to go and rest before leaving for Australia.
I was so used to our travel by now that I could probably have kept going for another few weeks.
However, after 27 hours and 35 mins of plane travel from Amsterdam (via Helsinki and Doha) our plane reached the West Australian coastline at sunset and I felt that cosy 'I'm home' feeling.

Louise


 👽Red Haired Amazona🍰







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