Europe Trip Days 3-4: Amsterdam
April 19-20: Our first full days in Amsterdam featured a canal tour, cocktails, tulips, and more.
Ciao bello! I am writing this entry from Italy on the eve of my wedding night with Cassidy. I am already well behind in keeping up with this journal, but I have sworn a solemn vow to catalogue every moment of this trip even if it kills me — which Cass is probably rooting for, so she can steal away the money from my very lucrative life insurance policy. Partner Marketing Managers don’t grow on trees, after all, and Cassidy has made it no secret that she is only with me for my money. If I don’t post another journal update by the end of April, you’ll know that she has gotten her wicked wish and is basking somewhere under the Tuscan sun as a newly widowed and very rich woman.
But until then, she’s had to put up with me for a few extra days — our first full days in Europe! Even though it’s only been a few days since they occurred, it’s hard to fully recall everything we’ve done; each day has been so action packed that 24 hours ago starts to feel like 24 days, then 24 months, and so on, and so on. Every moment of our trip has just felt so special that it all starts to bleed together, but I’ve been jotting down notes on my phone every time we do something new so that I can look back and give it a proper description in these entries. So let’s dive in!
On our first full day in Amsterdam (Saturday, April 19), I had one single-minded goal driving my every action for the day: eat a pannenkoeken, a traditional Dutch pancake that is actually more like a crêpe — very thin, very large, and made with either some kind of savory or sweet additions. Unlike crêpes, however, pannenkoeken have the extra ingredients mixed directly into the batter so that when they are cooked, they’re all mixed up throughout the final product. My extensive research uncovered a place by called The Pancake Factory that supposedly had the best pannenkoeken in all of Amsterdam.
We took the train down to Amsterdam Centraal Station and enjoyed a short walk in the morning air along the water to the Pancake Factory, which did not disappoint. Located inside of an old 17th century warehouse owned by the Dutch East India Company, the Factory looked like a proper hole in the wall with doorways made with much smaller people than me in mind. After waiting about 10 minutes to get in, we descended the stairs to the bottom floor and were situated at a table right by the kitchen. Cassidy ordered a cappuccino and something that was very aptly labeled as a “Giant Omelette” and I got a delicious fresh orange juice and a pannenkoeken in the traditional Dutch style: cheese, apple, bacon, and topped with stroop syrup.
Cassidy enjoyed her omelette, and I thought the pannenkoeken was very good, though I do still prefer both classic American buttermilk pancakes and French crêpes. However, since this was the first Dutch food I actually enjoyed, I have decided to generously reward Dutch food with 2 points.
After breakfast, we had a few hours to kill until our 2:00pm tour of Amsterdam’s canal system, so we wandered the nearby streets, walking through a farmer’s market brimming with beautiful fruits and vegetables, breads, cured meats, vintage clothes, art, books, and more. Our hotel room did not come with a refrigerator, so we were regrettably unable to buy any of the food to store back in the room, but it was perfect weather outside to walk through the bustling market aisles and admire the Dutch wares around us. And I even splurged for a fresh squeezed blood orange juice that looked too delightful to pass by.
From the farmer’s market, we strolled by a French café called Café Twee Prinsen that looked incredibly cute from the outside, so we decided to stop in for a glass of wine, a game of Cribbage, and the opportunity to watch locals come in and out of the market. It proved to be one of the loveliest things we’ve done since we touched down in Europe. We had the entire café to ourselves and they were playing this jazzy, relaxing song that felt like walking through the streets of Paris in a movie from the 70’s. I looked it up later, and it’s called Tezeta by Mulatu Astake. We were drinking orange wine and playing cards and really enjoying the vibe. It sort of felt like the moment we arrived in Europe. It was really magical. For this, I award playing Cribbage in a French Café 50 points.
(I also beat Cassidy in cards again — this time, we tied and went to whoever drew the highest card won. I drew a 7 and she drew a 2.)
Our canal tour was through a company called Those Damn Boat Guys, led by a man named Rob who was originally from Boston, but has spent the last 30 years living in Amsterdam and starting a family. Unlike most of the boat tours we saw, which were on these ultra-long schooners that fit 50-60 people, our boat was a little skiff that only had room for the captain, plus the eight of us on the tour: Cassidy and I, a mid-60s couple (also from Boston) that were biking from Amsterdam to Brussels, and a girl doing a study abroad semester in Florence visiting the city with her mom, dad, and aunt. It was a strange group full of quirks and eccentricities:
Captain Rob kept telling us about his improv comedy show that night and urging people to attend. He had boundless energy and reminded me of someone I would have worked with at Dutch Bros.
The elderly couple were clearly quite rich. Once, when we passed a neighborhood of houseboats and Rob told us that the average price was over $4 million, the man said, “So very reasonable. I would buy one of those, wouldn’t you honey?” Also, anytime that Rob pointed something out on the tour, the man would ask his wife, “Do you see that honey?” I think she did.
The study abroad student was only 19 and was very much loving the lower European drinking age. She also had a cool purple beret on, which I feel is very much in the spirit of living in Europe for three months when you’re in college.
Her dad was named Red. He divulged this information to us several times over the course of the tour: during introductions, whenever we spotted a red building, and when he told us they ate at a restaurant the night before, also called Red, because it was his name. The only other fact we learned about Red apart from that his name is Red is that Red loves Heineken. Red was wearing a Heineken hoodie, a Heineken hat, and drinking a Heineken on the tour. He also verbally let us know that Heineken was his favorite beer, just in case we hadn’t yet caught on.
Red’s wife, who’s name I don’t remember (maybe she should consider changing it to Red, just for simplicity), introduced everyone in the family as, “This is my FANTASTIC husband, Red, my WONDERFUL daughter, and my FANTASTIC sister-in-law.”
The sister-in-law, Pam, was quite the character. I would guess that she was about 70 years old, and she talked a lot about how she wanted to smoke some Dutch weed. She also was very eager to lean out the boat to take pictures, and I am shocked that she didn’t, at the very least, drop her phone in the water. There were multiple times I legitimately thought she would fall off the boat and into the canal.
I am also just now remembering that we also learned that Red was born and raised in Syracuse, New York, and attended Syracuse University. This was difficult for me to wrap my head around since Syracuse’s mascot is the Syracuse Orange, while Red’s name is famously Red — a contradiction who’s uproar very nearly resulted in a mutiny aboard our ship, before Red calmed things down by reminding us that he loved Heineken.
We were trapped asea for 90 minutes with this colorful collection of characters, but the tour was more than worth it for how much ground we were able to cover. We saw parts of the city we wouldn’t have made it to without being in the canal and the view was incredible. Rob was very knowledgeable about the city and its history, and was able to answer all of our questions. Most notably, we learned that the buildings in Amsterdam are crooked and leaning because when they were built hundreds of years ago, their foundations were made of wood planks sprayed with lacquer. Over time, those have rotted and cracked, and since Amsterdam itself is built on swampy ground, many of the buildings have had their foundations partially collapse until they were leaning against another building for support. The City has since refortified all of the bases (and declared each building façade a historical artifact, so they can never be torn down or altered) so there is no risk of any collapse; they’ll just remain crooked and leaning for all eternity. It really is a spectacular view, and for this, I grant crooked buildings 5 points.
The tour wrapped around 3:30. We spent the next few hours drifting through the streets, stopping in thrift stores and shops, and stopping for a quick bite at a place called The Dylan Hotel.
Our evening activity was a tour through Bols Cocktail Museum, plus a cocktail class. Bols is the largest distributor of liqueurs in the world and started in Amsterdam back in the 1600s as a part of the Dutch East India Company. The museum walked us through the history of how the company originated, grew in prominence, and became a player on the world cocktail stage in the 1800s. There also were some silly exhibits challenging you to name scents from bottles (Cass got probably 35 out of 50 correct, and I was closer to 25) and seeing who could shake a cocktail shaker fastest/best. Here, I dominated:
The museum also promised to teach us what ice is for (!!!), but I don’t think they delivered. It will forever remain a mystery.
The class itself was fun! The two of us have taken a few cocktail making classes back in Spokane with an organization called Raising the Bar that are really expertly put together and offer an interesting way to learn about the history of some complex drinks. It’s a fun balance of learning new skills, trying challenging recipes, and hearing about the actual history behind the cocktails you’re drinking; the Bols one, in contrast, was a lot more geared toward a total beginner (or a drunk tourist), so it wasn’t very challenging. The bright side was that all of the drinks were made with Dutch Genever, the country’s traditional spirit that is a precursor to gin. It was interesting to try something new and see how it changed flavors compared to how we might make them in America.
The most fun part of the class came at the very end when one of the students announced that they were celebrating their birthday, so everyone in attendance sang the Dutch version of the Happy Birthday song to them, and then they put on the Dutch radio and danced around to their country’s music; it was the first time we’d hear music that wasn’t from America our entire time in Amsterdam. Cass and I just watched from the outside, but we both agreed that we wished the atmosphere around the city was more like this: celebratory of their culture and arts, and less catered towards American tourists.
It was about 8:00 in the evening when we finished up at Bols. Just down the street was another bar called The Flying Dutchman — the most accoladed bar in all of the Netherlands — and I’ve had it on my list to check out since we started this trip, so we made the short saunter over and were fortune to find that the very tiny space upstairs had just enough room for the two of us to squeeze in.
The bar at The Flying Dutchman was beautiful, with elegant seating, beautiful tiled backsplashes, and stained glass windows in the ceiling. The menu was designed to take you through three evolutions of drinks across multiple categories (pictured below), and the staff was clearly very well-versed in mixology, as they offered several off-menu variations when we talked with them about our drink preferences. The vibe, the space, and the drinks were all incredibly high quality, and it was easily the best bar we went to while we were in Amsterdam. It was a lovely way to end our first full day of vacation!
The next day was Sunday, April 20 — Easter! We spent our morning at Keukenhof Gardens, which was the entire impetus for us wanting to go to Amsterdam this time of year in the first place. Tulips are my favorite flower, and Amsterdam’s legendary gardens go into full bloom at the end of April. I had high hopes for what we would get to see, but the experience was even better than I could have ever imagined. We went early in the morning, right when the gardens opened at 8:00am (we took a shuttle bus from our hotel to the airport, then the airport to Keukenhof) in hopes of beating the tourist crowds. It was a good thing we did, because by the time we cleared out nearly three hours later at around 10:45am, the place felt like walking through Times Square it was so crowded.
But for those first few hours that we had alone…pure bliss. It was so quiet in the gardens that you we could hear the birds sing. Once, we even heard a woodpecker, and decided to follow the noise until we could see it in one of the trees. After a few minutes narrowing it down, tree by tree, Cassidy finally spotted it about 50-60 yards up. We watched it for a moment, just the two of us, and then saw the flash of red on its neck as it darted to another spot on another tree further up the gardens. It was really special. (I believe I captured a bit of the woodpecker flying on my Super 8 camera, so hopefully I’ll have some footage of that on film in a few months!)
Here’s a video Cass took that hopefully helps demonstrate some of the atmosphere:
I’ve got about a billion photos from our time at Keukenhof, but here are a few galleries of my favorites:
It was pretty much a perfect morning. Without the crowds, we both could have spent the entire day, just walking the gardens, looking at the flowers, listening to the birds, and sipping warm drinks to combat the cold April air. There is no better way to spend an Easter Sunday!
Once we got back into Amsterdam, we walked about a mile in the sunshine along the water to a French bistro called Box Social for brunch. Cass got a pot of Chai to drink, plus fried eggs, toast, and bacon. I got their daily house juice — that day was apple, orange, carrot, ginger, and turmeric — and what their menu claimed was their “famous” buttermilk chicken sandwich. Both were great! There was also a tiny dog upstairs that Cass saw when she went up to use the restroom, so she was thrilled with out location.
The rest of the day, we really took it easy. We were both still dealing with the jet lag from our long travel a few days prior, plus we had to wake up before 7:00 to get to the gardens before the crowd. So, we decided to spend the evening relaxing and then heading home early. First, we sat in a big courtyard by the Artis Groote Museum for about an hour sipping on San Pelegrinos and Aperol Spritzs. The sun was nice and warm by then, and the courtyard was bustling with families having their children run around kicking soccer balls, riding bikes, and splashing in the fountain. There was also a huge caged area, about the size of a football field, that was filled with interesting, exotic birds — some I could identify, like herons, and others that I had never seen before — that we watched laze around, eating seed off the ground and jumping from tree to tree.
First, we stopped at a pizza place on our way back to the train station; we knew that Italy was only a few days away, but we simply couldn’t help it. It was a small hole-in-the-wall that was opened by a short, middle-aged Italian man. The restaurant was completely empty when we walked in, so we grabbed a table and ordered two pizzas for the road, plus some focaccia bread while we waited. With that in tow, we went back to the hotel to freshen up after a day outdoors, and then we went down to the hotel bar area so that we could enjoy our dinner, play Cribbage, and watch the Mariners game (they happened to be playing a day game in Toronto, so it worked out for us to view).
I also wanted to try one of Amsterdam’s famous Heinekens. This was not because of the influence of my dear friend Red, but because the city has the Heineken Factory, which supposedly makes the best Heinekens in the world. I had heard a ton about how Dutch Heinekens taste different (and better) than American ones, and while I had never had an American Heineken for a reference point, I wanted a frosty draft of a Dutch one, just to say I’d done it. It was pretty good! Maybe Red was on to something after all…
Cass beat me in Cribbage by 15 this time, but I was plenty happy with a Heineken in my hand, some really great pizza to whet our appetites before Italy, and watching a Mariners W. A great way to cap our first two full days in Amsterdam!
Thanks for reading, all! Next time, I’ll talk about our short, one-night trip to Brussels!
Cassidy’s Corner
Cass is sleeping right now, so no Cassidy’s corner this time. I imagine she would write something more about dogs again, though!
Odds & Ends
While I won’t count it as a point for Hat Spotting, we did come across a mannequin in a thrift store that was outfitted with a 2019 Washington Nationals World Series cap. Not really something I would have ever expected to see out in the wild anywhere other than Washington, D.C. I hope someone thrifts it and gives it a good home to grow up in.
Hat Spotting
On our first full day in Amsterdam, we saw 16 New York Yankees hats, 1 Los Angeles Dodgers hat, and 1 Oakland Athletics hat. In Keukenhof Gardens on our second full day, we saw 8 Yankees hats and 5 Dodgers hats; in the city afterward, we saw 9 more Yankees hats.
Here are the current standings:
New York Yankees: 33 total hats [33 in Amsterdam]
Los Angeles Dodgers: 6 total hats [33 in Amsterdam]
Toronto Blue Jays: 2 total hats [2 on an airplane]
New York Mets: 1 total hat [1 on an airplane]
Oakland Athletics: 1 total hat [1 in Amsterdam]
Cribbage Results
Game 1 [Amsterdam]: Dakota wins by 2 points
Game 2 [Amsterdam]: Tie; Dakota wins by high-card draw (7-2)
Game 3 [Amsterdam]: Cass wins by 15 points
Dakota leads 2-1 with a -13 margin
Points Standings
Playing Cribbage in a French café: 50 points
Man on our plane who watched crazy movies: 10 points
Tulips: 7 points
Crooked buildings: 5 points
Kandace: 2 points
Dutch food: -3 points