Our last day in Amsterdam we slept in late, late enough for us to start the day with lunch. We checked out of our hotel and headed to the train station to drop of our luggage. (We had booked our night train to Switzerland.) Across from the station was a sandwich shop that sold doner cabobs. They are freaking amazing! It was basically some sort of grilled meat, sliced off this rotating skewer into a pita, then covered with cabbage, tomatoes, lettuce and some sort of delicious sauces. Zac LOVED it! In fact, he made it a point to eat them multiple times each day.
We basically had the entire day to kill because our night train didn't board until late...I wanna say 8, but don't remember for sure. We walked and wandered, and occasionally stopped to pose for the camera.
And take pictures of the cute houses. I LOVED the black paint! (can't wait to have a black room!) Check out this one falling forward. Notice at the top of the house the little white block looking thing sticking out of it. It's actually a pully system. They used to pull goods and furniture and all sorts of things up to the third floor and through the large windows instead of the narrow doors.
We decided to make the most of our IAMSTERDAM cards and hit up a few more art galleries and a beautiful botanical garden.
The first stop inside was the butterfly house.
Inside was great. Zac kept trying to get a picture of me when the butterflies would land on my head...but he was too slow and they wouldn't cooperate. Luckly, this tree did, he stood still for lots of shots
We followed this up by entering the tropical plant greenhouses. I love this picture of Zac walking through the misty humidity.
And we cracked ourselves up making Cher faces with long plant hair
We made our way from the botanical gardens to the local flea market. Even in Europe I can sniff out a good deal!
This was my favorite booth...silk fabrics
We also stopped at a little store called Kitsch Kitchen. I had seen it a few times while riding the trams and thought it looked amazing. I was right. Any store with shopping carts that look like this is a must see!
How stinkin cute are those! They had all manner of bright, colorful things. I could've spent a lot of money, but we had a lot more to see on our trip...and no place to store any of it. Here are just a few of the great things inside.
I think bright colored cleaning products make cleaning suck a little less! Anyone need a bright pink bucket and a purple broom?
Would love to have this on my patio!
We eventually got tired of walking and headed back towards the train station. We sat next to this building.
We sat by the water on wide concrete steps, watching the canal tour boats going by slowly. Their speaker systems blaring only moderately witty banter at wide-eyed tourist as they stared back at us, staring at them.
We continue like this for an hour or so, then wandered around the red light district. There were many shops with inappropriate names, but this one was the funniest...
Can you even imagine asking your friends to meet you at Cafe Wiener? hahahah!
From there we went back to the train station and set outside in the afternoon sun.
A little while later we hopped our train arrived and we found our room for the night. It was so funny! Zac is, of course, too big for most everything, including our sleeper car.
We ended up sharing it with two other people, but they came in the middle of the night. We only exchanged sleepy "hellos" with them really. The next morning we woke up and then switched trains to get us heading toward Lausanne. We thought Amsterdam was great. We really did. Even with the legalized drugs and prostitiution....there was no one lying dirty in the alleys. It's was a peaceful, relaxed place for us. Full of good food, scenary and crazy street perfomers just trying to earn a buck. Really, this sign says it all...
I want that picture of you with the umbrella its really cute. xoxo
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