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You wanted more pictures, you got 'em! I have gotten the pictures down to about 30 per day (some days more, some days less), so you will probably be sick of them by the end! We flew from Atlanta overnight, so we arrived in the morning in Amsterdam, having gotten about 2 hours sleep! After arriving at the Centraal Station (see my last post) by train from the airport, we hauled our luggage to our hotel, which was about a half mile (1 km) away. It was a very pretty walk, as you can see!
There are flowers almost everywhere, piled around doorways and in planters. It looked like seasonally, they were about a month behind Atlanta, as their hydrangeas were just blooming.
We stayed at
The Hoxton, a British-run hotel. It was great, and we would definitely stay there again! You got two free bottles of water in your room refrigerator every day, and you could ask for more at the front desk. They also had a little lounge area with tea, coffee and snacks (this always makes me fond of a hotel ;)
Here's our room!
The pictures make it look a little small; I should have used the wide angle lens! It was a good size, though.
And check out the view!
The only downside was that it was a little noisy because there was a street festival that night. But I always travel with earplugs, and I was so exhausted from lack of sleep that I did not have any problems sleeping!!
Our room actually wasn't ready when we arrived, so we checked our luggage and headed out to a pancake house.
We'd heard great things about the pancakes in Amsterdam (yes, some people go to Amsterdam for marijuana; we go for pancakes!) This place was our second choice, and they had an AMAZING number of choices on the menu. Check out
their website. We ended up going with the "Dutch" pancake, with baked-in stroopwaffels, cinnamon ice cream, whipped cream and chocolate!
As you can see, they are more like crepes than pancakes (and certainly thinner than
my favorite pancakes ever). I wanted to try some of their savory flavors, but when we saw another table's order, we agreed that splitting one was going to be all we could handle. We actually couldn't even finish this one!
To keep ourselves awake, we walked around and enjoyed the great scenery (you can click on any picture to make it bigger).
Shopping center!
Dam Square. Yes, I did ask a lot of dam questions here. ;)
And because I am married to the most wonderful man in the world, he had researched where there were yarn stores for me. =) We went in a few, but I ended up making my souvenir yarn purchase at
Stephen and Penelope.
The "Stephen" is Stephen West (no, he was not there). When I travel, I am happiest if I can get locally produced or dyed yarn, or a locally designed pattern and that's just what I was able to get here!
This gorgeous yarn was dyed "in an Amsterdam kitchen sink", and the pattern was written by Penelope (that's not her real name, but she doesn't mind being called that =). The pattern is fairly traditional-looking, but it won't be in the colors I picked! Space Chicken!!! Love that color, and it is exclusive to the store!
We took in more great scenery before heading back to the hotel to grab some dinner and collapse!
Bicycles are literally everywhere; business owners have to put up special signs if they don't want them parked on their sidewalks! You have to be careful not to get run over by them, because they pretty much take the right of way no matter what!
I loved all the details on the buildings...beautiful windows and doors.
I'll leave you with the view down "our" canal...look for more pictures to come!
| JiffNotes |
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| This was Day One of our Europe trip in Amsterdam, filled with pancakes, yarn and beautiful scenery! |
