Amsterdam

Stayed at this Doubletree by Hilton Amsterdam Central Station hotel during our 3D2N stay in Amsterdam. Very nice and clean place with Starbucks just downstairs. It's also very convenient as it is within walking distance to the cruise terminal and central station.

First stop after checking in, Van Gogh Museum. But before that, I went to dam square to get my shopping fix at H&M, Zara and MNG. Its slightly more expensive compared to Barcelona, especially MNG. Barcelona is still the best and cheapest place to shop in Europe, since my fave brands like Zara, MNG, Pull & Bear and Camper all comes from Spain. I dunoe whether H&M will be cheaper in Sweden but I highly doubt so since things in Scandinavian countries are all very exp.

Guess I quite enjoyed Van Gogh Museum. It's WAY much better than the Picasso museum I went to in Spain coz I din yawn till I cried. I like Van Gogh's art much better than other artist, maybe it's becoz of his vibrant thick strokes of painting. Somehow, it just look much more appealing to me. Hubby enjoyed it very much of course, since he loved going to museums. Sadly, no photography allowed inside the museum.

Taking at break at the cafe.

After the museum, we walked along the canals.

By the way, you must be very careful crossing the road in Amsterdam, coz u need to look out for buses, trams, cars and most of all, cyclists. There were SO many cyclists on the road, it seemed that everyone in Amsterdam owned a bike. Touring the city by bike is also a BAD idea unless you are an expert cyclist. I had seen many people falling off from their bike and some tourists who are so fed up that they ended up walking with the bike...

Next day at Zaanse Schans, a pretty little place at the outskirts of the city.

It's a must to see some windmills in Holland,

milk a cow,

Wear a wooden clog shoes..

Pet a sheep ( poor thing wearing such thick woolley coat in this burning hot weather without a shade of tree. Guess they forgot to shave him)

And eat this very expensive pancake (€12)

Basically, it's a very nice touristy place. Would have enjoyed it more of the weather wasn't so hot.

The following day and also our last day in Amsterdam, we went to the Rijkmuseum and took a canal cruise after that. The above picture is a very popular spot near the museum. It's like a MUST to take a picture with it if you go to Amsterdam. We managed to get this shot with hardly any people coz its very early in the morning.

Noticed that a lot of paintings in the museum had portraits of men wearing these white fluffy flying saucer thing around their neck. Could it be a Dutch fashion thing in those days?? Anyway, the museum was quite boring to me. Noticed that most Dutch paintings were quite dark in nature.

One of the most famous painting, the Milkmaid. Think this was my fave among all the paintings in the museum coz it looked pleasing to my eyes.

Kinda regret taking the canal cruise coz the weather is too freaking hot that day! Felt like I'm trapped inside this oven for an hour, that I almost puked. There's no aircon as its open top and no fans.....Btw, the river water was dark and murky with plastic bottles and litters floating around. Surprisingly, there were no bad odors.

In a nutshell, Amsterdam is a vibrant and touristy city yet a scenic and very multi-national place. Its not as dangerous as i thought. No, I din try any of the space cakes but I did went to the famous red light district and was amazed by how good looking the prostitutes were. It was such a touristy and crowded place that it felt more like a theme park rather than a red light district. Also, there were no such thing as a free public toilet. Even in a shopping mall, inside a fast food restaurant, you need to pay €0.50 to use a toilet. Guess its very common in Europe but i still think its ridiculous to pay even €0.50 to use the toilet inside KFC which we dined in. Think the only toilets that were free to use were the ones inside the museum (since we already paid for the entrance tickets) and those in the airport. However, you will be amazed that it's actually possible to take the public transport for free, especially for metro trains coz the gantry gates were always wide opened or no gates at all and nobody checks for our tickets. It's like, we bought the tickets for our train back to the airport 2 days before at the train station. 2 days later, we towed our lugguages, walked into the station, up the platform, boarded the train, get off the train at the airport while the tickets were still inside our bag untouched all the while. I guess ALOT of people din pay but we just pay coz we dun wish to get into any troubles....

 

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