Amsterdam...take 2

But first, the pies I made yesterday (in all their slightly deformed and a little burned glory. Pumpkin and apple, in case you can't tell.):


Well, we keep saying "as a last hurrah" about trips that we take, but our trip to Amsterdam was definitely the last hurrah because I'm tired and I'm also not allowed to fly anymore. But as a last hurrah, Jim and I went to Amsterdam for the weekend.

It got pretty cold in London as we were waiting for the train to the airport, so Jim let me borrow his hat. It would turn out that I was VERY unprepared for the even colder weather to come, so Jim didn't really get to use his hat very much.



It was already very Christmasy in Amsterdam, as evidenced by the decorations around town and the SNOW! Here is one of Santa's helpers (in case you don't remember from our last Amsterdam blog, in the Netherlands Santa comes over from Spain with his 8 black helpers and puts candy or switches in the children's shoes. More on that later.)


Some night shots:



SNOW!



As luck would have it, we happened to be in Amsterdam the weekend that Sinterclaus came over from Spain. Jim caught him with his 8 Black(faced) helpers on video as they made their way towards some VERY exciting children.

I guess it is more realistic that Santa come over from Spain on a boat with some...helpers...than Santa flying from the North Pole in a sleigh pulled by airbound reindeer with blinking noses and assisted by small, magical people. But we still find this cultural difference interesting.

The weather continued to be pretty miserable and cold and my really cheap umbrella almost didn't make it.

Jim at the floating flower market. We were also supposed to seek out the houseboat for homeless cats, but we kind of forgot.


While we were wandering through a market in the Jewish Quarter, it started to hail. So we popped into a cafe (NOT one of the famous 'coffee shops,' for the record) and had some hot chocolate. Jim really enjoyed his.



We finished our afternoon with more food at a funky place called Bazar, where they had delicious Mediterranean food. The lighting was fun, too.


Sunday was our cultural day. We started with a walking tour of a new area we hadn't been to before. It was still snowing, off and on. On an old bridge in the boatyards:

And on the tram, having decided we were tired of freezing and would rather ride in warmth to our next destination:



We went to the Rijksmuseum, where we stood in line in the freezing cold to get in and some annoying woman invaded our personal space (I think I was the only one who found this annoying). The museum was partially under renovations, so we saw the highlights...lots of famous paintings and sculptures and doll houses. The main attraction (according to the museum) was Damien Hirst's "For the Love of God," which was an 18th century skull, inlaid with diamonds. It was...sparkly? Worth a lot of money? Worth standing in line for 45 minutes in the freezing cold with an annoying lady in my space? I'm not so sure....

But fortunately, after the museum and being cold, there was another cafe! (do you see a theme? We tend to eat our way through vacations...) It really started snowing while we were enjoying our soup and lattes.



We walked through the snow and back towards our hotel...and FINALLY we found a second hand place where we could buy some hats that were actually WARM (and cheap). There was much rejoicing:


It's amazing how much a warm hat can help warm your whole body up. We were able to continue wandering around in the snow for a couple of more hours!




It was a fun trip. Amsterdam is a lovely city, the Dutch people are awesome and it was a nice FINAL last hurrah!