Four Canadians in Amsterdam

This summer flew by with trips and visits. We started out in June by going home to Ontario for 2 weeks. Then, in early July, I hurt my foot and it ended up making me basically immobile for several weeks and didn't heal for almost 2 months.

BUT we had a trip planned for early August, to meet up with a couple of our Canadian friends in Amsterdam, so I had to get up and go! 

It was great to see our friends, and good to get me up and moving, but boy was it hard to walk. Long story short, we didn't see as much of Amsterdam as we normally would have, but it was still a good trip. 

We started out by going to see the Body Worlds exhibit. 

It was a very cool visual exhibit and this link describes the point of it better than I can: 

http://bodyworlds.nl/en/body-worlds-the-happiness-project-en/

The rest of the day was spent seeing a bit of the city while on the way to have drinks and then to dinner. Both of which were great. 

And I am the worst, because it's now October and I can't remember the name of either of the places we went. But if you end up eating at a nice restaurant in Amsterdam with THE best goat cheese spring rolls you've ever eaten, that's where we had dinner.

After dinner we did some more wandering, and ended up back at the train station, which is really gorgeous. 

Then we headed to the center to see Dam Square. 

I may be jaded at this point - living in a city with two very nice squares, and having seen a few really great, old, European squares - because I really wasn't impressed with Dam Square. It was pretty small...and very busy...I'm sorry for being a Square snob. You should definitely judge it for yourself.

I definitely over-did the walking on that first day, because the next day we headed to the Rijksmuseum but I didn't last very long. 

What we did see was very cool and there is definitely another trip to this museum the next time we're in Amsterdam. 

This carved deer antler is definitely one of the coolest things we saw at the museum. I tried to get a good photo of the little bat face, but just couldn't get a good one through the glass. 

So after giving up on the museum, we headed to a cookie place that apparently has the best cookies in the world. And they definitely were amazing!

After cookies, Michel very nicely sat at a pub with me because I absolutely could not walk anymore. It was a really nice spot to sit, with all the typical Amsterdam views: the canal, lots of cobblestone streets, and nice buildings to look at. 

That lamp shade on the light is one of my favourite things. Just ask yourself: who put it up there? Did they bring a ladder? Had they been thinking about how well the shade would fit there for a while or was it spontaneous? 

We definitely intend to go back to Amsterdam, but it was a good little taste this time around. 

I have to also mention the Ecomama Hotel coffee shop, which was just steps from our hotel. It's a hostel with the coffee shop attached and we were there all 3 days that we were in Amsterdam. 

I think we liked it so much because it's a lot like the coffee shops we're used to, being from Southern Ontario, and Maastricht does not have anything like that. But it also had delicious cookies (so delicious!!) and a really great atmosphere. Just look how cozy it is!