The hotel we stayed at has a cat called Amy after Amy Winehouse because she likes to sleep in their wine cellar. She liked to share breakfast with us.
It was still chilly in Amsterdam but that didn’t stop the herring hut people from being open, I don’t quite get this craze… who wants bits of herring enough that they need to have a special hut for it?
Mmmm… Herring. Said no English person ever.
We took a trip to Anne Frank’s House one day, you had to book in advance and go in in groups. It was really busy and quite slow to get round the house, there were a lot of parts where we just had to wait in line. There were photos and information but most of the rooms were just empty which made the actual building feel quite disconnected from what happened there and it was hard to imagine the Frank family had ever lived there.
I didn’t take any photos because there wasn’t really anything to take photos of except the actual diary.
After that we went on a touristy sightseeing cruise because it was freezing out so sitting in a warm comfy boat seemed like a good option.
The buildings in Amsterdam are just beautiful, I liked having a good look through the massive windows.
I also enjoyed the houseboats, it must be pretty cold to live right on the water in the winter though.
The boat tour also came with an adjoining bus tour so we were fairly toasty for the afternoon learning facts about Amsterdam.
The next day we went to the sex museum, worryingly recommended to us by my brother, it was pretty funny. It had quite a few historical things in it like a little section about Mata Hari.
And some ancient creepy looking condoms.
It also had a lot of unhistorical stuff like this creepy flasher guy who scared Kim to death for the amusement of myself and several passing tourists. And a ton of really weird porn from the 60s and 70s.
They had a couple pieces about the red light district but I would have liked a bit more history, I felt like they could have gone into a bit more detail.
And a chastity belt… which looked like it’d make bathroom breaks awkward.
We also took a trip to the Rijksmuseum.
I’m not a massive art fan so some of it was probably lost on me.
They had yet another Van Gogh self portrait… seriously how many of these are there?
And some bits and bobs to look round.
Including my dream home library.
They didn’t have as many stolen treasures as we have in England, most of theirs seemed to be gifts or Dutch or from Dutch colonies.
But it was an interesting way to spend a few hours.
The most famous piece of art (which is obviously the one we wanted to see the most, art ignoramuses that we are!) in the museum was The Milkmaid but this is about as close as we got to seeing it as it was on loan to the Louvre… booo.
After the Rijksmuseum we went to a photo shoot. Kim and I didn’t really get engaged before we got married, it was crunch time after 6 months of her staying in England and we needed to either go back to not living together or get married and apply for visas… whilst we still didn’t live together! Anyway, for our first anniversary I got Kim an engagement ring, engagement photos are popular in the USA so I got a photo shoot too. We had a really nice photographer called Nadine who suggested different poses and locations and although I hate to have my photograph taken she made it really fun.
After the photo shoot we went for a walk around the city as it was our last day.
And we found some same sex knick knacks in the tat shops that are open late.
On our wedding day we had a nice fondue in the Rocky Mountains in Canada, so as it was our anniversary we decided on another and it was really good.
The restaurant had a cat too, I think this should be introduced in the UK, more businesses having their own cat. Weirdly enough the cat’s name was Simba which is the same name as the neighbour cat my Mother in Law has semi adopted.
And after that it was back to the hotel to pack for our flight the next day and google what this intriguing forbidden toe gang was… sadly it was less exciting than anticipated.
hayleyiraina 