We walked over for breakfast to a cafe which has various types of Dutch pancakes. They are very similar to crepes, but cooked a little longer and with a slightly different texture. I had a strawberry and blueberry pancake and Cole had one with honey and sour cream. Once again we forgot to take pics of Cole's before digging in to eat, but I did get a pic of mine.
After breakfast we headed over to the Amsterdam Central station to head onto the canal bus. This is a great way to see the city from the canals and after all of the walking from the day before we were looking forward to relaxing on the boat for a while. I took some video (which I will not post right now) of the cruise and also some pics. Below are a few of these pics. Note one of the pics
which is near Amsterdam Central station there is a BIKE parking garage. These people bike everywhere! There are also pictures of the Oude Kerk church and a house boat on the canal that we thought was cute.
We got off of the canal bus tour near the Van Gogh and the Riijksmuseum. The latter is a broader museum with lots of different historical pieces in it. We chose to go to the Van Gogh museum since we are planning on going to the Louvre in Paris. The Van Gogh museum was awesome. First let me say pay attention to signs when traveling. We found a location to buy museum tickets about a block away that saved us tons of time standing in line to buy tickets at the actual museum.
Unfortunately you can't take pictures inside the museum, so no pics. We got to see Van Gogh's famous sunflower piece, the painting of his bedroom, various self portraits, and pieces from other artists who influenced Van Gogh's life such as Monet, Bernard, Manet, and Gaugin. I was particularly excited that I got to see quite a few works from Toulouse-Lautrec who I admire for his various work done for the Moulin Rouge. It was neat to see these ads that he had created. Cole and I also appreciated learning about the area of Montmarte back in its bohemian days, particularly since that is where we will be staying in Paris. It was a wonderful experience. Shari, I wish you could have gone you would have been so inspired by all of the beautiful art work. I also enjoyed seeing some lesser known works of Van Gogh including his early paintings (which he hated and was work done before his famous pointilism pieces) as well as a number of flower and garden pieces. Below are a few pics we took of me from outside of the museum, as well as pictures we took of the outside of the Riijksmuseum. Although we didn't go to the Riijksmuseum, their grounds were prettier than the Van Gogh museum so I didn't take a lot of pics of the Van Gogh museum.
After the museum unfortunately the canal bus tours were over so we were unable to hop back on the bus. So you guessed it...we walked! We set out for the restaurant we made reservations at the night before. It took a while to get there and once we did we had a little while to wait before our reservation so we just chilled for a while.
Dinner was at Kantjil & De Tijger, an Indonesian restaurant with the traditional riijsttafel (rice table) meal. We ordered a small version of this and shared it. The large version is about 55 euros (around 80 USD). We didn't think we were THAT hungry. The miniature one we got turned out to be just the right amount of food for us. The food was good and I was glad we tried it out. It is very similar to Indian food. Cole and I eat Indian food occasionally in Boise so nothing that we ate was too out of our norm as far as what we have experienced. There are a few pictures below of our dishes.
After dinner we decided to make a quick dash to the Anne Frank museum. We had been by it a few times already and the lines were soooo long. We thought we would give it a shot right before it closed. When we arrived at the museum we were warned not to go in. The museum was closing in close to an hour and it was packed. I told Cole I wanted to take my chances since I knew we weren't going to have another chance to go to it. We made it through the whole thing with just barely enough time. Once again, you can't take pictures in the museum. I have already been there once and it was just as emotional the second time through. You can walk through the apartment, and the offices of Miep Gies and Otto Frank. There are excerpts of Anne Frank's diary you can read as well as other artifacts from the war. It is an amazing opportunity that you have to experience to fully appreciate. After the museum we walked home and called it an evening as it was about 10:30 by the time we made it back to the flat. It was time to pack up and get ready to leave for London late the next morning.
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