Ok, morning number 2 of my 9 hr time change. I was up at 3:30am. I’m somehow going the wrong direction with my sleep.

On the upside, it was early Saturday morning and I could hear some revelers carrying on at the bar down the street, still enjoying the night before. I briefly wondered if they would accept me in my pjs if I wandered over. I think they probably would have (everyone has been so nice here), but I still had hopes of falling back asleep. By 5:30am I more or less abandoned that hope and ate a stroopwafel I’d picked up the day before. Yum.

Eventually we got up and around, and decided to go eat pancakes. No kidding. Pancakes are a whole thing here. Of course, they are not the same as American pancakes, and seemed me to be pretty similar to a flat crepe. No complaints here. We got a savory one with ham and mushrooms, and a sweet one with peaches. Those look like egg yolks, but they are peach halves.

We also made friends with three very devout young friends.

The neighborhood we are staying in hosts a market on Saturdays, so we wandered through the market and I finally got to try some Dutch cheese. Obviously it was glorious. Cheese is usually glorious. Right up until the moment you eat too much. Then it all ends. Luckily that hasn’t happened on this trip… yet.

On our walk back to drop off our market goods, we walked over a canal while a gentleman played his accordion. Such a beautiful, sunny morning.

Until the duck. At our houseboat I opened our window to let in the breeze and street music, and was charmed by a couple of ducks swimming by. They kept swimming closer, and closer, until they were right up by the window. I told them they couldn’t come in and closed the window, because the window is close enough to the water that they could just just step right in, and I thought they might.

When Jimmy came back in the room I said, “Jimmy, guess what just happened!”

He said, “You got into a fight with a duck.”

Good guess. He could totally hear me through the wall.

At that point it felt like time to break out the secret weapon: a raspberry and pistachio shortbread cookie with raspberry jam inside. This is what they have at the Saturday market in Amsterdam.

A reprieve was then taken where jimmy spent 20 minutes on a Power Nap, after which we downloaded Rick Steve’s audio walking tour of Central Amsterdam. The audio guides are great because you get to hear his corniness in all of its beautiful glory in his own voice, and you get to wander around looking like you’re listening to a podcast rather than messing about with the guide book. A++ Rick!

Here are some assorted sites:

Amsterdam Centraal Train Station

Dam Square. Which is said how it’s spelled with no irony from Rick or his audio guest. Which made me feel very adult.

We got a bit side tracked by the Lego store, where we found the famous Girl With a Pearl Earring

Then got waylaid again for a stop over for cookies. These cookies are an absolute legend, and are worth whatever line you have to wait in to get them. For us it was only about 15min.

They are Van Stapele cookies. They are a chocolate cookie with chocolate chips, as well as a white chocolate truffle baked inside. They are served warm so the truffle is perfectly melted. Absolute heaven.

Here is the dough:

And here we are enjoying them

At this point we were about halfway through our Rick Steve’s walk, and decided just to give the rest up for the day. We grabbed some sandwiches by a canal, at which point it started to downpour.

At which point I realized I had forgotten to bring my umbrella and raincoat (both of which I did bring to Amsterdam from Seattle), and I was in a leather jacket and white pants. Not ideal.

I found a 5 euro umbrella at a convenience store and hoped for the best. The last time I bought a cheap umbrella I stepped outside the shop, opened it up, and it immediately broke. This one fared better. I had also been wanting a rain jacket from a Dutch shop I’d been stalking, so we expedited that process as well. Now I’m ready.

We walked to the museum district as we had pre-bought tickets to the Van Gogh museum. We got there a bit early and spent 30 min huddled in various covered passageways listening to accordion players play various renditions of Despacito and the theme from Game of Thrones.

I had heard that tickets to the museum can sell out in advance, and I was glad we bought ours because they were sold out when we got there.

Jimmy is a huge museum fan, so the Van Gogh museum was like an amusement park for him. Here are some of his favorites:

I also found this rabbit that I never saw explained.

And took my tourist pic with the giant sunflowers poster.

See the glazed look in my eyes? By the time we left the museum I was pretty exhausted.

We decided that some sitting was in order, so we headed to the beautiful Tuschinski Theater to catch a show. Here’s the theater:

The inside was gorgeous, the seats were comfy, and they served popcorn and coke in the classy glass bottle.

What masterpiece of visual art did we witness in these spectacular surroundings, you must be asking yourself?

We saw Super Mario Brothers. Because it was the only thing playing at that time.

I can’t say that it was a masterful piece of cinema, but I did get to sit out of the rain and munch on popcorn.

I don’t even feel bad that we went straight from Van Gogh to that. It takes a mix of things to make an enjoyable trip.

We decided after the movie to walk to an Indonesian takeout place near the houseboat, and saw some cute things along the way:

I also went into an English bookshop where I found a blind date with a book! I can’t pass up a book grab bag situation. Ironically the cashier in the English bookshop spoke to me only in Dutch as I checked out, which is the only time that has happened so far. Maybe I’m getting better?

After that it was all about grabbing some food to eat back on the houseboat, and get cozy out of the rain.

Oh! And I met a swan!

Listening to music while eating our takeout and watching the canal boats go by was the perfect relaxing end to a busy site seeing day.

For now, I’m heading off to bed, as more fun awaits tomorrow.