Hello to another beautiful day! Ok, it wasn’t actually a beautiful day here, at least not weather-wise. Locals tell us the weather has been making the news in Amsterdam this week because it is colder and rainier than us typical for April here.

Lucky us.

Despite the weather trying to foil us, it was still a lovely day. We were supposed to travel Edam this morning, a smaller town in the countryside, but there was still so much more to do in Amsterdam that we decided to stay out here.

We began with some bagels.

The bagels were fine and were a great comfort food, but not the best bagels we’ve ever had.

While waiting for our bagels we did enjoy reading a Dutch magazine via help from google translate. especially enjoyable was the quiz about what “lifeforce” we were.

After bagels and fresh pressed juice (which was amazing) we hit the streets to finish the Rick Steve’s intro to Amsterdam walk that we started a couple days before. More fun sites and info awaited us:

I don’t know if you can see in the pics, but the clouds would roll in, the temp would drop and it would rain, then it would clear up and be beautiful. Over and over again.

I got to have a couple of just do Amsterdam experiences. And by “must do” to mean “must eat”.

First one was Van Wonderen stroopwafels

This was our first straight off the grill stroopwafel in the Netherlands. It was great, but I think in the future I’ll stick to plain ones as the chocolate made it a bit too sweet for me. They looked gorgeous, though, and the side that was plain with the syrup was lovely.

Next we had our first herring experience. We kept hearing that herring was an important experience in Amsterdam, and it is served what looks and feels like raw but us actually cured, with pickles and onions. Jimmy wimped out and got the deep fried version, but I gamely decided to dive into my cultural experience with the pure version. When in Amsterdam…

It was… not really my thing. Jimmy’s deep fried version was basically fish and chips, so it was great. Mine was a bit tough for me to get through, but I made it! Culture experienced!

After the great herring experiment Jimmy and I decided to part ways. I went to the nine streets district to do some shopping, and he went back to the houseboat to take a nap.

I thought the shops in the nine streets were super cute with lots of local boutiques, but I was too busy shopping to take pics so we’ll move it right along.

After shopping/a nap we classed up our outfits a bit and headed to museum district to visit the Rijksmuseum and have a nice dinner.

The Rijksmuseum is an area called Museumplein, which houses a few museums (including the Van Gogh museum we went a couple of days ago) and a beautiful little park with Cherry blossom trees.

The Rijksmuseum is a huge museum in a beautiful building, with an astounding collection of art.

Here’s the front:

Currently they are having a special exhibit where they’ve pulled together the biggest collection ever brought into one place of Vermeer’s works.

The exhibit was so popular that I had to stay up late one night waiting for tickets to go on sale. They sold out within minutes, and we got our tickets. Because I am dedicated to art despite knowing almost nothing about it.

And here is some of Vermeer’s art. These pieces are currently on loan from all over the world, and it was interesting to learn more his style and technique.

My favorite is the last one with the lyre, because I think she looks like a gremlin.

After visiting the museum it was time for dinner. Each trip I try to scour a place that it worth a splurge and have a really nice dinner or lunch. This trip, after extensive research (seriously, you would not BELIEVE how much research I do for our trips) we chose Rijks, which right next to the museum.

The food was incredible, the atmosphere and service were nice but too stuffy, and we enjoyed some lively conversation over a 3 hour meal. I’ve included pics of what we ate, but I should have included the menu because I have no idea how to describe any of it. Definitely one of our favorite fancy food experiences, and some of the dishes were Vermeer themed to go with the exhibit.

Somehow I didn’t end up with good pics of the meat dish (lamb) or the dessert (impossibly complicated but basically a lemon cake with some kind of gelato and meringue).

And that was our day. Tomorrow evening is King’s night, which is the beginning of the giant celebration for King Willem-Alexander the king of the Netherlands.

Should be fun.