The finale: Amsterdam!

After some twenty plus countries we finally arrive at the last, but not least country of our trip.  Even though we were a bit down that our trip was so quickly coming to an end, we were both very excited about spending the end of it in Amsterdam.  This was Sharon's second time here, and my first. She visited here with her friend Michelle during the first few months of our relationship.  She loved Amsterdam, but she did remember missing me a lot and wishing I was there with her, so she was excited to show me around.

During my studies in Korea, I became friends with one of my fellow classmates who lived in Amsterdam and was taking 3 months off to learn Korean and live in Seoul.  Fortunately for us, Kit was back living in Amsterdam, and offered us a place to stay while we were there.  His family owned a townhouse where they rented out some rooms, and one of the rooms was vacant so we were able to crash there.  Unfortunately, there wasn't any furniture, but he was able to get us some sleeping pads, and we had our sleeping bag liners so we were good to go.

Keeping it real in our free, yet no so luxurious Amsterdam pad.

Kit met us at the train station after our arrival and took us to the townhouse which was about a 20 to 30 minute tram ride from the station.  He showed us in, and then gave us a couple hours to get situated in our new pad and all showered up for a night on the town.  In a previous life, Kit had been a tour guide in Amsterdam, so he was going to dust off some of his tour guide skills and show us some of the city. We met him in the city a few hour later, and he took us to a traditional Dutch restaurant called Moeders (which is Dutch for mothers).  We ordered the Dutch sampler meal for three which was basically just a ton of really good food.  There were different kinds of meat stews, potato dishes, red cabbage with apples, some really good apple and rhubarb sauce, and I'm sure some other things I've forgotten about.  Not the cheapest meal but definitely worth it.

With Kit at Meoders restaurant just prior to our Dutch feast.

After dinner, Kit took us around town on a whirlwind tour of city, with a final stop in the red light district which was absolutely fascinating.  It was nothing like I imagined.  I pictured maybe like one fairly long and narrow street with girls in windows, but it was way, way more than that.  It's like this huge main drag with all these alleyways splitting off from the main street.  On the main drag you have all the mainstream girls, and then when you branch off into the smaller streets and alleyways you get more of the niche markets.  There was an alleyway for big women, one for black women, one for asian women, one for men that looked like women, and it just went on and on.  I was amazed.  The crazy part was that you'd constantly seen men coming in and out of these rooms, and you'd hear them negotiating out front with the girls.  It was nuts.  I noticed that when I was walking next to Sharon all the girls paid no attention to me, but as soon as Sharon was a few paces ahead they'd lock eyes with you and give you that look of "You want some?"

We weren't very camera happy during our time in the red light district for obvious reasons, but I'll share with you the one pic we did take of some graffiti we came across.

Mad props to the guy for getting his hand up in time.

Instead of giving you the day by day of our time in Amsterdam, I'll instead split out our activities into two groups; cultural/touristy vs. food/drink/other related.  Just a warning that the cultural/touristy section will be pretty small.

Our cultural activities in Amsterdam consisted of a trip to Anne Frank's house, and a trip to the Van Gogh museum.  Visiting the Anne Frank house was both very interesting and very upsetting.  Such a sad story.  Coming out I totally wanted to hunt down the bastard that ratted them out.  The Van Gogh museum was cool, but I'm definitely not an art guy (unless that art is made of Lego of course).  Learning about his life was very interesting though.

The Anne Frank House.

On the touristy side things some highlights included a boat tour through the canals of the city, and renting bicycles for the day.

Cruising down the canals of Amsterdam.

The canal cruise was okay.  The coolest part was seeing all the boat houses docked along the canal.  How awesome would it to be to have a vacation home in Amsterdam that was a boat house?  Maybe one day...

Posing together in a park with our bikes

Peace.

Renting bikes for the day was pretty fun.  We rode all around the city getting some solid exercise in which probably burned about 5% of all the calories we took in that day.  We also had the bikes overnight, so we were able to skip out twice on a tram ride, riding back to the townhouse one night, and back into the city the next morning.  No wrong turns too which was pretty amazing.  

Kind of random, but one day we came across a Lays potato chip store that sold nothing but Lays potato chips.  Sharon was quite amazed, and had to go in and buy a bag for herself.

Excuse me sir, where do you keep your Lays potato chips?

Sharon and her limited edition Aioli e Aglio potato chips.

While on this random kick, on the way back from dropping our bikes off back at the rental place we came across an interesting sight...

Sharon and a naked invisible man.  Brilliant!

Several minutes past the naked invisible man we came across some high end department store that I'm neglecting to remember the name of.  Anyways, Sharon wanted to go in a check out the Louis Vuitton store that was inside because since the Euro had fallen so much recently compared to the dollar, all Louis stuff was super cheap compared to in the U.S.  I know...uh'oh, right?  So we went in, and I was like, "We can't buy anything!"  And guess what happended???  We bought a Louis wallet for me!!!  Seriously?!?!  Yes, completely serious.  Who ever knew Sharon would rub off on me so fast;)

And now for the food/beer section so I can wash away the fact that I bought a Louis wallet.  Here are some pics of much of the food we ate and beer we drank during our four days in Amsterdam.  We'll start with the food.

Pancakes + Bacon = BFF

Sharon about to chow down on a herring sandwich.

Oh how I miss you my sweet, sweet bitter balls.

Post-devouring of a sampler plate of some wings,
bitter balls and something else I can't recall.

Nutella and powdered-sugar covered mini pancakes.  Wow.

And now a sampling of the beer we drank while in Amsterdam:

Unknown beer & La Trappe Trappist.

Brasserie d'Achouffe: My favorite
beer while in Amsterdam.

Enjoying some beer and cheering on the U.S. Olympic team to victory.

Leffe

Sharon drink beer out of cool mug.

On our last night in Amsterdam, we met up with Kit again for a few drinks and he took us to a bar that was in the base of a windmill.  We couldn't leave the Netherlands without seeing a windmill of course.  We sat outside on a very nice, but somewhat chilly summer night, and enjoyed a few last beers before heading back to the townhouse to pack up and have our final sleep abroad before returning back home the next day.

What better use for a windmill than converting into a bar?

Westamlle Trappist Dubbel

Thanks again Kit for setting us up with some free digs while we were there, and for taking us around town on that first night.  It was great hanging out with you, and hopefully we can return the favour at some point in the future.

The final picture of our trip at the Amsterdam airport.

We finished packing up in the morning, and sadly made our way to the airport.  We were upset that the trip was over, but we were excited about going home to see family and friends.  Looking back now almost a year later, this was definitely the best six months of my life, and I hope Sharon and I will have the chance to do it again.

And for a final send off...I give you Sharon inside a giant clog...