Easter In Amsterdam



I spent some time this weekend seriously considering whether I could justify purchasing a pair of wooden clogs. They are just so cool and shiny and they come in so many different colours, but in the end my practicality won out and I did not in fact purchase a pair of wooden clogs, much as I would have liked to.

I did enjoy being a tourist for the weekend though. I went on a 4 day coach (that's European for "bus") tour. We stopped in Brussels on the way there and Bruges on the way back, spending all day Saturday and Sunday exploring the city of Amsterdam. I love seeing new places and it still blows my mind how close together everything is here in Europe. In Canada it costs hundreds of dollars to fly across the country and takes about 5 hours to drive to my grandmother's house in the same province of the  country. Over here you can literally buy a bus ticket for a few pounds (if you book really far in advance) and it took less than three hours to drive from Belgium to France. I'm definitely excited to enjoy all this proximity Europeans enjoy (so many of them are so well-travelled!) and to put this incredible Canadian passport to good use.

Amsterdam is one of a kind as a city, and some parts of it you have to see to believe. The first night we arrived we did a walking tour of the Red Light District, which was so surreal and a little overwhelming, honestly. There were girls in the windows right next to everyday people enjoying a nice meal in a restaurant, and then during the day there were families and tourists exploring all of the museums. I really enjoyed seeing the tulip gardens at Keukenhof, which reminded me of the Butchart Gardens in Victoria. It was a huge garden with walking paths, a cafe, and a windmill that you could climb up to get a good view of the whole thing. I even saw a real live Easter Bunny hopping around the greenery, which made my day.  

Some highlights include seeing the many cats that seem to roam the city, in and out of bars, cafes and restaurants (literally there was a cat sitting on a stool in a bar), the near freezing weather and crazy wind of the canal city and glimpsing one of the only male window workers in Amsterdam. I tasted a bunch of different kinds of cheese and ate waffles and chips pretty much every day. There were lots of other Canadian girls on my tour and I met some awesome Australians as well.

I was also able to visit the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and take a cruise through the canals of the city. Of course I picked up some chocolate in Bruges on our way back (gotta love those Belgians...) and now my Kit Kat Easter egg seems a little sad in comparison. In retrospect I should have bought a few hundred more grams of chocolate, just in case.All in all it was a great weekend, though I'm pretty exhausted as our coach was late getting back through UK immigration and we missed the ferry.  

So it's off to another few days of work at the new job, where things seem to be settling in quite nicely. I'm even making my own spreadsheets now (I know this is the thrilling sort of news people want to hear back at home) and learning more by the day. When I reconcile my first set of payments, I'll be sure to let everyone know asap :)