Thursday was our last full day in Amsterdam! How do these things go by so fast?

Today was a bit more of a relaxing day as we spent the time trying to see parts of the city we'd missed before. We also ate  a lot of food today! One Amsterdam delicacy I really wanted to try was bitterballen! I'd heard about these little Dutch meatballs online and desperately wanted to try them! We actually searched high and low for a traditional place that actually served them (have I mentioned lately how Amsterdam is full of pancake and burger joints?). In the end, we found this adorable cafe that had all sorts of interesting things on the menu, and I finally got my bitterballen!

Afterwards, we were still peckish. I'd heard about this really awesome place called Foodhallen which was, if you couldn't guess, a giant food hall, and we decided to check it out. There were so many varieties of food on offer. In the end, Moose settled on a loaded hot dog and I had a plate full of sushi. Like I said in my first post, Amsterdam seemed to be nuts on sushi, so I felt like I had to finally try some out. It was great!

Afterwards, we took another canal trip, this time not a pizza dinner cruise, but purely a sightseeing tour.  We were given earphones and were guided as we sailed around the city. It was a lovely way to see Amsterdam and we got to see a few areas we'd missed in our wandering.

We also finally found the infamous Red Light District. Isn't that crazy? It's not that we'd been trying to find it, but I'd been lead to believe that you just plain couldn't miss it the moment you stepped foot in Amsterdam. We strolled through during the day so we didn't see any of the, uh, sights, but it mostly surprised me that we'd not stumbled across it earlier.

By now it was starting to get late, and we had reservations at Moeders, a restaurant I'd seen online and really wanted to check out. It was a place I knew I'd finally get some real Dutch food, but what I loved about it was that it was dedicated to mothers, which is what the name means, and it pays tribute to them in such a unique way. The walls are absolutely covered in photographs that people have brought in of their mothers. They are everywhere, floor to ceiling, on the doors, behind the bar. It was incredible.

We shared a starter called 'Mama's Happas' which was a plate of five different appetizers. I don't actually remember what any of them were now but I remember they were delicious, especially the shell fish that I think was filled with a cheesy garlic sauce. For my main, I had the 'Hotchpotch', which I appreciate doesn't look very appetizing at all, but I guarantee it was delicious! It was a bed of mashed potatoes (with spinach, I think, which is why it's green!), served with bacon, a meat ball and a giant sausage. It was so delicious and rich, I couldn't finish it all! Moose had the steak and that looked lovely, too!

Below are some shots I took while we wandered around Amsterdam at night, from before we went to Moeders. We actually found a nice (Australian!) bar to get a drink in before the restaurant, too. It was our last night there, so I wanted to make the most of it.

I absolutely love cities at night time, I think that's when they come to life. I'm a sucker for twinkly lights and starry skies.

And after that... it was time to go back to our hotel and enjoy our last night in Amsterdam. We still had a few things left to do the next morning before we flew out, so we wanted to get a good night sleep to be ready.

Welcome to part two of my little and very overdue rundown of our trip to Amsterdam last year! In my previous post I talked about our first day exploring the city, which brings us to Wednesday already (mid week breaks seem to go so fast!).

On Wednesday we had some concrete plans. I wanted to check out ARTIS, Amsterdam's zoo. I'd heard really good things about it, though I have to say I think some of the enclosures looked a little small, which is I suppose the problem with city zoos. Two things really set ARTIS apart from other zoos I've been to, however. One is an area called Micropia, which is a 'zoo' dedicated to microbes. It sounds a bit strange, but it was really interesting and they had so many fun ways of teaching us about microbes - plus, I'm sorry, but tardigrades are cute okay?

They also had an area called the 'Forest House' and honestly? This part was worth the price of admission alone. It was only a small area but it was absolutely amazing. It was an enclosed building that had a humid forest atmosphere inside. What was thoroughly wonderful though was how the animals were just free to roam around inside, and there were so many different species to enjoy. There was absolutely nothing between you and them, so you had little dik-dik deer trotting along the floor in front of you, and if you turned around to take a photo of the sloth slowly climbing over head, you might find yourself face to face with a lizard just happily perched on a branch in front of you. It was wonderful. I could have happily spent hours there (and they even provided benches so that you could do exactly that!)

Apologies for the blurry photo - it's pretty difficult taking a photo of a skittering dik-dik as it dashes across the path in front of you!

After the zoo, we had another short wander around Amsterdam before heading to our destination for the afternoon.

We had tickets to visit the Anne Frank house, which is the actual building Anne Frank hid in during the war and the place she wrote most of her now-famous diary. I'd wanted to visit forever, and while I can't say it was a particularly nice or fun experience, it was incredibly memorable and definitely something worth seeing. I obviously didn't take any photos, out of respect, but it's an experience I won't forget for a long time even without them.

In the evening, we had dinner plans with some friends of mine! I know Daphne and Alex from UK Ponycon and when they heard I'd be in town they suggested we meet up! We went to a lovely restaurant and spent a good few hours just catching up, discussing everything from My Little Pony to League of Legends and, of course, Disney (they're Disney nuts, too!) It's always lovely having a chance to catch up with friends you only usually see at conventions! Especially when they live in a foreign country!

After dinner, we were exhausted, and finally toddled back to our hotel to get ready for our last full day in Amsterdam on Thursday, which I'll cover in my next post!

So, this post is a little late. In fact, Moose and I went to Amsterdam almost a year ago to the day. We decided to have a midweek holiday to celebrate our anniversary (we usually try to go away, as our anniversary is late January and it gives us something fun to look forward to after the festivities of Christmas have given away to miserable New Year blues.) Unfortunately, I'm a terrible blogger (though, obviously, trying to fix that now!), and I just never got around to writing about it. So, in the spirit of 2019 and resolutions of 'being a better blogger', I've decided to finally get off my butt, a year later, to try and do the trip justice! Here's hoping I can remember the details all this time later. I have our tickets, receipts and leaflets stored away in a 'to be scrapbooked' box... which is another thing I'm terrible about doing in a timely manner. Ahem.

Anyway! Amsterdam! Moose and I want to do more cheap city breaks around Europe, and I'm not really sure why we decided on Amsterdam as our first destination in this endeavour, but when we found cheap flights and a lovely hotel, it all just fell into place! We flew out of Gatwick (after our customary Wagamama meal in the airport) and were on our way!

Getting from the airport to our hotel was easy peasy. The airport is an easy train journey into Amsterdam Centraal Station, which is in the heart of the city. From there, you can walk or get a tram pretty much anywhere you want to go. Our hotel was right next to a Line 2 tram stop, which is how we got in and out of the city centre every day. It was only about twenty minutes into town, and the trams ran very regularly and late into the night. Being slightly outside the centre made our hotel cheaper, and it really wasn't that inconvenient at all .

By the time we got to our hotel, it was already getting late. The main downside with being slightly out of town was that there weren't as many dinner options as we'd have liked. We debated taking a tram somewhere, but I'd discovered a tempting Chinese restaurant around the corner, and we thought we'd give it a go. It turned out to be a good choice, because the food was delicious! We stayed there until our bellies were fit to burst, and then we returned to our hotel room.

We paid a little extra for deluxe rooms, simply because I fell in love with the mid-century decor. They were so cosy and comfortable, and the bathroom had a heated floor, which was just heavenly. The hotel even had UK plug sockets and USB plugs, which made life a lot easier for a techy couple who travel with a hundred gadgets!

Day two was our first 'real' day. We had a pizza canal cruise booked for dinner that evening, so we decided to spend the majority of the day just wandering about the central area and exploring what Amsterdam had to offer. We found a lovely place for lunch called 'Pancake & Burger Bar'. We actually liked this place so much we returned to them on our last morning. I hate to say it out loud, but Amsterdam wasn't really that great for food. It felt like everywhere was a pancake place, sushi restaurant or sold burgers and steaks. Which, y'know, that's fine, but one of the joys of going abroad is to try out unusual cuisine. The food we did eat was delicious, though. I opted for a mushroom and Swiss cheese burger while Moose had a pizza. And of course, I had some Heineken. I would end up drinking a lot of Heineken on this trip! Hey, it's cultural.

After lunch, we had a long walk around the city. One of my favourite things to do on the first day of a holiday is just explore, with very little planning. I like to get a feel for the place. (Conversely, I try to have solid plans set in place for the rest of the trip, or else I feel like we're missing things and not getting the most out of our time! I get quite neurotic about it!)

I absolutely love the tall buildings in Amsterdam. I think I took more photos of them than of anything else. They just had so much character. And yes, there were a lot of bikes!

I also seem to have taken a whole lot of photos of trams. I know they're not very exciting to a lot of people, but here in the South West of England we don't have trams! I'm excited when I go to Croydon or Sheffield and get to ride a tram, let alone fancy Amsterdam trams.

Before long, it was time to get to the pier for our dinner cruise. I actually don't have any good photos of this, because we were too busy enjoying the views and dare I say unlimited Heinekin. Amsterdam may not have been the place of a thousand cuisine options, but I put on half a stone in beer. Oops.

Cheers!

Hello Blogosphere! Sorry it's been a while! I took a little break down to Cornwall with my very best friends and we spent every day exploring the county, eating delicious food and gaming in the evenings! We were staying in an adorable coverted coach house called Duporth Lodge just outside Charlestown, and during the week we visited Port Isaac, Lands End, Helston and Launceston. We went to Geevor Tin Mine, Flambards, St. Michael's Mount, rode on a steam train in Bodmin and toured Healey's Cider Farm, where I sipped many free samples! Yum!

In the evenings, we had gaming to do! We had a cyberpunk themed D&D session and I tried my hand at my first game of Gamma World, where I rolled an empathic plague bearer. Lovely! We also had a little BBQ/luau, as it was my birthday the day before we left and I've always wanted to have a luau! My friends were awesome and all brought along props, supplies and food for the theme! Pash's brother Joe even baked me the most kick-ass cake ever! I always said it's not a real luau without a spitroast pig, right? Well...

Thanks to my buddy Sarah for taking some of these photos (mainly any non-selfie ones of me, hah). It was an amazing holiday, but it's nice to be home and back working on convention prep! I don't have long before the next one - in fact, I'm off up to Manchester on Friday to sell at Manchester MCM Comic Con! So I'd better be off! Busy busy!