Netherlands: Day 15 and 16

Aug 13

Aug 13 Netherlands: Day 15 and 16

Day 15

Friday we went out in search of food after work. And we found PIZZA! Fancy, artisanal pizza. It was at a cool little bakery/fancy grocery store in the city centre called Stache. While we were there a lady with the nicest dog came in, but she left before I could change the film on my camera and ask for a picture. Tragedy!

some beautifully designed bottles of different fruit (and flower!) sodas at Stache

I also caved and bought one of their homemade chocolate bars. They had every type imaginable, wrapped up in different patterned paper. The one that I bought was milk chocolate mixed with peanut butter. It was. SO good.

We went home and cooked the pizza and had a great evening. (I still haven't gotten my notes back but I'm preeetty sure we watched pokemon again).

OH! And I forgot to add it to my last post, but on Thursday we went to Amsterdam with bunch of people from work. We got lunch and chatted at a restaurant near the Van Gogh museum before spending nearly all day at the Rijks Museum.

The Rijks is a huge art museum full of classical paintings, sculptures, jewellery, weapons, furniture, and an airplane (?!) It was really incredible. We spent almost 4 hours in the museum, right up until it closed, and I still feel like I missed so much. While we walked around and looked at the galleries, I counted 5 paintings that I studied during art history last year. There's also an incredible library in the museum where the public is allowed to go and research art or search the museum's archives.

the second and third floor of the library, complete with spiral staircase

Once we all left the Rijks, the group split up to go home while a few of us decided to stay and walk around for a while. We visited some cute shops and had dessert for dinner before taking the train home.

Day 16

Saturday it was back to Amsterdam. This time we ended up trying to navigate ourselves using a print out of a map which led to walking 40 minutes in the opposite direction and nearly out of the city. Good one. At least we got some nice, industrial park views on our way back ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Once we made it back into the city we noticed a few boats go by, decorated with balloons and streamers. Upon reaching one of the main canals we realized it was Europride. The loud 80s music and rainbow boats helped give it away.

The thing was like a giant street festival. There were huge crowds along the canal for miles, and people dancing everywhere. If you looked up, almost every apartment had 3 or 4 people sitting on the windowsill with a glass of wine in their hand, watching the boats go by. Everyone was so excited, and having a great time.

This was a fun picture. When I'm walking around with a camera hung over my neck, I tend to get calls of "Can I be in the picture?" or "Not gonna take one of me?" It's always a joke, of course, and I find it pretty funny. This time we were going thro… — This was a fun picture. When I'm walking around with a camera hung over my neck, I tend to get calls of "Can I be in the picture?" or "Not gonna take one of me?" It's always a joke, of course, and I find it pretty funny. This time we were going through the crowd and the guy in the photo said something like "Awe not going to take one of me?". I turned around to face him and said "Yeah sure! Just stay there!" and put my camera up to take the picture. He just looked at me for a second and said "wait..really?" and burst out laughing. That's when I took the photo. He was really excited about it and waved before walking away smiling and laughing.

It was a great day and I used up a whole roll of film. Too see the full gallery, which is full of lots of fun, colourful pictures, click here.

And that's the day! We walked down the canal for a while before breaking away from the parade to go walk around the city. After a stop at McDonalds (everything else was either packed or closed and we were getting desperate) where I got a child chicken burger that I PRAY comes to Canada soon, we headed for the train station.