Europe 2022 Day 4: Final day in Amsterdam

 We woke up on Sunday with the intention to take the train for a day trip to Belgium, but we were both so tired from the last two days that we decided to sleep in and enjoy a little more of Amsterdam.

Our first stop was The Pancake Bakery. Amsterdam is not overly well known for its food, but they are famous for its pancake houses. I was excited to try a pancake!

My Dutch pancake with chocolate chips, cinnamon ice cream, and Stroop waffles!  It was delicious.

Pure happiness!

Ken had a savory pancake, which had bacon and a few other savory ingredients. His looked a lot like an omelet.  The pancakes are very flat. 

More beautiful scenery around Amsterdam. 

After we were full from pancakes, we walked around the city window shopping. We ended up walking to a local brewery that was complete with a giant windmill, the largest wooden windmill in Amsterdam as a matter of fact!

We sat outside at the brewery and enjoyed drinks and snacks.

One of Ken's favorite photos from Amsterdam

We left the brewery and walked around more of Amsterdam and stopped off for food and drinks. I think getting lost around Amsterdam wandering around is one of the best parts of visiting!

I had a wonderful time exploring Amsterdam on foot.

This ended up being one of my favorite views from our time in Amsterdam. I loved the dark buildings the most.

Not pictured is the homeless man that was next to us on the bridge shouting "Boo"

Beautiful Amsterdam at night

We ended the night with excitement to fly to Switzerland in the morning!

Europe 2022 Day 3: Volendam and Amsterdam

 We woke up on Saturday at 10:40 am! I have not slept that late in a really long time. I guess our hotel room being so dark with a black ceiling will do that!

We had plans to take a day trip and ended up taking a quick bus ride to Volendam, a tiny village on the coast. It was so cute and charming.

We did not do much while we were there besides walking around the town and enjoying the farmer's market and stopping for drinks along the water to enjoy the views.

The darling streets of Volendam. It was so clean and so quiet.

We walked out of the city center towards the water and thought these would be shops, but they were houses. What an adorable place to live.

We found this super cute restaurant that was right on the waterfront. We stopped for drinks and pommes frites. We loved the view with all of the sailboats.

Our view for drinks

I loved all of the sailboats

One of the little canals within the city

It was such a charming little village

Besides the main street, it was a sleepy little town

We loved visiting Volendam

The train station in Amsterdam is absolutely gorgeous. I think it is the prettiest train station that I have been to.

We were wandering around Amsterdam and found this adorable place along a canal. A table had just opened up, so we decided to stop for drinks. It was the perfect little spot with a lot of boats that would pass by on the canals. When I went inside to pee, our drinks were delivered and someone spilled my wine.  The guilty party was trying to cover it up and the people behind him were dying laughing. I came out to find a table full of people laughing as I asked why the table was wet. It was such a cute little moment!

Our view for drinks

The guilty party that spilled some of my wine

Just the typical Amsterdam View

We ended up finding a little Italian place for dinner where we watched a 15-year-old German kid out drink his dad and Ken. It was quite impressive. We ended up talking to them for a large part of the evening and got some future travel tips. We ended the night with a bottle of wine and Doritos in our room.

Europe 2022 Days 1 & 2: Amsterdam

 This year's European adventure started off with a visit to a new place for us, Amsterdam!  We started our adventure by flying to Chicago and spending a little time in the United lounge prior to boarding our overnight flight.

United Lounge drinks

Amsterdam on the monitors!  So excited to visit this new city.

Enjoying our welcome champagne on our flight. The flight attendant told us that saying no to champagne was a crime. I agree!

My favorite part of international flights is dessert and champagne.

We slept and landed in Amsterdam.  One of the moments of our flight that made me laugh was when the flight attendant asked Ken if she should wake me for breakfast and Ken simply replied with I wouldn't! So true!

The walk to our hotel was horrible because we went the wrong way and ended up on cobblestone streets with my wheelie bag. It was not delightful, but I was relieved when we arrived at our hotel and dropped off our stuff. 

We left and enjoyed coffee and pastries along the canals. We spent our first day wandering around the city just enjoying the scenery.

Boats and canals as far as the eye can see

I loved all of the flowerboxes along the canals

Bicycles were everywhere as well. It was unreal how everyone bicycles everywhere.

This was part of our daytime walk through the Red Light District. 

Our lunch view along the water.

One thing that I wanted to do in Amsterdam was visit the Anne Frank House. It was crazy to see the tiny Annex where they hid for so long. I teared up when I read about the Frank's and the other family that were in hiding rationed supplies to throw an anniversary party for one of the people that helped hide them. Such kindness and appreciation from people that really had nothing but they wanted to show gratitude. 

Across the canal from the Anne Frank House

After our tour, we decided to stay in the area for food and drinks. We quickly learned that the Dutch are not really known for their food. We tried a few unique food items that were local to Amsterdam.

These were sticks of cheese with friend crust around the cheese with sweet and sour sauce. There are called Kaasstengels. It may have been one of my favorite things I tried on vacation.

Bitterballen, which Ken really liked. These are basically meat with meat gravy that were fried.

The little place where we had bar snacks and drinks. I thought it was so adorable.

Decorative bikes were all over the city.

Walking back to our hotel via the Red Light District, which was quite interesting.

It was a great first day in Amsterdam. We loved how beautiful the city was with all its canals.