Weekend of fun in Amsterdam

Milli and Emma and Emma’s boyfriend Ollie came from Brussels, and Willy and Cat came from Luxembourg for the weekend. I was very impressed with Milli’s navigational ability – armed with just a map and some printed directions, she managed to arrive not too long after the expected arrival time!

After a well-deserved sleep-in on Saturday morning, we headed into town and went to the Albert Cuyp markets. In the rain they weren’t so enjoyable, but we still managed to have fun. A warm waffle with chocolate helped a little. The markets were a long line of stalls selling luggage, then fruit and veggies, then clothes, then toiletries, then luggage, then flowers, then fruit and veggies, then socks, and so on and so forth. By the second block everything is looking a little similar (including the prices). Because of the bad weather we didn’t take any photos. I will hopefully head back there on a day when it isn’t raining, to peruse further (and possibly get another suitcase or something to ship back all the extra stuff I’ve bought here!).

A whole crew of Kiwis (and some South Africans) went out for dinner – 24 people in all. We invaded an Argentinian Steakhouse. There seem to be more of them here than I would expect to see in Argentina! One day I had lunch at one Argentinian Steakhouse, and dinner at another! (ok, ok, gimme a break, there was hardly anything else open, it was a public holiday)

It’s a dead giveaway that it’s an Argentinian Steakhouse when the directions state “It’s the third ‘El Rancho’ restaurant on this street”. They’re just seriously everywhere. The same thing is with the ‘Bulldog Bar’. There’s about a million of them in Amsterdam, too. Sometimes all on the same street.

Here's Willy, Milli, Kinga and Cat at El Rancho:

And here's Milli, Kinga and I:

So after our unique steakhouse experience (complete with some fantastic sangria), we moved onto the more ‘typical’ Amsterdam experiences, and a number of the group enjoyed the local take on ‘muffins’ before attending an ‘adult’ show. The initial plan was to head to a club after the show, but the ‘muffins’ proved to be particularly potent, and that combined with the rain saw a sorry bunch of us head back to Amstelveen in taxis pretty much straight after the show!

Here's Kinga, Milli and I at the coffee shop:

One really strange thing is that in the centre of Amsterdam there are all these plastic things, which are basically open air urinals. Guys just walk up to them and, uh, relieve themselves...