Mark and Gertie's European Adventure - Part II

Mark and I flew early on the morning of New Years Eve from Cork (Ireland) into Amsterdam Schiphol airport. From there, we hopped a train to Amsterdam Centraal station.  The train station itself was pretty cool, so we knew right away this was going to be a fun place!

We picked up a pair of 3-day tram passes, then made our way toward Park Plaza Vondelpark.  Because we hadn't planned our trip very far in advance, it was the only decent hotel available on NYE that was reasonably priced and proximate to the action.  It ended up being a really nice place.  Our room was funky and modern, the front desk had a plate of tasty "olliebollen" for the taking (see pics), and the hotel was near the museum square where the big NYE event was going to take place.

We spent most of the day walking and tramming around, taking in all the sights.  The photos hardly capture the awesomeness of A'dam... everybody riding bikes, beautiful canals and architecture, endless shops and eateries, people from around the world... I was instantly in love with this place! It wasn't just another big city.  That night we had dinner at "Dubbel Eten en Drinken" - a restaurant we'd found on good old TripAdvisor that seemed to be popular with the locals.  The service was friendly, the portions big, and the food delicious!  We definitely enjoyed "eten & drinken" there, and even tried to go back another night but it was closed :(

After dinner we headed for the Museumplein for the national NYE celebration.  There were a TON of people and a big stage with a DJ and performances by Dutch bands VanVelzen and Miss Montreal (never heard of them).  The whole crowd went crazy when the DJ played Abba's "Waterloo" ... it was very bizarre and gave us a good chuckle as we sipped our beer and glühwein (hot, mulled wine - yum).  The theme was "first kiss of the new year."  Two huge inflatable dolls, a Dutch boy and girl, inched toward each other as the clock ticked toward midnight.  It was kind of corny, but cute.  When the new year rang in, the dolls kissed, we kissed, and the whole place went nuts!  The sponsored fireworks display was good, but the real excitement came from the plethora of pyromaniacs scattered around town.  It sounded like a war zone as entired boxes of firecrackers were ignited left and right and colored sparks were shooting over the sky.  (It made our 4th of July seem tame.)  It was a spectacular night we will never forget!

The next couple days were action-packed, despite not having a real agenda. We moved on to B&B 1680, a neat 17th century canal house situated near the Red Light District (how convenient! haha).  There wasn't a single "favorite" thing we did or saw; the whole city (or what we were able to see of it in a short time, anyway) was fascinating.  I would jump on the chance to go back and see more if I could.  We mostly just wandered, ate drank, and ate some more!  A few highlights were the Anne Frank House (I'm reading her Diary now... sad), the Van Gogh Museum, and the Rijksmuseum (Dutch national museum).

Check out the slideshow below, or click on it to go to the Picasa album online.  I "geotagged" most of the places so you can see where we were on the map.  Enjoy... Part III of our journey will be posted soon :D