Amsterdam: Day 3

This is day 3 of a short trip to Amsterdam.  Check out Day 1 and Day 2 if you haven’t already.

Breakfast on day 3 was at Latei (Zeedijk 143)I think this is was uitsmijter.  fried egg on a hearty, seedy toast.  I don’t think there was ham.  the freshly-squeezed orange juice was great.

or was this the uitsmijter?  Tomato, cheese, possibly an egg on the same toast.  You can see a unremarkable croissant in the background.

The waitress was super nice but a bit slow.  we ordered a traditional dutch apple pie because we hadn’t yet:

dutch apple pie – appeltaart.

The pie was a bit doughy.  I don’t remember thinking it was all that great.  The place was pretty cool though – great people watching.  There seemed to be a lot of tourists out and we enjoyed watching the groups walk or ride by.

I still needed my coffee, so we walked towards a place that had also been mentioned on a chowhound thread, coffee connection (Nieuwezijds Kolk 33).

coffee connection: storefront

once again, a super nice girl behind the counter.  we chatted for a bit about where I was from and coffee and so on.

espresso at coffee connection

I was really hoping that the espresso would be good given how welcoming the barista was, but it was thin and tasted a little burnt.

I was a little surprised about the espresso selection in the center of town.  my only enjoyable espresso was from the stumptown pop-up shop.  There were other shops that we didn’t get to visit because they were farther off from our hotel or other destinations such as espressofabriek (Gosschalklaan 7) and brandmeester’s (Van Baerlestraat 13) .  Maybe next time.

We walked for a bit to find another place to rent bikes.

older guy with groceries

I think I took this last picture because of the guy’s bike, but I can’t really make it out anymore.  I think it reminded me of a strida.

bike parking at amsterdam centraal

The first place we checked out for a bike rental seemed a little too expensive, so we walked to amsteram centraal station to check out star bike rental (De Ruyterkade 127).  I was kind of blown away by the number of bikes in the bike parking lot.  We just aren’t used to seeing this many bikes in the states.

more bikes in the parking area

we got our rental bikes and rode to the Jordaan.  the bikes were crappy as the last ones we’d rented and slightly more expensive but still pretty cheap.

RIH sport through the window

I’d really wanted to check out the framebuilder at RIH Sport Amsterdam (Westerstraat 150) but unfortunately they were closed.  It was still fun peering in through the window.  The Jordaan was a neat neighborhood to walk and bike through.  It felt a lot more neighborhoody than other areas and seemed like a nice place to live.

A fun set of window decorations

We eventually made our way back towards the city center.  we stopped by the cracked kettle (Raamsteeg 3 to pick up some beer:

bike, with westy crate

we had joked about how it’d be cool if a bike had a westvleteren crate.   here one was..  Its tires were flat, so it was more for display than beer transport.

entry

I wandered around a bit and took more photos.  Our weekend was coming to an end and we had to head back to the southern tip of the country for the night.  We took the train but, not knowing any dutch, did not know that the last portion of our ride was not in operation due to maintenance or construction.  Luckily, the NS train had arranged for a set of shuttle buses.  I was kind of happy to take the shuttle bus because it’d mean that we’d be able to see more of the countryside.

the bus from maastricht

All in all, it was a fun weekend.  A bit exhausting with all of the wandering around, but well worth it.