Autumn in Amsterdam

For two days now the weather looks pretty gloomy and under this autumnal influence I thought of telling you about my autumn in Amsterdam. I enjoyed autumn in all its stages this year and here, in Amsterdam, I had the opportunity to enjoy them all in just a few days.

When we arrived it was sunny, warm and we attended to a birthday party (a co-worker of my friend). A party was the perfect start for this trip. Unfortunately we couldn’t stay at the whole party that was actually a series of activities during the whole day. But it was a real pleasure to meet new people and have lunch with my friend’s buddies. The place (Blue Amsterdam) was really well chosen too because we could see Amsterdam from up above.

And because it was fall and we were in Amsterdam for Halloween we couldn’t resist the temptation to attend the parade. First we did some shopping to prepare for it but we weren’t too inspired to leave that on the last moment. You could’ve waited in line even for a half an hour. It was hard to move inside the store because of all the things scattered on the shelves. It was a true madness but we did it. Of course it took us two hours to get ready.

We found the parade right in the center and we arrived at Transformatorhuis where it was a club night. The dress code was “immortal fame” and I was a little off because of the short term preparation. We danced and admired all the costumes. These people are very ingenious and they prepared very seriously their costumes. I could admire the zombie versions of the boys from Clockwork Orange, Michael Jackson, Louis Armstrong, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe and many more. You have to celebrate Halloween in Amsterdam in this lifetime.

On other day we did a trip to Zaanse Schans. It was a perfect autumn day. As we left the city behind, we were entering more and more into the fog.

My friends said that the weather is not on our side, that in the sunny days, the windmills, can be seen much better but either way, I still loved it. We stopped at a windmill where gouda cheese was sold and I’ve tried all the combination (later I took some with coconut, lavender and herbs for home). The next stop was at the wooden slippers windmill where we could see a demonstration for how this type of shoes are made.

After cheese a desert was very welcomed. We took a gaufre for each of us. I was very inspired not to pun chocolate on top. It was already too sweet for me even simple as it was. In any case, I think that they eat very sweet.

After all that sweetness we took a stroll among the houses. I was amazed by the scale. You could enter the house right from the alley. At the first sight everything looked miniaturized for me but the feeling was fantastic. It was like living in a fairy tale.

Of course we couldn’t skip the Red District. Somewhere on these streets we could taste a special gin at Proeflokaal Wynand Fockink.

Then we enjoyed a delicious fresh minty tea at Café de Jaren.

During our staying we wanted to experience as much as we could the Dutch dishes. At some sweetshop (De Drie Grafjes) we tried several. I thought I was able to eat that much but I forgot how very sweet are the deserts from around here. The most interesting thing was the Red velvet cake.

In one evening we ate at a Chinese restaurant (oriental City) where we had duck. In some other evening we had dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant (Addis Ababa). I think I liked this place the most. You could’ve smell of spices right from the entrance and the atmosphere was very intimate. The food, with no doubt, was delicious. At the end I could enjoy an Ethiopian spiced tea.

The last day was a shopping and long walks day. Last stop we made was at some bistro (Bij Ons) to try poffertjes that are incredibly sweet too. We wanted to buy for home an apple pie from a famous place but it was closed so we took the pie from that shop’s main competitor, that was opened. :)) Next day we were going to take our flight so we couldn’t postpone the pie.