Tulips & Red Lights

We got up early today to meet our new friend Carol at the metro stop. She navigated the public transportation for us to meet up with her other friends and get us all the way to beautiful Keukenof. Keukenhof is a gorgeous, 70-acre tulip and flower field/farm, which a giant spinning wind mill. This huge park has immaculately kept grass, stunningly beautiful flowers, a plethora of colors, as well as unique art sculptures, exhibits, bridges, fountain, waterfalls, paths, and many, many extra large wooden clogs around for photo ops. We spent all morning covering this large garden and it was very pleasant. There were a ton of old people and a ton of people getting pushed around in wheelchairs! Which makes sense, but still - I've never seen that many old people outside of a retirement home. When we first got to the park, it was kind of overcast and gloomy looking, but then we went to the top of the windmill and when we came back down to the ground it was magically sunny! It stayed warm and the skies stayed blue the rest of the day. Pretty amazing. It was so cool too because all the flowers were closed up when we arrived, and throughout the morning and early afternoon they opened up and were so, so pretty. I took way too many pictures. At the park, we also tried little mini Dutch pancakes called Profiteroles but that's not how you spell it. Dutch spelling is a significant challenge for me. The little pancakes were fresh, and coated in butter and sugar. Soooo good! Even though it's unhealthy it counts as traditional food so it's justified. Like I need a rationale. We all know I came here to eat and CouchSurf my way through Europe...

Oh yeah, Carol is hilarious! She is like free, 24/7 entertainment. Take a normal topic, and somehow she has a super funny story about it or knows how to make fun of it in just the right way. She is a really cool lady. I don't know how old she is but she has lived/worked/studied in a gazillion countries I swear. So impressive, and awesome to hear her stories! Her friends are also cool, so we had another successful day of adopting insta-friends :)

Laura and I headed back to see Amsterdam in the daylight and got back to the city around 3:30 or 4. We found the I Amsterdam sign and really wanted to take pictures, but it was SMOTHERED in tourists, especially children and this other group of middle eastern friends who were taking like an all day photo shoot all over the dang thing. So our pictures of/with the sign so far suck, we're going to try again tomorrow. After seeing the sign, we went back to Hans' apartment, stopping at a grocery store on the way. We thriftily picked up some pasta, sauce, and a traditional sausage called Rookworst (Rookfort?) and make dinner for ourselves. It was a pretty cheap meal and we have some left for tomorrow too. I'm struggling with the whole "grocery stores are cheaper" versus "pasta is not exciting, new, authentic, or interesting" debacle...The Dutch aren't known for a ton of food but there are some things I want to try. And we just don't have that much time here.

One weird Dutch food thing we tried was a ... oh man. I forget the name. But it was at this crazy little place called Febo. Febos are everywhere here. Kind of like McDonalds, but if you can believe it, more embarrassing! They sell their food in a vending machine atmosphere. All of their food is in little pockets in the wall. You put some coins into a wall, press a button, open a compartment, and take your hot food out of the wall. The food is generally not good quality or particularly yummy, but it is cheap and will put something in your tummy. We tried a pork and onion roll I think it was. Good, but tiny and the aftertaste stayed with me for longer than it was welcome.

After dinner we went to the Red Light District to go see the sights. Extremely bizarre and I'm sure everybody who has been there will know what I mean. We first went to the Sex Museum where you learn about sex through the ages, all the different type of ancient to modern objects that erotic scenes were painted on, there's an exhibit on Marilyn Monroe, the history of the Red Light District, REAL (old) chastity belts, and old fashioned peep show machines (not working). Very typical Amsterdam thing to do I feel like. Then we wandered around the real Red Light District and it was just so weird to be walking around all the red lit doorways with hardly covered girls in them. They all are about our age, maybe a little older, and they all looked like really nice people! I don't know what I was expecting...but with some clothes on they seemed like the kind of girls you would see at a super market and have a conversation with. But then some seedy guy would walk out of a room and you just feel kind of gross watching him shamelessly saunter out back to meet his buddies somewhere. There were also quite a few police in the area, so it really did feel like a pretty safe area. It is really pretty because it goes over at least one of the canals, and the water and all the lights and people and restaurants give it a really fun vibe. I don't think there's quite another Red Light District like Amsterdam's. So it's pretty cool to see it in person as a thriving neighborhood.

After all that, we caught a metro back to Hans' where he told me that the stove was left on and melted part of the plastic on the pasta strainer. I distinctly remember turning the burner off - unless there's some other trick besides turning the little knob - and I distinctly don't remember putting the plastic strainer on top of the metal water pot. Anyway, I feel terrible because Hans and I aren't exactly buddy buddy to begin with, and I always feel terrible doing anything at all wrong to things that don't belong to me! :/ However, strainers are cheap and it's really not badly damaged at all. So I don't think it's really an issue.

Then I proceeded to eat the rest of my Belgian chocolate...of which I am quite sad it is gone. I think it's probably the best chocolate I've ever had. Simply amazing, every piece was just a work of art. Mmmmm.

Quotes:
"Those girls are hella taking up that D." - Laura, commenting on a pile of girls surrounding the "D" in the "I Amsterdam" sign that made it nearly impossible for anybody to get a picture with that letter.

Accomplishments:
Went to the top of a windmill.
Tried Profiteroles and food from Febo.
Bought my plate.

Nice People Alert:
Guy At Tram Stop - he saw that we were trying to get off the tram through doors that weren't opening that stop; he quickly made charade hand gestures to tell us to go to doors farther down. We only looked stupid for mere seconds and then easily made our way off the tram! So glad he saw us flailing and saved us before anything more embarrassing happened.

Travel Tip:
You will use more public transportation than you think you will. You should probably just get a saver-public-transportation-card from the very beginning; it gives you much appreciated flexibility since you won't have to walk absolutely everywhere in the name of saving a few euros.


Sorry for no Belgium photo blog posts - as soon as I am awake AND have time AND have internet I'll post some here.