Another Amsterdam day

We were up having our breakfast early this morning. The street outside our hotel room was much quieter on a Sunday morning.  We headed off for a good walk around the streets of Amsterdam.  One of our first stops was a fantastic little cafe where we had the best latte since we left Australia.

We enjoyed a visit to the cheese museum and had a good chat with the friendly girl in the store there. She was rather fascinated by our being Aussies, in England on a boat and me with a Dutch father and Finnish mother. She enthusiastically suggested some Dutch food and drinks we simply must try. As we walked away she handed me a packet of "stroopwafel" which I know are delicious! We bought a cheese to take to Claudia in Germany and another to bring back to the boat with us.

Mick wanted to find a nice coffee table book about the Amsterdam canal houses so we spent some time browsing a book store. He had no luck finding the right book so I will look on the Internet but I found a couple of books I couldn't resist. One is a story of 2 women of different generations who meet over their ancestry and patchwork quilts... 2 of my favourite interests. The other is called "Stuff Dutch people like" and this one gave me a laugh. It covers all variety of things from being tall... to hagelslag (my favourite childhood treat at my Oma's).... being direct.... and eating liquorice, usually the saltier the better.

We chose another restaurant for our lunch. Mick had a smoked salmon sandwich and I picked a "traditional" which had a bowl of soup, brown bread with some pickle salad and a croquette that had a very familiar aroma when I cut it open and took me right back to my childhood visits to Oma's.

We walked on checking out shops in the 9 Streets area, admiring the leaning houses, and dodging the seemingly thousands of cyclists and pedestrians. Back at the hotel I bought a dish of pofertjes at the little store we can see from our hotel window. They were absolutely the best I've ever tasted but of course they're going to taste better in Amsterdam!

The Winter Olympics have been on tv and we have been watching during our breaks back at the hotel and in the evening.

It has been another thoroughly enjoyable day in Amsterdam. Even the rain and wind that continued on and off all day didn't dampen our spirits. We've had such a lovely weekend. Tomorrow we will be up early to get our train to Frankfurt.