After our second not-so-restful night in our Piggy Beds, our second day in Amsterdam was to be glorious. We started off our day doing what else? Searching for our breakfast. It is a surreal experience~one part adventurous, one part frighting having to search for your food. However, once you find food, you’re filled with the sense of accomplishment and nourishment. We were in search of the narrowest house in Amsterdam. It was somewhere around that square that was filled with school children dressed in bright yellow construction vests do some sort of exercising/sitting around/loud music/completely confusing.
We grabbed some food at a nearby bakery and wandered around questioning the point of children being out of school to do nothing…unorganized fun, apparently. We found ourselves in Amsterdam’s Chinatown. It is, from what I could tell, only a couple of block long, but surprisingly ornate. A wonderful little street to find yourself lost in. We traveled around the square marveling at the students, while keeping a weathered eye open for the narrow house. But we failed. We did not find the narrowest house, we merely gave up!
But we were bound for the Heineken brewery! After a short walk we found ourselves at the doors to the brewery. As we entered we were enveloped in the smell of hops and freshly created beer. We paid our wages to go inside and drink in the art of making beer. Touring the facility was a lot like the tours of Lehrkind’s Coca Cola factory back home, but this time in a purely adult world. As we saw the vats, boilers, copper machinery that worked hops into liquid, we were tempted by the fact that our ticket got us two free beers from the pub attached to the factory. And all at 11am! Wahoo! After that wonderful dip into what Frommer’s calls, “Alternative Amsterdam,” we crawled our way to some lunch.
Lunch was in the form of a small, family owned diner where I experienced some traditional Netherlands food, Gouda with mustard and these potato and meet fried balls of which the name escapes me. It’s like balls of shepard’s pie fried, but without the peas. Quite delightful.
After a nice lunch, we headed back to the Dam to visit the royal palace. This is a spectacular residence in the heart of the old Amsterdam. Intact and beautiful, it is a vision from the outside, but the inside is radiant. Flowing with furniture from all times, your guided tour floats from room to room as you absorb the reality that the current family still lives there. You don’t get to see the family, of course, but you do get to view the court rooms, and everything but their private areas (not THOSE private areas). We completed the tour and headed to the hostel for some showers and to ready ourselves for the movie!
Now, I’ve already described our first encounter with the Amsterdam movie theatres, but our second was delightful! As we approached the Theatre Tuschinsky that I had pictures of, I was genuinely excited to see the movie. Some might call it a waste of time, seeing a movie in a foreign country, but still, this was an experience to be had! It was wonderful. The 1920s Art Deco was amazing! We bought our tickets outside, and wandered inside and around the modern part, passing through the lobby which was decorated with sharp angle contrasts, but wild colors. I felt like Greta Garbo or Grace Kelly wandering these halls. Inside the theater were perfect plush red velvet seats. We settled in as some of the first people there and watched and listened to people as they came in. Apparently we had “Americans” tatooed on our foreheads, but it didn’t matter to me much. After the movie, we sleepily headed out ready for a good night of sleep. This definitely was the wonderful end to a slightly made up story. But I will leave you with this…
I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!