Yesterday, March 15

We went across the street for breakfast this morning to Zeit für Brot and had coffee cake and lattes. Then we shopped for awhile at the Belgian Quarter here in Cologne.

Then we once again I think for the last time😥 bought train tickets to Amsterdam. We had lunch in the station and watched people for awhile. Then a 3 hour train ride to Amsterdam. We will be here in Amsterdam tomorrow cuz we have some stuff we want to do here yet. We got a cool hostel abit out of town that has games and a place to hang out so we were just there for supper.

Today, March 16

So we woke up slow today cuz we’d had a weird night. Some guy came in at 4 am and shook us awake demanding an iphone charger and higher than a kite and making lots of noise so we all were awake and tried to go back to sleep. We got up and had breakfast here and then walked to the metro.

It was bitterly cold today with a strong wind so it was good we walked lots. We went to an area of Amsterdam where there were lots of little boutique and secondhand shops along a cobblestone street. It was a good day looking around and we spent several hours there. Ate lunch at a cozy little place that had free tap water thankfully. It’s hard to get water some places without paying alot for it but here in AMS it’s more available.

One of the shops we went in was a meat shop that had whole legs and shoulders of meat with hooves still attached. They aged it for awhile and the price was between $300 and $1,150 dollars for ONE pound. There were some guys in there buying some and they said its really worth the money. Obviously we didn’t try it but we watched for a bit and they just take a leg and cut super thin slices off that reminds me of prosciutto. Id never seen anything like it.

Another thing about the cities we’ve been here in Europe (so not necessarily europe in general) is that pedestrians here do NOT have right of way. If you assume youre in Canada you will be the hood ornament on a bike, tram or moped. I guess it makes sense because there are so many people here.

So we bought some neat stuff and froze so we came back to the hostel and had supper and relaxed and repacked for the next leg of our journey. We leave tomorrow for a St. Patrick’s day layover in Dublin🎉 and then onto San Francisco. Gnite from the Netherlands..