You can tell that De Pijp is the cool bit of Amsterdam, because they put a bird on it.

House of Bols

I had written off House of Bols as a tourist attraction because all I knew about Bols was that that's the brand of blue curacao that I bought that one time I wanted to make Fruit Tingles. And anything that goes into a Fruit Tingle must be terrible, right? WRONG.

Apart from the bit where they tricked me into putting a piece of paper on my tongue that tasted of liquorice (I have no regrets about screaming "NO! NO! You're lucky that I've managed not to VOMIT EVERYWHERE YOU BASTARDS!") it was really fun. There's a wall of liqueurs that you sniff and guess what flavours they are:

(it turns out I'm good at most scents except stone fruits. If challenged, I will call them all "I don't know? Maybe some sort of melon?")

There are also drawers full of ingredients that they use to make the liqueurs. I'm not going to pretend that I didn't spend a good amount of time running my hands through the drawer that had coffee beans and cocoa beans in it.

Then, at the end, you get to drink cocktails. Which is how all museum tours should end. Plus, there's a mirrored ceiling on the tasting room, so you can take photos that make it look like you have an extra boob growing out of one of your boobs.

Oh, come on now. That's just adding insult to electrified anal probe causing death so that you can be turned into steak.

Obligatory "Look how pretty Amsterdam is" post

Yes, Amsterdam is really pretty. Especially when you happen to be there during uncharacteristically good weather.

Fun fact: Amsterdam is a World Heritage Site so you can't repaint your house on a whim. Which means that if someone who lived in your house in 1658 had the plague, then your house got painted black and you have to keep it black for ever.

Similarly, it would seem that as long as you once had some tulips at your house (or houseboat), you have to declare yourself "The Amsterdam Tulip Museum" for ever. This was the second "tulip museum" that I saw, and was not the last. 

As someone who can't see in 3D and who loves Mondrian, these ads upset me.

Katten Kabinet

Winner for my favourite (and also, most ridiculous) tourist attraction in Amsterdam has to be Katten Kabinet, which is a "museum" of cat things. The guy who started it all had a cat called JP Morgan who he liked to buy/make presents for. Things like American dollar bills with the cat's face on them:

As with many things in life, what seemed like a harmless interest gradually turned into an obsssion, and before you know it, you have a canal house full of things that have cats on them. Paintings, ads, sculptures, pinball machines, you name it, you have it. And eventually, people are paying 6 Euros to come in and see it all.

The "museum" is just room after room covered in cat art. Plus, if you look closely in this picture, you can see there are real cats who live there, too. They pointedly ignore everyone who comes through, which makes them just like every other cat ever.

There's even some pre-Colombian cat art.

I especially liked how they had cat sculptures sitting on top of the heaters. Because that's where cats go.

A pinball machine full of lucky cats - each one makes a different sound when the ball hits it.

And then it gets weird. There's a stuffed cat made out of fabric that has cats on it

and a cat that looks like something a kid would make out of toilet rolls

 There's a costume from "Cats" next to a Rembrandt sketch of a cat

And a Picasso that clearly Pablo did not want the public to see

... right next to this ... thing ....

And this.

In summary: skip the Rijksmuseum, the queues are shorter at Katten Kabinet and you still get to see something Rembrandt did.

Best Amsterdam Shops

There's no good reason for it, because the Dutch are generally very good at English, but the shops in Amsterdam have the best names and signs.

Some suggest English proficiency but a lack of colloquial understanding

Some could either be genuinely clever or a genuine misunderstanding

 (say it out loud)

Some are almost certainly inadvertently hilarious

And some are just truth in advertising 

Typical

As usual, a few days into my trip my feet need to be held together with tape.

It doesn't matter how many people tell me that "slagroom" is delicious, I can't believe it. I won't.

Just when you think they've jammed quinoa into every possible recipe, you discover that there's such a thing as quinoa beer. 

Shake a coke with ...

I'm guessing they didn't print a lot of these for the Australian release.

Things I have eaten in Amsterdam

Before I started planning this trip, I couldn't have named any sort of Dutch food except Dutch carrots (they just call them carrots here). I now know a lot more than I did then.

The major food group is bread.

The second most important food group is also bread. Then, once as at least 50% of the meal is made of bread, cheese is added.

Now, as much as I approve of a city being so obsessed with cheese that they have cheese shops everywhere, I'm no so sure I'm not so sure I'm comfortable with using cheese (that will later be sold as food) as street art, and especially not during a heat wave.

One of the first foods I tried was bitterballen. I knew they were deep-fried balls of meat, and a classic bar snack. I was not, however, expecting the meat to be in goo form, but they were surprisingly tasty 

I also tried the fast-food version

which I got from FEBO, a chain place where you don't have to talk to people, you just put money in the slot and open the little door and take out your hamburger that was cooked who knows when:

I have to say that apart from the shape, I couldn't tell the difference between the two. It's either a very traditional recipe that's followed faithfully by everyone, or there's a supplier somewhere who has a monopoly selling vats of the filling that are just shaped differently by different outlets.

Beyond that, pancakes are definitely a Dutch thing. Caro and Jesse took me to a place called Pancakes! which has a great name, but a horribly long queue out the front. Possibly not worth the wait (not much is), but the spread was pretty darn impressive, and they give you a little clog keyring when you pay your bill. 

For some reason, the Dutch are also really into Belgian fries. And for some, even more inexplicable, reason I chose to have curry sauce with my belgian fries. This was not a wise move, because apparently "curry" in this part of the world means "really sweet BBQ sauce". And this is from Mannekin Pis (you know the sculpture of the little boy peeing that is one of the main tourist attractions in Brussels? Seeing people urinate in the street always makes me hungry, so I think it was a good move to name a chip shop after it.), supposedly the best place for frites in Amsterdam.

Other food highlights include the time that it took three of us and about half an hour to open a bottle of wine, because we're all Australians who are used to screw caps. I don't know how I'm going to get by in Europe, I really don't.

Finally, I learned that after days of eating cheesy bready fried objects, attempting to "be healthy" by ordering a wholegrain croissant instead of a regular one is not effective.

Just because it's in the shape of a croissant does not make it a croissant. It makes it an overly fancy lump of bread that tastes like disappointment.