The continuing story …

In today’s exciting episode, we find our Heros under a mound of boxes and ex-packing material. In order to make this post a little more interesting, we will bring you instead some photos from around Amsterdam.

The first in our selection is a vivid depiction of just how they retrieve the masses of bicycles stolen every day, from the bottom of the canals. It’s a spectator sport.

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In an era when property tax was based on how much street frontage you had, everyone wanted the narrowest property possible! I think I’ve found a contender for narrowest house! Yes, that door in the middle has it’s own street number, it isn’t a part of the properties on either side.

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Amsterdam has some of the most wonderful street art I’ve seen, and I am hoping to fill an entire post for you. In the mean time, here’s one I spotted as I was giving a friend the grand tour of our fair city last week.

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As I stated above, we have been unpacking and settling in. For us this includes the purchase of a new cat post for the fur-kids to enjoy. They have really been missing this in the past few months. We got a new one in the post last week and then spent a fun hour putting it up.

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It was obvious that they’d missed having something to climb, as they were all over it and “helping” us build it, as the post was being put together!

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We have had a few backyards since moving over here, but now I’d like to show you where we’ve settled. A good mix of town and country!

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Being us, we are still in the process of identifying which of the local cafes has the best coffee and service. The one we were in today is a top contender! Their Croque Monsieur was delicious!

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Hopefully by next post I’ll be set up enough to have gone on an adventure which I can tell you all about! See you all soon!

Quiet week

Hi everyone. I’m sorry for the radio silence after last Friday’s post. I guess what happened was inevitable. Once we moved and things got a little bit quieter for the first time in months, we both came down with some vicious head colds. I’m still trying to throw off a horrendous lung crunching cough. At least you can’t catch it through the internet!

We did take a little time out to head into town last Tuesday though (where I coughed and snotted all over everyone I met. I’m sure they were very grateful!)

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It was on this excursion that for the first time I saw the cranes dredging the canals. It was quite mesmerising for a couple of minutes. I have yet to find a crane with a magnet hauling up all the bicycles that get dumped in the canals each day though!

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In a final piece of news for this week, and it has taken me a week to get around to posting this, Himself got a delivery in the post recently that wasn’t entirely expected!

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Knowing a Master Roaster as we do, it was wonderful to receive a birthday surprise of some of his wares in the post. We have been making good use of it too! It’s nice to be loved. 🙂

See you all after the weekend when hopefully things will have returned to normal!

Out for Dinner

Amsterdam has an abundance of good restaurants, so one night after craving dumplings for the last 3 days, we made our way over to the Good Fortune Restaurant. We got the window seat.

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I was too hungry to get a photograph of the first course, and of course that was when I had the dumplings I’d been craving. We had Gyoza, a Japanese style chicken dumpling, and some steamed pork buns which are one of my favourites!

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For my mains I ordered Peking Duck on noodles, and it was one of the best dishes I’ve had in ages! Himself had Cuttlefish for starters and then a Szechuan dish with rice.

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As you can tell by how little remains, it was delicious and we enjoyed it immensely!

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And no washing up!

Himself had a birthday

Himself had a birthday. We decided that in honour of this occasion, we would go somewhere we hadn’t been yet; Leidseplein!

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With a high concentration of bars, pubs, clubs, and cafes, we knew we’d be sure to find something that suited us.

The first place that had looked likely in an online search provided us with pre-dinner drinks.

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Not the cocktails we were hoping for, but it was the poor nervous barmans first night on the job and he was a touch clueless. Sweet, but clueless. By the way, that is how you get mixed drinks in Amsterdam. If you’re lucky it’s the liquor (vodka) in one glass and a bottle of what you decide to mix it with. If you’re unlucky it’s a glass of each. They turn up as 4 separate items on the receipt too!

We were the only patron in that bar and it was 8:30. It was also a Tuesday night. We shuffled on.

ambling up the road a bit we stumbled across an Italian Trattoria. You’d think after Leichhardt we would have had enough Italian food, but in we went. Himself likes Italian!

We began with a wine selection

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Then antipasto

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Followed by calamari fritti

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And as usual, we were too busy eating it to get a photo of the veal saltimbocca. (Veal with prosciutto and cheese) Trust me, it was delicious.

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We were the third couple in there. Of the other two, one were English tourists, and the other were American tourists, and as we were leaving another group of Americans came in for pizza.

The two staff who were on seemed very taken with the fact that we were practicing our overly rusty Italian on them. We all had fun. 🙂

The fountain outside hotel Americana puts on a good show too.

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Then it was time to take in the final sights as we waited for the tram to take us home.

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Thank you Leidseplein, it was a truly lovely evening.

And happy Birthday Himself. May the adventures only continue My Love. *smoochies*

Summer Evenings

Suddenly we woke up one morning and it was Summer. We’ve had days of high twenties (Celcius), warm breezes, and the light doesn’t really go anywhere until 10pm.

In short, the perfect weather to sit in a cafe, by the side of a canal, have a beer, and watch the canal traffic try and navigate their way around each other.

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Welcome to Summer in Amsterdam!