Amsterdam: shoes and cars

Friday:
It was raining this morning, which reminded UG that his dress shoes have a crack in the sole that lets water in. So we started the day looking for breakfast somewhere nearby, with a plan to go buy UG some new shoes.

We found a little convenience store/deli for breakfast. I got a cream puff, because we're in Amsterdam. UG had a salad. This shop also sells individual sized bottles of wine for €1.50. Why can't I get that in Canada. No, I didn't pick one up for breakfast, I just made a note for later.

For shoes, UG looked online and found an H&M and a Clarks store nearby. So we walked down that street. H&M was a bust, they didn't have any men's shoes larger than a 44, and he needs a 46. But it turns out that the pedestrian walkway from the H&M to the Clarks is actually the shoe district. It's about 400m long, with at least 20 shoe stores. I saw a pair I liked, but didn't try them on because UG didn't see anything in that store to try on himself. He did eventually find a pair, which he wore out of the store and has been calling his magic shoes ever since. Apparently his foot is now feeling better.

From there, we walked through the floating flower market. I bought 40 tulip bulbs to take home from the biggest jerk in the market. I should have walked away when he grabbed the bulbs I Had picked out from marked bins and tried to throw them together in a single bag. He finally gave me 4 bags, but I had to pay extra for the bags. And of course, he only had plastic bags, likely so he could charge for them. While I was trying to write notes and put them in the bag, he was moving them around and repeating what I owed him. My concern for marking down what I bought, and his obvious lack of concern made it important to write my notes immediately and pay later. But UG decided to pay him. As we were leaving the shop, I noticed that they had prepackaged bags of the same tulips I just bought. And cheaper if you consider that you don't have to pay extra for the bags they come in. I went back to ask if I could exchange them. He looked at me like I was insane, and then got all philosophical about sticking to your first choice. Again, my first instinct was to walk out of his shop on my first meeting, so I guess he was right about that one.

 The shoe street.

Getting some pickled herring. Mmmm!

Rembrandt, dressed for Tuesday's Queen's Day celebration (and inauguration of the new king).

After our shopping adventure, I was cold, wet, hungry and my feet were starting to hurt. So we went looking for a late lunch. We stopped into a sushi place behind the hotel, only to discover that they don't serve sushi until 5pm. So we went over to the Middle Eastern restaurant across the street, where we had, go figure, Middle Eastern food.

We headed back to our room to dry out and warm up. Apparently the maid got called away before finishing our room, so we had no towels. And since there's no instructions on how to use the phone in the room, UG went to the front desk to ask for more. After a rest, we headed out to the Top Gear Live show out in the suburbs. This is an arena show based on the popular British car show, involving car stunts and goofing around. All 3 of the show's hosts were in this event. I found out that this was happening several weeks ago and purchased tickets in advance. To get there, we walked to the subway across the canal from the hotel, and took the train directly to the arena. The arena is in a relatively new entertainment complex. There's a large soccer stadium, the arena we went to, a concert hall and several restaurants and stores. The show was a lot of fun, although a little shorter than we expected, and didn't actually have any explosions. But there were lots of choreographed driving, and a bunch of sports played with cars. One of the hosts described what they do as "cocking around". UG loves this phrase and has used it several times since the show.

After the show, we took the subway back to the downtown area, but instead of going back to the hotel, we went for a later dinner nearby at Cafe Jarren. Being the last Friday of the month, they have a DJ, which UG thought sounded interesting. We each had sandwiches, and then danced for a little while. This place might beat the single serve wine at the convenient store for something I wish we had at home. The crowd was all around our age or older. Nobody was dressed in skimpy short skirts. It was just real adults going out dancing for the evening. I mean, at least as long as we were there. Maybe the kids come out at 1am, which is about the time us geriatrics headed home. It would be so nice to be able to go out with some girlfriends at home and not have to feel out of place because we're so much older than the 18 yr old bar crowd. But the music was better than the average wedding or community hall dance.