A day at the Dam

I'm sitting in the square, gazing at the national monument and quite enjoying the playful wind. Time to chronicle.

When you're gluten-free, finding a place that will make you a version of something you usually can't eat, your day is made.

Today was such a day.

For the first time in 2 years, I started my day off with a bagel and cream cheese. Best.

Breakfast at Bagels & Beans

Feast your eyes upon that g-free bagel!

After our breakfast at Bagel&Beans, Lisa headed to Coffee Company to study, and I wandered off aimlessly in the somewhat general direction of the Dam, for a day of exploring and hitting up museums.

I walked along a couple different canals before stumbling across an ikea-like store called "Hema" where I was able to buy both soap for Denmark and a glue-stick for journaling. Score. When I paid for my stuff, I had my first entirely Dutch transaction. The cashier must've thought I was either incredibly quiet or incredibly stupid, but I managed to chirp out a "dank u wel" without suffering a heart attack, so go me.

There was an H&M in the mall too and I bought a cute pink corduroy skirt. The bathrooms cost 50cents to use, so with an "aww heeeelll no", I set off in the direction of the Amsterdam museum where I knew they had free bathrooms, and where I wanted to revisit anyways.

After sticking it to the colloquial toilet-man I headed to the upstairs "Amsterdam DNA" exhibit to check out what I hadn't had a chance to see on the weekend. When I scanned my personal code to get my - oh shit. A little blonde Dutch boy just caught a pigeon and gave it a big ol' hug. Who does that!?

Anyways. Your DNA options are "civil mindedness", "creativity" and some others I can't remember, but the computer spat me out as being comprised of 100% "freedom of thought". Amsterdam is getting to me. Watch out also for a dorky shot of me wearing a 17th century "civil guard" uniform soon gracing the inter webs.

After that quick fix of history, I headed back down kalverstraat and ducked into a jewelry shop called "six" and bought a pair of cute earrings and a collapsible umbrella that I'm sure will come in handy in the following weeks.

At the palace

Eventually I emerged back in the Dam, and took a stroll around the Royal Palace. The Dutch royal family used to live there, but now they have a different pad, so the old one is pretty open to the public. It was opulent and big and nice, but once you've seen Versailles I feel as if you've seen it all, so I can't say I was overly impressed.

The palace only took me about 15 mins and then I went to the Nieuwe Kerk (New Church) where there was kinda an Andy Warhol exhibit on, but it was really just one painting and the some books on a table. The church itself was nice though, with a pretty massive organ and some nice stonework etc.

I got out of the church at about 4:45, and now I'm waiting to meet up with my little bookworm so we can continue our day together. Later days!

Pigeons in the Dam