I woke up late this morning, I figured when I went to bed last night that I wouldn’t set my alarm because I’m on vacation. Well I ended up sleeping till 10:30am, so I missed most of the morning but hey, I guess this is a benefit of traveling alone, I wanted a good sleep!! I headed out with no real plan today, I just wanted to go down the two main shopping streets Nieuwenduk & Kalverstraat (don’t ask me to even try and pronounce those)!
As I was walking down Kalverstraat, I just kept walking, I managed to come across the flower market which was rows of stalls selling all sorts of seeds, bulbs, flowers! I wish I could bring some home with me. They even had black tulip bulbs, has anyone ever seen a black tulip? Along the tulip market I came across a store called Christmas Palace, I was weirdly intrigued so I went inside. They had buckets & walls of dutch Christmas stuff! So I picked up some Christmas ornaments (yes I’m thinking about Christmas in May) and a nativity scene made from the famous blue painted ceramic (I have this new thing where I collect cool nativity scenes from different countries if I find them).
After the flower market, I just kept walking, with no real direction or any idea where I was going to end up but to my surprise I ended up walking far enough that I reached Vondel Park (a huge famous park in Amsterdam). This park is ginormous I only made it half way through and was tired from walking (I plan to return next week and walk the whole thing). Upon exiting the park I remembered reading that all the big museums were near Vondel Park. I’m not a museum person so I had no intention of going in but I find them always to be amazing from the outside. Near the Van Gogh Museum and the Stedelijk Museum is also the big I AMsterdam sign! There was so many people there trying to take pictures that I soon realized it be next to impossible to get a decent picture of this sign unless you went first thing in the morning before anyone was awake (which I may attempt next week as well). There was also a lot of other cool art near this sign!!
After exploring all those things, I decided I should try and head back to the Dam Square which is by my hotel so I could drop my backpack & purchases off at my hotel. It took awhile to head back, I didn’t realize how far I had wandered. Eventually I made it to my hotel and literally the minute I stepped in the door it started pouring rain!!! I was lucky enough to have sun all day up to that point. So I ate some food and by the time I was done the rain had stopped and I headed to my favourite store, Bershka to buy some clothes. I was pretty good at not buying too much but I may have to make another trip there before I leave.
Anyways, I have to be up early tomorrow morning as I’m going on your around Holland tomorrow, to visit places outside of Amsterdam!!
withlovexo
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