Our Netherlands trip has come and gone, and it was pretty fucking amazing.  I mentioned in a prior post that the first things which come to most peoples mind when you think of the Netherlands is, Amsterdam, legal weed and legal prostitutes.  Yes we wandered through the red-light district and went in the coffee shops but the trip was much more then that though.

We went and visited places like the Rijksmuseum and the A'DAM lookout as well as the Heineken Experience and other historical buildings.  You had tourists and locals, wandering the streets on foot and by bicycle or floating through the canals in tour boats or on small motorboats.  Everywhere you turned there was something going on, scooters zipping around, buskers plying their trade, packed canal-side and alley-way cafes serving amazing food (check out Frenzi and Il Primo).  But the city wasn't overpowering or oppressive like NYC can be.  The crowds were reasonable and friendly, the buildings weren't tall skyscrapers blocking out the sky, but mostly 5-6 story apartments and homes, with church towers interspersed with the occasional high rise on the horizon.  I wasn't harassed by any vagrant or junkie and felt quite comfortable asking for directions or wandering about at all hours of the night.

If you decide to venture outside the confines of the city, like we did, there is one hell of a public transport system to bring you where you want to go.  The regional travel ticket covers all of Amsterdam's local and regional trains, trams and buses, and it's a smart buy if you don't want to think too much about getting around.  We used it to get to a few places including Zaanse Schans which is a traditional/historic windmill district that was sort of touristy but fun to visit nevertheless.  The regional ticket also brought us to the city of Haarlem and beach town of Zaanvort. 

Haarlem was your classic European market town, with a convergence of streets on a central church and a market square.  When we visited, there happened to be a fair complete with carnies in the central square near the church which made for some interesting pictures and no small bit of irony.  Zaanvort was a long, wide strand with a fine sand along with a ton of shells at waters edge.  With the weather being in the high 70's F, we walked for a bit before having lunch in a restaurant in the dunes above the beach.

We had a few other adventures and I even managed a training session at Amsterdam BJJ without further injuring my calf, but I'll talk about some of those in a later post.  Oh, and make sure you're well prepared if you decide to eat a whole Space cake!