We had another weekend in Amsterdam: a relaxing few days with no real plans except enjoying a mini-break. Tom had tickets to Ajax vs PSV (? I think?!) on the Sunday and on the Saturday we had dinner with some people.

We stayed in the Jordaan area for this trip – right near the Noordermarkt. Normally we stay closer to the Pijp district, so it was interesting to really be embedded in a different area of the city. We did visit a couple of our usual favourites: Bakers & Roasters cafe for brunch (absolutely delicious!) and Workcycles to drool over their gorgeous Oma and Gr8 frames.

I added a few photos to Flickr from the trip.

For something a bit new we also found a table in a pub called Arendsnest which only serves Dutch beers. They had at least 30 different beers on tap and many more in bottled. In addition, there were about 10 different types of Jenever (that I saw) which is apparently the liquor that gin is based on. I tried their ‘basic’ Jenever and found it very intense in a way that gin is not. It’s a great pub if you can find a seat!

After the football on Sunday a friend gave us a lift all the way home which was great and saved us a late train journey and was a lot less stressful than I expected. Generally, I hate being a passenger on the Autobahn (I would probably hate being a driver more, though) but this was a really calm trip. We listened to a German history podcast while we drove although I dozed off in the middle and missed a huge portion of it.

The podcast did inspire me to download a few episodes of the Deutsche Welle Langsam gesprochene Nachrichten (slow-spoken news) which will hopefully keep me up to date on all the news of the region.

Well, this post has deviated completely, so it must be time to wrap up. I’m already looking forward to returning to Amsterdam soon!