Music

Bruges

We left Amsterdam and hopped on a train that took us to Bruges via Brussels. The two hour train ride gave me bad motion sickness and I couldn't handle much but fuzzy water on our first food outing. Our air bnb in Belgium was located right above the Torture Museum, next door to a waffle house and across the street from a chocolate shop. Terrible wifi, but a very spacious, modern setting with more room than we knew what to do with. We could have thrown a house party.

Don't mind if I don't.

The Belfry...located right outside our window clanged incessantly, playing endless chimes and told time nonstop. Felt like Quasimodo just hanging out up there, taking nonstop requests.

Beautiful view right outside my bedroom window.

Our only plan of attack for Bruges was: 1. mussels 2. chocolates 3. boots of beer 4. chillax. We went to Poules Moules and compared some mussels cooked in pernod, with mussels cooked in a broth of beer. Verdict: beer bath mussels were tastier.

Poules Moules!

Not normally a fan of beer but it felt idiotic not to try some in Belgium, so  I started with a sour cherry beer in a dank, Medieval beer cellar that made us all sweaty. Not bad. The next day I moved on to a Hogaarden Rose. Delicious!!! I might have found my gateway into the beer world.

Bruges is a tiny fairy tale of a city. It reminded me a little bit of Prague in it's charm, maybe an older more crude version without all the pastel and crispness.

Ever wonder who the masters of chocolate making is? Uhh... well... it's... hmmm...oh. It's BELGIUM.  I'd never seen so many chocolate shops in one square mile... the whole city was perfumed with the scent of chocolate. Every other store was a luxury chocolatier; Godiva, Neuhaus, Galler, Leonidas, Dumon and Bruges' own Chocolate Line to name a few. They were all pretty serious like a jewelry store. Chocolates stacked and lined up neatly underneath glass cases like gems. I liked the posh little ballotines at some of the places, where you could hand pick all the freshest pralines you wanted for the week. 

Milk chocolate horses, dark chocolate dipped orange peels, marbled sea shells, green shiso leafs...

At one point the four of us stumbled upon an awesome home + kitchen store (our collective weakness) and I walked out with a big wooden bowl because it's my m.o. to fall for annoying things like perishables, breakables, and cumbersome souvenirs when I'm traveling.

Realizing we were pretty close to France, I decided to look into the offerings inside the Belgian pharmacies and success! All the good french staples and skincare within arm's reach. I loaded up on some stellar products. Trying out a pale pink serum by Lierac that smells like roses.

Ghostly

We spent most of our evenings face swapping on Snapchat and making disgusting videos of our warped faces while dealing with the clanging Belfry.

Next stop: London

Souvenir list:
Chocolates from everywhere
Salad bowl
Old school floral shears
French beauty products
Sparkly socks
Tiny Derilium beer glasses
Delirium pink elephant pin

Wish list:
More chocolate
Pint glasses

Amsterdam

It's been a week since I came back from my trip to Amsterdam, Bruges and London and I thought this a good time as any to get back into writing about things, because I regret not doing this for Austria/Vienna/Budapest, and last year's epic Rome/Florence trip. You just forget details the more time passes and if not for photos all the fun little memories of a trip dissipates.

I'd never been to Amsterdam before, I didn't know what to expect. It was also the gang's first time trying out airbnb. Our cab pulled us up to the trendy neighborhood of De Pjip, and met our air bnb host, a tall lanky Dutch dude who nonchalantly ignored our sputtering reaction to the crazy, steep stairway that greeted us at the door.

Kudos to Brian for his suitcase workout, lugging all our crazy bags up and down these chutes and ladders.

I could write a whole post just on these stairs, none of us managed to take a photo that perfectly encapsulated how dangerous and outrageous these stairs were, but they became the bane of our existence our entire stay in the city because getting up and down from the bedrooms to the living room downstairs was akin to going through a booby trap in your own home. We made the most of it of course, pretending to eat shit daily (sometimes succeeding on accident), joking about how we ought to just throw ourselves down the stairs to save time...a three story ladder would have been more honest.

Really enjoyed making dinner and chilling when we felt too lazy to go out to eat.

Crazy stairs aside, it was awesome to share a whole house with friends. It was a nonstop hang out fest and it really did feel like we'd neatly inserted ourselves into Amsterdam and was going about business like locals do. At one point after a trip to the grocery store, we ran into some other airbnb tenants in the stairway and they expressed surprise at seeing occupants on the flat above them, to which Brian haughtily retorted "Would we go grocery shopping here if we didn't live here?"

De Pjip was a good location to stay in. Near lots of restaurants, cafes, and bars. Our place overlooked a cute little wine bar called Glou Glou.

Notice the moving hooks up top. Certainly don't envy the Dutch on moving day.

Amsterdam reminded me a little bit of Copenhagen. The architecture was similar...not identical, but had the same tall vertical vibe. The houses in Jordaan were beautiful, so many different style arches on the roofs, a trademark of the canal homes. The overall effect was of gingerbread homes, because of the flatness of each fascade. No balconies, no protruding fronts, just a ton of windows and these gigantic moving hooks on the very tops of each.

My favorite neighborhood was undeniably the Jordaan. Such a quiet, elegant neighborhood along the canals.

Amsterdam seemed almost MORE of a bicycle city than Stockholm or Copenhagen is (which is saying a lot). The vibe of the bicyclists were way more no nonsense and aggro compared to the fashionable set we'd see gliding through cobbled shopping streets in Stockholm, wearing long flowy dresses, pink ACNE bags in tow. The entire city had an impressive and incorporated network of bike lanes next to the roads/sidealks...bicycles really were treated as no different from a vespa or a four wheeled vehicle. (I say it that way because some cars were somewhat questionable due to it's tiny size and tippability factor.)

We went to the Anne Frank House. It still hasn't hit me how crazy it is that we were inside the actual house that she and her family lived in. It was really tiny. We went up the actual stairs hidden behind the bookshelf.

Green eyed Van Gogh.

Also on the agenda was the Rjiksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum. As excited as I was to see Vermeer and Rembrandt, I was really blown away by the Van Gogh Museum, which I wasn't expecting. It just goes to show you that you can learn about artists, or architecture in art history via books but nothing compares to actually seeing said objects in the flesh. His use of complementary colors, thick brushstrokes, and ability to create some of the most beautiful, and emotional pieces...I left the museum, a renewed fan of his work.

The next few days, we went shopping in the charming 9 Straatjes in Jordaan, walked through street markets, sampled bitterballens (deep fried beef croquettes), ate endless caramel stroopwafels, and tried the famous apple pie at Winkel 43.

We ate so many stroopwafels that we can't anymore. Killed it.

A soft and pillowy ball of dream burrata.

Hi buddies.

We hit up a weed cafe one afternoon. When in Rome, after all. There was a No Opium Smoking sign inside which we thought was strange, because... who's smoking opium?? 3 euros bought us a joint, and we settled outside with our cappucinos and a few edible stroopwafels. What was supposed to be a short little break in the middle of the afternoon, turned into one intense session of being #toohigh to do much of anything. After feebly trying to navigate a food hall and nearly getting hit by a car, we decided it would be wise to get ourselves home and ride out the wave.

The infamous edible stroopwafel that did us all in.

Things are weiiiird.

It was a very musical high. Katee and I lounged on the couch and listened to some intense sounds through the jambox. After some hours we came out of our stupor and had a nice night in, pigging out on all the cheese and raspberry juice we'd hoarded all week.

I know I mentioned this in my Sweden post years ago but Dutch people are super fucking tall. They're even taller than Swedish and Danish people. I lost count of how many over 6 ft tall women I saw in Amsterdam. They were everywhere, super cool and unapologetic. Brian and I felt dimunitive for the first time in our lives and it felt weird. "Brian! Stop being so SHORT!". But these are some of the little things I love about traveling; just seeing and experience things completely outside your norm, and thinking about how you feel about the differences or similarities.

Bondage / Homo / SM / And Teen Sex ?!

We checked out the Red Light District of course. It was more touristy than I thought. It was weird, women standing in the doorways of their little glass box rooms...they were so available and right at street level. I noticed that the majority of people there skulked around, stealing glances almost guiltily, even though everything was out in the open.

The highlight of our trip was the night time canal ride we did our last night in Amsterdam. It was an hour and a half of drinking wine and our usual shenanigans, while seeing some really beautifully lit up canal homes and nightlife.

I'd go back to Amsterdam again. It was chill, everyone was nice and tall... I loved it.

Souvenir list:
Tiny blue painted Delft porcelain clogs
Delft printed candles
Stroopwafels
Porcelain canal home tealights (for X-mas)
Gold bicycle bell
Van Gogh postcards
Sour fizzy gummies

Wish list:
Pure raspberry pressed juice
Crazy Delft vase with about 50 tiny porcelain clogs and animals all over it
Tulip bulbs to plant at home
A few edible stroops, just because.
A cat

And...I'm back.

Dana Point

Sunday

Echo Park Lake has turned into a really nice place to spend a Sunday afternoon, grabbing a bite at Square One at the Boathouse (Valrhona chocolate frozen banana with sprinkles anyone?!) lazily riding pedal boats, feeding ducks and eating chili powder-cheese corn on the cob–$1.50 well spent. Check out that minstrel dude. He's fully enjoying lazy Sunday at Echo Park Lake.