It occurred to me the other day that it’s been over two years since I last went to Amsterdam. TWO YEARS!  I plugged into my external hard drive to look at photos I’d accumulated from previous trips there and damn do I miss it. I’ve been going a bit too mad with my love for Italy (in fact I’m in Milan again in two days hehe) and Portugal and I’d forgotten about my former haunt.

So here’s a quick run-down of a few things that made me think ‘I Loooooove Amsterdam’!

MARKETS

My absolute favourite market is Noodermarkt especially on the Monday, which I make sure to visit every time I’m in Amsterdam. This takes place in the beautiful Jordaan neighbourhood and has loads of vintage clothes/textiles, antiques, and even old children’s toys.

^I believe I was asking the price of a vintage swimming costume there

^Colourful strips of fabric! I got tempted and bought a few. They’re still unused, years later..

^View at Albert Cuyp market, the biggest one in the city and best-known in the country!

^Vintage food tins seen at Waterlooplein Market, held at the Jewish Quarter. I think it’s one of the oldest, if not THE oldest (market) in Amsterdam.

VONDELPARK

I can’t tell you enough how much I LOOOOVE this park! it’s beautiful! It’s huuuuuge! Sure I love the many amazing parks in London but Vondelpark definitely has a special, happy vibe to it. I’m not even sure what it is; perhaps it feels a bit less manicured than say, Regents Park or Hyde Park over here.

I remember talking to a friendly dude here and we ended up spending the rest of the evening together somewhere in the city.

^This is Wilson, Joyce’s pet golf ball. We brought him to the park and made him a sort of shrine.

^We shared many a happy moment. Vondelpark was also where I shared a special magical experience with my best friend from home.

BURGERMEESTER 

^One of the most damn delicious burgers I’d had at the time. I remember eating it till sauce was dripping down to my elbows.. ELBOWS!!! Now that’s something not to be forgotten.

Burgermeester
Albert Cuypstraat 48
1072 CV
Amsterdam

(They’ve got three other locations in Amsterdam)

THE CANALS

My absolute favourite thing to do is buy crappy-yet-not-crappy takeaway food/drink and sit by the side of one of the maaaany canals with music.. with a close friend a bonus. Haha.

I’ve spent many an hour chilling out by an Amsterdam canal.. people-watching and such. It’s the best! Especially in such a quirky, creative city where there’s so much to observe and be fascinated by.
Which brings me to..

WEIRD STUFF

^What???

^PARK PILLOW. It also says ‘Do Not Remove’, mind you.

^Condom art

^A public private message… awww

^An upside-down baboon to put a smile on your face!  My friend is not smiling. She’s weird.

^The freakiest mannequins I’d ever seen.

^Coasters that tell you to ‘Be Starlight’. STARLIGHT! It’s amazing!

^Self-promoting messages on bicycle seats

TOY SHOPS

Amsterdam has many a cute toy store. I’ve bought quite a number of souvenirs and I love them ALL.

One of the best ones has to be A Space Oddity in Jordaan.

A Space Oddity
Prinsengracht 204
1016 HD
Amsterdam

Of course, there are countless other things I looooove about Amsterdam.. oh the food, the trams (I love trams, alright?), the architecture and interior design, the parties, the CHIPS.. haha but perhaps the rest can be for another post.

Wanna go to Amsterdam?

It’s under an hour from London by plane (it takes longer to traverse London) ! Sometimes I wonder why I’m not there like, every month.

Check for flights using Kayak, my favourite, most trusted flight aggregator, and pick a hotel in Amsterdam by Accor here. Weekend break done!

The post Why I Freakin’ Love Amsterdam appeared first on SMALLCRAZY.

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We got up early that morning, and unlike the day before we got ready in an hour instead of five. Probably because of the check-out time!

First stop was the [something] Market
I really cannot remember its name – but it’s really close to Anne Frank’s House, north of it.
Actually, I just did a quick search and I THINK it’s the Lindengracht Market

The walk there from Central Station was just lovely
Hotdogs on the way

I was really fascinated by all the mini-vehicles around Amsterdam
They had mini cars and mini vans
I only managed to get the van version on camera

Top who cares
Shorts Bardot
Cardi H&M
Tights H&M
Boots New Look
Blazer Vintage (from the day before!)

Top Zara
Leggings AA
Shoes vintage
Bag vintage
Scarf thrifted
Jacket H&M

Strawberry ice-cream bicycle!

The market was heaps of fun
Many unusual people and things
Almost got a pair of blue Cheap Monday jeans but realised I hardly ever use my other pair, or any of my other jeans anyway so scrapped that idea

Lots and lots of vintage goods
Clothes, shoes, bags, scarves, postcards, books, jewelry, tea sets etc etc
I especially liked the postcards – they were 1 Euro each though.

This dog belonged to the owner of a stall
He/she was very well-behaved in the van!

Bunch of old buttons
The corners of the photo are blackened not because I was trying to be fancy but because the lens cover of my camera wouldn’t open properly…

Crazy cape person.. I don’t really know her..

Saw this lady walking her two cats on leashes!! 😀
They had a nice-sized audience needless to say

Dino: I agree!

LOVED walking the streets around the market everything was so interesting to look at!

I look like old boots in this next photo but it’s the only one I have (sort of, until I get a certain dvd from a certain someone..hahaha) that kinda shows the blazer I picked up

Ignore my face

I liked this woman’s skirt!

Yup, we re-visited the clog to get a nice daytime photo of us in it.
It’s THE thing to do, now hopefully we’ll turn up in the results when someone searches for ‘Amsterdam clog’ in Google Images – or even ‘Two amazing girls in Amsterdam’.

Throughout our stay there my food mainly consisted of:

Omelettes (yum)

and

Pofertjes!

Actually I lie.. I only had the second one once. HA HA.
So good though.

‘WTF’ pictures of the day:

I don’t know what to say about this

GAS MASKS for 10 Euros each
Just in case, you know

Me and a lovely, beautiful jacket.

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The post Amsterdam Day 3 – Lindengracht Market appeared first on SMALLCRAZY.

(Boring) outfits first!
Boring cos we had to dress warm and comfortable for a whole day of walking and tramming.

Dress vintage
Cardi MNG
Jacket eBay
Belt vintage
Boots New Look
Wool tights H&M
Bag insignificant..(haha)

Close-up of the print on the dress!
I’ve actually worn this a good few times.. but I still love it
And now Rosanne
I’ll try and do my best with where her clothes are from HA HA
(Her outfit wasn’t as boring)

Shirt vintage
Shorts Primark
Leggings AA
Scarf thrifted
Belt Topshop
Bag vintage
Jacket H&M
Shoes vintage

😀

As everyone already knows
Amsterdam is full of bicycles
At first it was cool, but later on it became really annoying as it seemed like bicycles ruled over EVERYTHING! They’d be zipping around in all directions, FROM all directions.. they go on the roads like cars, but criss-cross about just like pedestrians. Highly irritating on a busy day.

During the afternoon we explored a popular shopping precinct called the ‘9 Streets‘
It’s near where Anne Frank’s house is

^ obivously not focused properly!

It’s basically a grid made out of nine streets where lots of unique, weird/quirky, specialty or vintage shops are located.

Passed this cute little green/yellow building on the way

We also noticed that a lot of the staircases in the buildings were really steep
Just like the ones at Anne’s house!

There was a toothbrush shop (YEAH, all things to do with brushing teeth!)
Complete with a toothbrush ferris wheel in the display window 😀
Would’ve liked to go in but it was closed

We spent quite a bit of time at the vintage shops (surprise)
There were a couple of good ones there, but that was it really
Tried on lots of shoes, coats, jackets, belts

My best find was a vintage boys’ school blazer which I wore the next day 🙂

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We also went clog-hunting

The red pair was the b-grade/second class/blah pair that we found midway looking for THE yellow pair. THE pair that you always see people having photographs with when they post their holiday album on Facebook or whatever.

If you go to Google Images and search for ‘Amsterdam clog’, you’ll see it!

Now I’m part of the clan… *satisfied sigh*

The souvenir shop that the yellow clog was outside of had a huge MIFFY section! WOooooo

Had dinner at a nice italian restaurant somewhere in… I don’t know
We just trammed about and stopped whenever we saw lots of lights or people so I’ve completely forgotten what this area was called.

Pretty much our only photo together that day, save for the ones in Rosanne’s camera (which I’ll get maybe next year. MAYBE.) – taken by a flirty waiter.

Headed to the Red Light District after

Ha ha hahaha

OH And saw a fairy/magical/whatever shop.. with an amazing display window. It was late so duh it was closed, but we went back the next day 😉

OK GOTTA GO

Time to go costume-hunting for tomorrow’s Halloween party!

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First views of Amsterdam
At Central Station which was where the train arrives from Schipol Airport
Tickets were 3.80 Euros one-way

I cut my hair 2 weeks ago.. but nothing new.

With my fantastic travel-buddy, Rosanne!
Who can’t seem to keep her eyes open..
I should’ve drawn googly eyes on her

Our accommodation, Camping Zeeburg, was such a bitch to get to
From the city we caught tram 26 to Zeeburg
Then there’s a million-mile long bridge to walk along
We only realised we had to take the steps down to a connecting path in the middle of the bridge, AFTER we’d walked the whole length of it and back.. *sigh*
SO frustrating as we had our luggage with us!

Photos taken along the bridge, which went over a huge lake

And.. photos from the accommodation, which is basically a camping site with a small caravan park as well as a number of cabins.
We booked out a 2-person cabin for 30 Euros a night as we were feeling a bit stingy to splurge on a hotel room in the city!

My bird necklace is from Accessorize
The ends of one of the chain links was bent out and kept scraping against my skin.. so it didn’t last very long on my neck. Ugh!

Rosanne’s awesome bag and shoes
The bag, of course, was picked up from Vintage for Sale :p

Rosey and her beauty moley
Ha ha ha gonna get killed for this

Yeah yeah I look shapeless..

Yellow bangle from H&M – they now (like FINALLY) have sizes for their bracelets and bangles so they no longer fall off me, yay!
Splotchy tights also from H&M

And now a photo of two midgets at the tram stop

I look so STUPID in this photo!!! Where are my legs!?
They’ve been eaten by my.. bum!!

Photo-summary of our first day in the city HA HA
The colourful things in the middle are cheese!

The main ‘activity’ for the day was a visit to Anne Frank’s House

Statue of the girl outside

MAN was the queue to the entrance LONG.. felt like death standing there, having had been up at 4am that morning to catch our flight (I forgot to mention, we missed our train to the airport and so had to cab it!). My legs felt like rotten banana peels.

Entry was.. err.. something like 7 Euros? I can’t remember for sure, but it was quite tragic that I felt so so extremely exhausted because I really was interested in knowing everything that could be known about that house. I read Anne Frank’s Diary twice growing up and I loved it.

No cameras were allowed in the house, but we got to see lots of stuff including the steep staircases to the rooms at the back, go into the actual rooms – especially Anne’s tiny room with the all the magazine cut-outs and postcards that she had stuck on the wallpaper (preserved behind a sheet of glass) to brighten her room up. We saw the bookcase that concealed the hole that led to the attic. It was sad.. and very surreal. We saw old letters, books, files, and photographs. I touched the stone kitchen counter that was once where food was very quietly prepared.

Definitely very well worth the entrance fee!

………………………………………………………………………………………….

We walked about a bit more after that
And came across a really cool ‘mini-market’
Rosanne took like a million photos in there
Cant blame her, cos the shop was really quirky and had a nice layout!
AND cats on the wall 😀

We bought two buckets of Haribo candy there..
And a bar of hemp chocolate HA ha ha

At one of the many many canals that make up Amsterdam

Chip shops were really popular over there.. for some reason
They wrap it up in paper, like a cone and pour sauce lotsa sauce over it
Sorta like the traditional fish ‘n’ chips thing here

In the city we also bumped into..

MUSHROOM GALAXY!! Ha ha ha LOL

But we’re good girls so in we never did go.

Lame photo to end this post
We had dinner at a pub near Anne Frank’s House
And then draaaaaagged (almost literally) ourselves back to the camp

The 2nd day is MUCH more exciting
That’s cos we went vintage shopping HEHeheh

More laterrrrrrrr

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