Amsterdam is so confusing to me. It's a very beautiful city, with a lot of things going on but somehow I'm not too fond of it. The layout of the city is so obscure and to be able to see everything you kind of have to go first down then to the right and them to the left; so getting to places takes a lot of time and effort. Also because of the small roads between the canals and houses it feels super crowded and tight. There are roads going straight, coming from three different directions and somewhere the road goes around and sometimes straight. Just confusing. In my opinion, to be able to get the best experience out of Amsterdam you either have to really know the city and all it's streets or do a lot of research and plan your trip really well ahead. I don't know the city and I suck at planning my trips so for me it has always been just randomly going around.
The department store De Bijenkorf in Amsterdam has a really good selection of designers presented so I wanted to do a little visit there. They have for example Maje and Sandro, All saints, COS and Whistles. Also brands like Topshop and Karen Millen. Their bag collections is always to-die-for! Gorgeous, gorgeous bags from Alexander Wang, Celine, Balenciaga, Proenza Schouler.. You name it. Basically all my favorites under one roof; Heaven-On-Earth! Everything is so my style and god help me if my 16-year-old self would have been let to go there.. Mummy's bank account would be in debt even today. They also have Hermes and Louis Vuitton shop-in-shops so not a bad environment to spend time at. It's also a good thing I didn't do my exchange anywhere closer to Amsterdam, for example Utrecht, my bag and sweater collection could be a lot broader but on the other hand my bank account figures not looking so positive.
This was my fourth time in Amsterdam and my plan was to check out the Van Gogh museum. But because of our late night arrival from Antwerpen on Wednesday, I got myself up from bed just before noon and therefore the departure was a tiny bit later than expected. The train ride to the Dam takes like 2,5 hours so it was already almost dark when I arrived. That's why I decided to skip the museum and just walk around. For the first time I was brave enough to visit the red light district. Phew, it was scary. And weird. It was so weird to see the girls just standing in the windows, while families, young people, old people, boys and girls just passed by casually. I was a bit scared as of course there were some dodgy people also so my visit was a short one, yet just long enough for me.
On the way back to the trainstation I was kind of getting hungry so inspired from the amazing food experience in Antwerpen, I aimed for Indian food again. And this time, it was even better have to say. I took some house special dish with naan bread and a mango lassie of course. In Tampere I really want to visit my favorite Indian restaurant for the first time in ages again. And I also want to try and learn to do it myself. Especially Naan bread.
Before heading back to Groningen, I took a train to a city called Almere, just 20 minutes away from the capital. I knew there was an outlet shop of Riviera Maison so I wanted to stop by there and see what they have. Of course as an outlet store I was expecting them to have just the leftovers and maybe 2nd quality products, and most of it was. They had a lot of christmas decorations for example. That would have been a good change to buy cheap decorations for next year but couldn't be bothered to be honest.
I left the store with a cozy grey blanket and some super cute golden candle holders with an amazing discount. I still had some time left so I went to Zara and as a surprise to me, I even found something. And they were all in sale! I found a super warm cardigan, a white business casual kind of shirt for work and a basic white t-shirt.
Waiting for my train back home, at the trainstation I was a bit amazed by the number of guards they had in there. I don't know what kind of a city Almere is but there were tens of guards in there. I was expecting something interesting to happen, like they would be expecting a criminal to come from one of the trains but it turned out they were just checking tickets, lol. Finally exhausted from all the shopping (hah) I was home and got to enjoy my souvenirs from Amsterdam, these gorgeous colorful macaroons.
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