December 9th, 2024

Well we slept for almost 14 hours! Probably would have kept sleeping but we had a food tour at 11am. The weather is cloudy which it will be for most of the trip.

On our way to the food tour Kathy found her souvenir that she thinks will fit into her bag.

Room for 2 passengers and a couple of packages.

The food tour started in a cheese shop. Our guide was Daniel and there were only 4 of us on the tour. All Americans and all women. Daniel was quite charming and if course we got his life story. He is originally from South Africa and is getting his degree in applied math but his true passion is comedy and he preforms every night except Mondays. We would have been interested in seeing him.

At our first stop we had cheese and tomato sandwich on warm homemade bread. A farmers sandwich and it was very good. After that we went to a stand on the street and had herring with pickles and raw onions. The herring was raw and not my thing so neither of us tried it. Luckily one of the girls with us loved it so she made sure none went to waste.

Next stop was a stroopwafle store that makes them fresh to order.

They have the dough balls which they put on the griddle and cook for about 1 min. After the dough is cooked they cut they use a mold to cut the wafle perfectly round and then they cut the wafle horizontally in half so they can put Carmel in between.

Then they put the 2 halves together and put in a cardboard pouch with a wet wipe and give to you. They can also dip one end in chocolate and put topping on such as nuts, fruit, Oreos, pistachios or mini m&ms.

Window display in a Stroopwafle shop.

After the stroopwafle shop we went to a fry and croquette shop where we had some plan fries with dipping sauce and some meat and cheese croquettes. I don’t know how they do there fries but they are always crunchy on the outside and hold the sauce well without getting mushy. The croquettes are deep fried and the inside is almost like a ball of fried gravy with a little bit of meat in it. The locals put mustard on it.

Us all wrapped up and on 1 of the iconic bridges.

The last stop was a pancake shop and we had Dutch Pancackes which were great. Probably my favorite. More like fluffy fried dough with tons of butter and powdered sugar. Then you put a thick syrup on it, not maple, thicker but good. Can’t imagine how many calories.

I forgot to take a picture before I used all the butter😳

We stayed in the pancake shop talking with Daniel for a bit. He has had a fascinating life, his father is a director in Johannesburg and is finishing his first Netflix movie and his mother is in Capetown and is an acclaimed author having written several books about her past struggles with heroin addiction.

After the food tour we walked around for several hours because we had lots of calories to burn off. We found several pedestrian shopping streets but nothing we needed to buy. Mostly just wandered enjoying the sites.

Most of the streets have decorative lights on them.

The canals and canal boats.

Classic Amsterdam scene along the canal

We are told that most of the houses in Amsterdam are leaning. One explanation we heard was that all of the houses were built on wooden foundations back in the 15 & 16 hundreds and that it’s almost impossible to get to the foundations to write them at this point. Sounded like one of the better explanation so we went with it.

We made our way back to the hotel around five and I managed to watch the dolphin game on the NFL network and was pleased that the Dolphins won. We headed back out around seven and got something for dinner. We wandered around, enjoying the lights and then scoped out where the Viking ship would be parked the next day to see if it was something that we were able to walk. Then back to the hotel where I was able to watch the Chiefs game and they also managed to win, barely. We were supposed to do a Segway tour on Tuesday before we boarded the ship, but it got canceled due to not enough people interested. So the morning is ours to do as we see fit. Went to bed around midnight.

Central station lit up at night.