A second day in Amsterdam

Yesterday I got up early, pretty jet lagged and proceeded to spend some time repacking, trying to get things in more usable places after being packed for the plane ride. After a shower I had some of the complementary breakfast the Flying Pig serves till 10:30. It was pretty basic, bread to toast, fruit slices, and some cereal. After breakfast I checked out of my old room and into my room for the second night then proceeded to chill in the lobby with all my stuff, taking advantage of the internet, till Pat got up. The internet not being available in the rooms sometimes, I made sure to load recent episodes of the Daily Show and Cougar town to watch later. Additionally I used the time to charge my phone and computer, as they seem to be in a perpetual state of being half charged. 

Once Pat arose, around noon, we headed out in search of brunch/lunch and found this nice place with delicious grilled sandwiches and free wifi.

After lunch we headed back to the hostel stopping into a number of the coffee shops along the way to check out their prices and selection. The two nicest places we saw were Green House and Dampkring.  Both had really good selections and atmospheres though Green House was on the pricy side.  It is really cool how ubiquitous coffee shops are here; on the way to my hostel from centraal station, a matter of blocks, I passed three coffee shops. They are everywhere in downtown Amsterdam often with multiple shops on a block.

After a large lunch we were ready to chill at the hostel so we just hung out and relaxed for a bit. After a bit, some of the people relaxing with us invited us join them in going out to make something of the day. We didn’t have much of a plan and ended up wandering into a café and chilling there for a while, with our new found friends.

Eventually we landed on the idea of going to NEMO, a large interesting shaped building just east of central station that Pat and I had spotted yesterday. We were unsure of the building function and as we approached it bickered over whether the building resembles a ship (It does!). It was beautiful out, despite it being windy at times and we got some blue sky and sun on the walk there.

Turns out NEMO is the Netherlands largest interactive science center and “touching is mandatory”. That was pretty cool and we stayed till it closed around five. Upon getting back to the hostel Pat and I realized it had gotten a bit on the late side and we still hadn’t booked rooms past that night yet. After hanging out a bit more we clamored on to the internet to research a place to stay. After comparing various hostels on multiple sights (I was using hostelworld and I think Pat was using hostelz) we landed on spending 2 nights at Hostel Cosmos Amsterdam. After that was booked we met up with some of our friends from earlier and headed to Wok to Walk, a somewhat Subway style design your own pasta place. I got egg noodles with chicken and pineapple and a coconut curry sauce and loved it. Wasn’t too expensive either if I do recall; I would certainly go there again. 

After food we decided to explore one of the nicer coffee shops we were at earlier and ended up hanging out at Dampkring. Once we left, everything downtown was closed so be headed back to the hostel to rest for a spell before figuring out what we would do that evening. When we reconvened at 11:30 we decided to chill for a bit before grabbing some late night McDonalds and heading to bed with plans for an early rise tomorrow.

Shout out to Brent for editing this for me, these posts are written in the scarce time I'm not doing anything and editing is ever so required.