Banksy and Smoothie Bowls
After getting a maximum of 40 minutes of sleep on our flights, Emma and I finally made it to Amsterdam. We took the first day easy and explored the Christmas lights still around Amsterdam Centrum, but the second day, after a much needed night of sleep, we hit the ground running.
First things first, we needed food. Considering our pre-existing love for all things smoothie (shoutout Method Juice Cafe in Spokane), we headed for Zest for Life, a raw food bar, and had the most amazing and fresh smoothie bowls. Feeling recharged, we headed to Museumplein with the goal of going to the Van Gogh Museum. Unfortunately, tickets were gone for the day, but we purchased some for tomorrow (hyped because Van Gogh is my favorite) and headed to the Moco Museum to see a Banksy exhibit instead. It. Was. Incredible. I have never been to an art exhibit so thought-provoking and poignant, and we were really pleased to stumble upon the exhibition by chance.
After Banksy, we headed to find the infamous I AMsterdam sign. Upon checking into our hotel, we were informed that the sign actually got moved from its location in front of the Rijksmuseum (lame) because too many tourists were crowding the area to come see it. So, we headed to its new temporary location in a park, walked around for FOREVER and could not find the mysterious sign. And this thing is hard to miss because it’s huge. The park was also huge, and although we thought we explored every possible area that would make sense for the sign to be in, there was still about half of the park left. We decided to continue the hunt another day.
Hangry and cold, we headed to Jacketz for dinner, a baked potato restaurant back downtown and ended the day happy and eating the biggest potatoes of our lives.
Sidebar, we have mostly cracked the pedestrian right of way here. To summarize, watch for bikes all the time. Don’t be me and almost get hit. Still on the list to figure out: where in the world the I AMsterdam sign is. Stay tuned!
