Welcome to Amsterdam!  I took the Thalys train from Paris.  It was a quick, beautiful ride and there was free WiFi on the train, which I used to video chat with my parents as the weather outside went from nice and sunny to gloomy to torrential rain.

I went with my cousin, Tanguy from Paris and we stayed with other cousins in Amsterdam.  The weekend consisted of a lot of eating (obviously), catching up, hanging out with great aunts and uncles and exploring the weird and wonderful shops of the city.  I probably had pickled herring about 8 times, which works out to about 2-3 times a day.  We also visited the poffertjes stand a few times.  Poffertjes are like little mini pancakes slathered in butter and powdered sugar.  They are pronounced poferchers and they are incredible.  I love the language because it sounds like an alien language.  Luckily, almost everyone I needed to talk to spoke English perfectly.

I also experienced my cousin, Tanguy’s favorite Amsterdam food and dessert: croquette, which is fried mashed fish and something resembling egg cream, thick and sweet and served with sprinkles (below).

I spent a lot of time with my great-aunts and uncle, looking at pictures, asking questions about my family and catching up.  My great-aunt, (my mom’s, mom’s sister, showed me and my cousin lots of pics of the fam.

My other great-aunt fed me raw beef sausage!  It was my first time.  I will probably never eat it again.

We also walked around and went to the Dampkring to check out the scene and visit the site where a few minutes of Oceans Something was shot.

A very cool store to visit in Amsterdam is called Dom Kristian Jovan.  Some of the things that caught my eye, like a flower pot with a little miniature man holding up a little miniature woman, are below.

I went to the new Hermitage museum as well.  It was amazing – it contains just a tiny sliver of the artifacts from old royal Russia.  Definitely worth a visit.  I also though the bathroom there was very cool.

And of course, on my way out I had to have one last herring in the airport.