Friday figments and photos; the Amsterdam edition

I think it's safe to say that we loved our 4-day weekend in Amsterdam. With unseasonably good weather, we spent our time exploring their local lives in the rose-tinted spectacle way that only tourists can.

We love to enjoy the stereotypical tourist trails featuring canals, tulips, windmills and clogs, but also love straying of the beaten track (in fact when holidaying anywhere I normally Google search "quirky things to do in <insert city name>" in search of the funkadelic) and finding ourselves in eccentric millionaire's cat museums. True story.

And the food, of course the food. We travelled all over the world in Amsterdam, trying everything from Surinam and Indonesian cuisine, to double salted liquorice and breakfast apple pie. I love the Dutch.

We also found a wee Kiwi cafe for a much hyped brunch (only to have to wait nearly an hour for our food) and a rather good coffee. Best leave that one off the list - unless of course you have a spare hour or two to sit in the cold wind. *Ahem*. It may possibly only happen on the weekends, who knows.

We spent time admiring the Museumplein, adored the rejkmuseum from afar, rambled the Van Gogh museum from top to bottom, then ate Lolly Cake in beautiful square that connects these establishments. Oh yeah, we did.

We may have also eaten a brownie or two - hey, it's Amsterdam! This one was a cheesecake brownie with freeze-cried raspberries from the aforementioned Kiwi cafe. It was utterly sexy, and the only mischief was calorific.

The winding canals were spectacular and contained all sorts of humble beauty, friendly Dutch people and cat christmas tree ornaments.

Only you, Amsterdam, only you. It only took us 4 days to surrender wholeheartedly to your mischevious charms, but we are proud to say that you are a complex city with a whole lot of heart. Oh, and naughty brownies.