We had a fun day in Amsterdam, finally visiting the Rijksmuseum and having delicious kroketten for lunch. But that was only half a day. Time for the second half of our daytrip to Amsterdam!

After visiting the Rijksmuseum, it was time for another sort of museum. I’ve been wanting to go to the Moco Museum for a while now. It’s a (post)modern contemporary/ streetart museum with pieces of Banksy and other artists.

I noticed that this museum was a lot quieter than the Rijksmuseum. When we left the Rijks, there were lines of people waiting to get in. The Moco museum is a lot smaller, also located at the Museumplein (right across from the Rijks, actually) and there were maybe 6 other people in there with us.

I really like how these artwork actually tell something and make you think about things. I liked the Rijksmuseum but most of those artworks are, in my opinion, kinda flat. They’re nice to look at, but they are static and are not trying to make a statement like the works in the Moco Museum did. The artworks by Banksy can give you the chills and set your mind at work. I love how art is able to do that.

One of the rooms in the museum was a 3d piece of Lichtensteins’ Bedroom at Arles which was based on a painting by Van Gogh, namely The Artist’s room at Arles. I really liked how this was done, it felt like you were walking in a comic.

The weather was so good this day, and after we spent some times in both museums, we decided to walk through the city a bit, visit the Waterstones and head back to Central Station to catch a train that would take us home.

I’m not a big fan of Amsterdam. I always say that I’d rather go to Utrecht. Utrecht feels like home, while Amsterdam can be super crowded with tourists and the smell of weed just does not want to go away. But, today I saw a different side of the side. Since it wasn’t the weekend, nor vacation, it wasn’t as crowded as usual. The sun was shining and I was happy, and I noticed that Amsterdam can be quite pretty as well.

I feel like I should mention that I’ve got nothing against tourists. I’m one myself, obviously, if I travel abroad. The thing is, a lot of people just come to the Netherlands to only visit Amsterdam to drink, smoke weed and visit the red light district. I don’t like this image of my country, because it’s so much more than that…

Amsterdam is actually quite charming with its iconinc canals and 17th century houses along them. Especially when the sun is shining and you’re walking with your partner along the canals.

We made our way along the canals to my favourite place in Amsterdam, namely, the English bookstore Waterstones (how ironic, isn’t it?). Fun fact, I don’t know my way around Amsterdam since I don’t come there often. But I can walk straight from the train station, along the Dam Square to the Waterstones and back. It’s the only place I’m actually able to find in the city…

Okay, okay, since I’m playing tourist, here’s a picture of the Dam. This is the main public square and somehow on a lot of Amsterdam Bucketlists I sometimes see online. As you can see, Madame Tussaud’s is located here, as well as some hotels and other important buildings.

And here it is from another angle!

Before we hopped on a train, it was time for icecream! We came across a Baskin-Robbins which is, apparently, some super famous ice cream chain, but I’d never been there. There’s so much choice! It was hard to pick! But I choose Gold Medal Ribbon and Chocolate Chip Cookie though and it was absolutely delicious.

Side note: I actually forgot which flavours I had, so I looked on the website and now I’m super hungry and NEED to go there as soon as possible. Can you imagine that I walked past Baskin-Robbins in Utrecht just yesterday and didn’t get any icecream. What was I thinking?