New Year's Day in Amsterdam!

New Years Day. Tim and I hit up the poorly attended hotel breakfast, I assume most people didn't go to bed until the wee hours of morn. We were at least asleep by 4am, so by we were on the tram by 10 easily. Madame Toussaud's was supposed to be open at 10, and we figured we might as well do the few things that were open on New Year's Day. The city was empty, it was eerie and peaceful all at the same time. We got to the wax museum, no sign of it opening, so we walked the streets thinking maybe 11 was more likely. We passed so many firework remnants, that I am surprised the city hadn't burned down while we slept.

11am came, we checked on the museum, and nothing. More blocks walked, more touristy stores visited, including ones with cows on the ceilings and really big wooden shoes upstairs!

Noon, our last attempt at the wax museum before giving up for the day, and voila! Open. Well, at least opening, it took a good twenty minutes for them to set up the velvet ropes before they let us inside, but we got in. Somehow, we broke ahead of the other first groups let in, and we basically got free reign of the statues. It was sweet, we could take as many pictures with any of the figures, being as silly as possible, without anyone to get in our shots, be ahead of us in line, or feel silly in front of. It was nice. The downside was that it was significantly smaller than the London museum, and we finished the whole place in 45 minutes. A euro a minute, bigtime ouch for my wallet. Still a lot of fun though, and some great pics. Including Tim looking up Marilyn Monroe's skirt, touching J Lo's butt, and me striking my best Beyonce pose. And the following shots of myself being snubbed by Bon Jovi...

and the valiant rescue of Timothy by Spidey himself....

Post museum, we had an entire afternoon ahead of us and a nearly empty city to wander. Sadly, our feet didn't agree with us and we decided to focus our efforts on finding the famous Pancake Bakery. We found the right street almost right away, but it took us a long time before we got to the right portion of what seemed like the longest street in Amsterdam.

But we finally found our pancake haven, and you can read ALL about it here. The Pancake Bakery Adventure
My arches had officially given up the ghost by this point, and my eyelids weren't doing much better, so we went back to the hotel for some necessary napping. Hours later, my foot hadn't done much healing, but we weren't willing to sit in the hotel all night, so we took the tram into Rembrandtsplein, hoping to eat at the Three Sisters. Only once we walked in, we were greeted with a nasty smell, so we crossed the square to St. James Gate, and it was the best decision we had made all day. An Irish pub, english speaking, Irish food, Irish bar, warm and cozy, and still decorated for Christmas.

Loved it. They even gave me a plastic masher to release the lemon wonder into my water! It was cute and quaint. I think we could have sat there all night. And then our food came, and our spirits were boosted even more! Tim's fish and chips looked straight from the coast, and my Irish Lamb stew seemed to come straight from some Irish grandmother's kitchen.

After dinner, we began the great ATM search. We asked at a hotel for the closest one, found it, and then were confusezzled by its non workingness until the nicest Dutchman in Amsterdam saw us and came up to us to explain what it said on the screen, that it wasn't working. He was so ridiculously nice about it, its undescribable, it was adorable. More walking, no finding ATM. At least no working one. Asked at ANOTHER hotel, found it, and AGAIN, broken. The only time you can't find something, is when you need it. Half an hour into our journey, we finally found a working ATM. It probably stole an arm and a leg in bank fees, but there was no way there was going to be more traipsing around Amsterdam that night. New Years eve had finally caught up to us, and we were fast asleep by midnight....