Amsterdam
Official Brunger tour no. 17
Easter 2015
Next in the line of unusual museums that Paul hadn't visited yet was the DWDD Pop-Up Museum.
Naturally, we started at the start. It was on for four months or so, but there's no time like the present.
Anyone for some skinned fruit?
It was certainly a place where things were turned on their heads, including these shoes which sat on the place where a head should normally be. It makes a change from constant cats, I suppose.
Fresh from the cannibal accessories catalogue are a lovely pair of head-shaped earrings. And also a guy with an egg balanced on his head, with more in his hood. Who needs shopping baskets?
What on earth is this? A hairy-legged, hairy-backed woman with a hot hand sniffing her own armpit, that's what.
This was an interesting, and slightly unnerving, feature. It's hard to do it justice with a photograph, but it spent the entire time moving around on the spot. It wasn't that exciting. Just a bit odd. (That's basically a neat description of the museum.)
Paul loves a bit of virtual reality gaming, even if it's not that responsive and actually quite dull.
After a morning of museuming, it was time for lunch, and Paul took us here.
There was quite a wait to get a table, with the staff seemingly in no rush to seat us. While we waited, we happened upon some interestingly produced alcohol. It's my favourite kind.
When we did finally sit down, there weren't that many people around (it was still busy, just not quite as rammed as the queue suggested, although perhaps we had past peak time). Paul seems to have opted for some meatballs on bread...
...while I chose this lovely combination of things on bread (from top to bottom, ham, cheese, croquette).
And after our main course, we headed here for some dessert, having possibly the best cookies in Amsterdam at Van Stapele.
This looks a bit like the building that was at the end of the street with the tramlines on. I am not a very good guide.
Rather that bother myself with trying to get in to see Anne Frank's house, I instead focussed on the next best tourist attraction: the queue to see Anne Frank's house. It would certainly take up less of my time.
It's probably not Amsterdam if you don't see a tulip museum. We didn't go in, though. We've done enough museums today...
...or have we? Just like there's always room for cheese after a meal, there's always room for a cheese museum after a feast of museums. I certainly seem pretty happy with myself, wearing my Iceland scarf on what must have been quite a chilly day for early April.
Inside, Paul points to something of interest. Cheesy interest.
I'm not entirely sure why I took a picture of this - it looks a nice enough café on the river. Perhaps it was where we were heading next.
Ahhhh, it's beer time. And, not just beer time, but romantic candlelit in the daylight beer time.
And not just romantic candlelit in the daylight beer time but romantic candlelit crossword solving in the daylight beer time. This looks like the classic MEN crossword. Needless to say, we nailed it. Eventually.
Once the beer had started flowing, we abandoned the tourist pretence and went to another pub, seemingly in a less salubrious part of town. The miserable git Paul Brunger duly posed for me.
It wasn't too busy and we were able to slink over to the pool table and, well, have a game or two.
Which isn't something that could be said for the table football, as it wasn't working. So we were denied.
Here is a view of this establishment's beer garden.
Once place we didn't go was the Heineken brewery (sorry, they appear to have spelt it wrong). Paul didn't want to. Maybe. He's surely been before anyway.
Wandering about, we stumbled upon the previous night's kebab house and I felt it worthy to take a photograph for our records.
After a recharge, we headed back out for our evening. First up, drinks at Coffee & Coconuts, although it's weirdly denoted as C.T.
In there, they appear to have lots of bananas, or something like that. Hopefully the decision to have a glass of Oedipus wasn't going to lead to a crazy night of death/marriage. I would imagine not.
On the long-ish walk to our evening meal venue of choice, I noticed this across the road. Despite the good name, we wouldn't be going there, though.
And here was our destination, the Koh-I-Noor restaurant. We were going to have our own Curry Night, although perhaps rebooted as Curry Night Abroad.
It was a little too busy for us right now, so we headed next door for a beverage. Paul has cleverly covered up the second part of his beer name, leaving just "Paul". Classic.
Starting off with poppadoms, obviously. And very large bowls of chutney and/or sauce.
This was the main course, you know what one looks like. I seem to remember it being enjoyable enough. (Sorry, that's not a very good review but it's almost a year ago.)
Latest in the line of places we didn't go to (not to be confused with those the list of places we did go to).
We're almost ready to go to page three, if you won't. Or you could go back to the Secret Portal.