Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Amsterdam and sunny Lille!

Last Friday Cyr and I left for Amsterdam for a short holiday weekend. We drove over, about 3 hours, and it began to rain a bit when we entered the city. It also seemed to be much colder there than in Lille. People talk about how the north of France is cold and rainy, uh...what about Amsterdam!? Maybe it's just my weather karma but I have been there twice, the first was in April of this year and it SNOWED while we were there. This time it was about 50 degrees (10C) and rained off and on the whole weekend. The sun did come out though for a little while each day though. I think people just don't really care much what the weather is like there. I know we didn't! We had a great time! I had never been to an Amsterdam Coffee Shop, so we did that on Friday evening. Everyone talks about this so I had to try it out and wanted to be able to say I had a brownie. I actually had a cookie and a muffin. Pretty tasty, but the whole next day we were super laid back and didn't do much. I think I prefer a good Leffe over the muffin/brownie/cookie thing. Over the weekend we went to the Van Gogh Museum, the Ann Frank house, a photography exhibit and walked around looking at the local artists, having a beer here and there. It was really a great weekend. There was no stress involved and we held hands and smootched all over the city.

We got home last night around 5pm and my bad weather karma must have worn off because it is amazing in Lille today!! It's sunny and 75 degrees (25C)! I had lunch with my friend Marine's aunt and cousin who live here. We sat outside, drank wine and got a suntan over a meal, it was fantastic. They speak broken English and I speak broken French so it was all very entertaining. We actually had two dictionaries on the table and would pick them up to look up words. They were so much fun, I would love to see them both again, I will have to write more about them another time.

I'm actually going to study some French this evening and try to clean the house up a bit. Yes, this is Susan...I am voluntarily going to study and clean. My father might have just fallen out of his chair and broken his other arm after reading this. Maybe I'll just go super crazy and also cook something! Hmmm...maybe that muffin and cookie are still in my system...

6 comments:

J said...

Ooh I love Amsterdam! I'd love to go back someday... it was ridiculously cold when I was there and I got really sick. Of course it was my first stop on a week-long trip in Europe. Not so fun.

Justin said...

I still have not been to Amsterdam, but I have plans for next summer. Your coffee shop visit made me laugh. Glad to hear you had some nice weather and good outings to come back to!

wcs said...

Strolling in Amsterdam sounds like such fun! I was only there once, in 1981 (ancient history), and I don't remember those coffee shops - but someone did offer to sell me hash as soon as I stepped off the train. I declined. I was a poor student.

Anonymous said...

Eating cookies in Amsterdam? You mean hash cookies? lol. No wonder you were relaxed the next day!

Susan said...

I think you are at that dangerous over-confident stage and I hope you gave up on the thought you might cook something. Cleaning and studying is enough - it's early days yet :-))) (tongue firmly in cheek)
I'm pleased to hear you like Leffe, and I hope you make it into Belgium regularly to sample the hundreds of other fabulous beers from there. The first time I had Leffe it was one of the very strong ones, at 11am. It made my gums go numb.
Susan

Susan in Lille said...

Jennie - well at least it's not just me that has really cold weather there!

Justin - check it out and let me know what you think

wcs - probably a wise idea to decline anyway, money or not...

Le tigre - well...pretty much...

Susan - Thank you for talking me off the ledge! Of cooking that is. :-) I am a big fan of the Belgium beers. Anything trappist or from an abby must be good right?