I was recently in the Netherlands for one week of a two week holiday. This was the first time I’ve been a tourist in the Orange country and I have to say, I liked it very much. 

KLM has direct flights between Panama and Amsterdam with a flying time of 10.5 hours. This is half the time it takes getting from Australia to Europe, which was nice since I didn't suffer any jet lag on the way there or the way back. On the way over I was offered an Economy Comfort seat upgrade for $57 during online checkin. Since my flight was overnight—and that's a great price—I took it. 

Although the seats are the same as the regular economy seats, the extra recline and leg room were actually really good. I was offered an $89 upgrade on the return flight, but declined since I had a day flight.

It's good that economy comes with a free seat. Thanks KLM!

Amsterdam

The Sunday I arrived in the Netherlands was Amsterdam Pride weekend. My friend came to the airport to meet me then we headed into the city. Instead of doing boring things like going to Anne Frank's house, we did fun things like attend pride concerts!

Here I am looking totally shite fresh, after getting off a long haul flight.

We thought this guy's rubber fetish outfit and beard were photo worthy. Apparently rubber clothes do not make you overly sweaty either. Well, at least in the Netherlands. Panama would be a different story I imagine. I need a shower after being outside for five minutes wearing shorts and singlet top, never mind if I wore rubber! 

I like how the guys behind him are totally checking out his arse!

I also spent another 2.5 days in Amsterdam at the end of my stay, since the whole point of this trip was to attend an Ashtanga Yoga workshop by my favourite, celebrity yogi—the gorgeous Kino Macgregor. 

So yes, I went on a two week holiday to Europe for yoga. 

I know. My life is hard.

Anyway, I think I will try to write that up as a separate post.

All in all, I really liked Amsterdam. If I ever live in Europe again, Amsterdam would definitely be on my list of places to consider. There's lots to see, it's easy to get around, safe, and has good vegan food. 

It's impossible to get a photo of this without a million other people in it.

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But I'm here. Next to the 'e'.

I love this fountain near the hostel I stayed in cos it looks like a flan.

I did passively smoke a reasonable amount of weed while I was there.

The beautiful church—Vondelkerk—where my yoga weekend was held.

Veggie places I ate at in Amsterdam

Meatless District: I had a lunch here which consisted of a pea and mint soup and then some pancakes. It was really tasty. Thumbs up.

Vegan Junk Food Bar:  I only had a burger since I was trying not to load up on too much fat before my afternoon yoga session. It was so good. I would have loved to have tried some other stuff on the menu. Come here with your stretchy pants on!

De Hummus House: Lots of vegan options so my mate and I shared a bunch of dishes. It wasn’t the best hummus I’ve ever tasted, but it was still good. The pita was really fresh and nice though. 

Juice Brothers here and here: There are a bunch of these around Amsterdam and I went to these two a couple of times since they were convenient. Juice Brothers does really good açaí bowls, which I love. They also do a wide range of cold pressed juices. I was trying to be a bit good and get a green juice in every day to make up for all the delicious vegan ice cream I also ate there.

The first time I went to Juice Brothers was because the vegan place we actually wanted to go to was closed. Someone else turned up to the closed restaurant the same time as my friend and I. In a situation that is not unfamiliar to me, he then asked if he could come to Juice Brothers with us. I love how you just end up meeting and eating with other vegans/vegetarians when you travel. This guy was from Norway and on a stag weekend. I asked him his vegan story and he said he dived right in only a week ago after watching What the Health on Netflix. At the end of the documentary he said that consuming animal products did not make sense to him anymore. I love that!

When we reached Juice Brothers I told him about Happy Cow, which is a global website and app that makes vegetarian's/vegan's lives WAY easier. I basically ate my way around South America using this app. 

If you don't eat meat, and you didn't know about this until right now, you're welcome. 😁 

Tilburg

My friend lives in Tilburg so I spent most of my nights there. However, I didn't actually take a lot of photos since I was not really there during the day.

It seemed like a nice city but not as visually interesting as some of the others. 

I do like this statue of the "piss pot man" which symbolises the historical importance of textiles in Tilburg. Back in the day, poor people could literally sell their piss to die fabrics yellow. Mmm, nice!

I also liked the story of the gay king who was having an affair with the priest or bishop or whatever he was, so he literally build his castle next to the church in Tilburg to be close to his lover.

No veggie places where open when I was there. However we did go to Waanzinnig, which did offer some good vegan fajitas and a really delicious vegan caramelised pineapple tart.

The Hague 

Despite being the main government city, it was worth a look. There were some cool buildings and things to see.

I found the Australian Embassy.

Seeing this Christian Louboutin cake was probably the highlight of the Hague. Awesome.💗 

There are a number of vegan/vegetarian options in the Hague however, a lot of them close on Mondays. For lunch we went to Quinta Verde. I had their curry flavoured soup, which was delicious, and then my mate and I shared some vegan desserts. 

We then walked past some other (non veggie) place that sold raw vegan cakes so I had one of them too. It was really good.

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Delft 

Home of Delft Blue or Delft Pottery, this was one of my favourite cities. I thought it was just so pretty. 

I did not eat here so have no restaurant reviews. 

Leiden 

This city is up there with Delft. It’s also very pretty. And it has a windmill! 

We had dinner here. Again, being Monday the veggie places weren't open so we went to eazie, which is a wok, salad and juice bar chain located throughout the Netherlands. The server had no problems telling me which options were vegan. I had a wok dish which was really good, so I'd recommend it  to any vegans looks for quick, tasty feed.

Rotterdam 

According to my mate, there are only a couple things worth seeing in Rotterdam: the main church in town, the cube houses, the food hall, a fancy bridge, and some tower you can go up. I’d say he was right. The city was nothing special since it was destroyed in WW2 and has been rebuilt. 

The cube houses were cool, and I liked the food hall building. But it was the worst day of weather I experienced in the Netherlands so I didn’t stay outside for long. Instead I spent most of the day working in the public library—which I highly recommend if you want an actual desk with an outlet and the internet (€2.50 for 24 hours).

I did see the bridge, but I didn't walk all the way down to it to get a clear photo—it was just too cold and wet—so here's one that got uploaded to pixabay. It is a cool looking bridge though. I liked it.

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However, what Rotterdam lacked in tourist attractions—and decent weather—it made up for in vegan food. The vegetarian restaurant Spirit was awesome! It's basically a pay per weight buffet and most dishes are in fact vegan. Although all ingredients are listed, it's in Dutch so you'll need to get one of the staff to help you distinguish between the vegetarian/vegan options if it's not obvious or you don't speak Dutch.

I'm labelling this place as my favourite restaurant in the Netherlands. Well done Spirit.

Give me ALLLLLLLL the vegan desserts!

Eindhoven

I wasn’t planning on going here, but since there was a rail bus replacement on the way to Maastricht I had to get out anyway. It wasn’t that exciting and you can tick it off in about 30 minutes. 

Maastricht 

Another contender for the Netherlands' top city. This place was really nice. My mate also told me it's the best dressed city but they have the most annoying accents in the Netherlands. It's also home to the oldest Dutch foot bridge—Sint Servaasbrug.

Even Dutch zebra crossings are gay friendly!

Because my phone is shit, the battery had died by lunchtime so I couldn’t take more photos or use the happycow app to find a place to eat. Instead it was a supermarket lunch for me. Although, while wandering the aisles I did discover alpro vegan chocolate desserts, so not all was lost. I also got a vanilla one as part of my vegan meal on the flight home. Both flavours are tasty. Good work alpro! 

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Nijmegen 

This city was pretty enough. I liked it for a few hours. 

The vegan restaurant Crudo actually looked pretty good when I walked past it, however, I was just not hungry enough to eat there so I cannot review it. 

Leeudewarden 

Again, another beautiful city with lots to see just by walking around. Interestingly, Dutch is not the main language spoken here. According to my mate it sounds closer to a Scandinavian language than Dutch. They still spoke English though so it was fine. 

One thing I really liked was the Albi Hostel, which is an old jail that’s been converted into a hostel. Since it’s only a few months old, it still feels really new and has excellent facilities. There are also other boutique shops and restaurants on the site. It's really cool.

My mate told me that the Netherlands is closing loads of jails since presumably they are making less things are illegal. They had so much spare capacity for a while, they were taking Norwegian prisoners but that contract has now ended. I love this story since it's the exact opposite to the US, which has a thriving private prison sector and seems intent on locking up as many people as possible.

I only ate out a one place, Fruitbar Sis. It was ok for what it offered. However, I wish I’d gone to Broodje Bewust, about 100m away since it had a separate vegan menu and looked really good. I didn't actually see that until after though. Oh well. 

To summarise

I really liked the Netherlands and I would highly recommend it as a country to visit. 

✔ On the plus side 

• Beautiful cities 
• Very easy to get around
• Great vegan food
• Everyone speaks English
• Bonus: an abundance of hot guys to look at.

✘ On the negative side

• A general lack of acceptance of visa/mastercard everywhere—why Netherlands, why?
• Generally shit weather
• Super expensive accommodation in Amsterdam.

Steemit Worldmap

!steemitworldmap 52.370216 lat 4.895168 long Come with me on a site seeing tour of the Netherlands while I eat all the desserts! D3SCR

Steemit Worldmap is a project initiative by @martibis and @blueorgy. Find out more here.

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