I gave Jeff a reasonable amount of time to decompress from work before we set out for dinner. There are a ton of little Bistros and restaurants on Spuitstraat where we were staying. We did a loop around and decided on Italian.
View from our table at Dante Italian Restaurant
No matter what you eat, you have to start with a beer right?
Beer #1
The food was really good, rustic and tasty.
Antipasto Misto
Pizza with spicy sausage and mushrooms
Something that I learned almost immediately about service in the Netherlands is that it is really really slow. I’ll make some ignorant assumptions as to why. First, there is no tipping here. All the servers make a living wage, however, this means that there is absolutely no incentive for my waiter to bring me another beer toot sweet.
I'm smiling because I still have a sip of beer left
The servers are friendly, but you can expect to spend at least one and a half to two hours eating dinner out. Another assumed reason is that it is simply the culture here to take your time, relax and enjoy. As I walked about during the day I would see people at a café having beer or coffee on my way out to a museum and then see them hours later when I returned still chatting and enjoying the early summer weather.
Still here, huh?
After dinner we took a walk to the Waterlooplein area.The buildings here were larger and grander and the canals were more expansive.
Canal in Waterlooplien
Then we made our way around to Rembrandt square. This place was hopping. It’s pretty much all bars and “Coffee Shops” and was teaming with people. It’s easy to stay out way too late when it’s still broad daylight at such a late hour.
Still light out at 10:00pm
This time of year (June -July) the sun is up at 5:30 and doesn’t set until after 10:00. It feels like absolutely everyone in the city is outside. This sounds pretty good until you realize that in the winter, the sun doesn’t rise until 9:00am and sets by 4:00pm. No thanks.
We had another beer and then Jeff continued his search for a scotch that is as good as Lagavulin but at half the price. This has been an ironically expensive venture.
Lagavulin facsimile
Meets his approval, but you can't get it in the states. Boo!
We might have had another round. Jeff didn’t have any meetings until later the next day so we didn’t have to get up too early in the morning. Good thing.
