Spring in Amsterdam...

It's been a while now since my last update here... I guess everyday life here has not been so exciting and I've also been rather caught up in university work. So here's a little update of random things that happened during the past weeks.

Already in mid-january, the dutch celebrated National Tulip Day and brought thousands and thousands of tulips to Dam Square outside the royal palace, free for everyone to pluck - naturally, the lines for going inside the plucking area were long, so I only took some pictures from outside:

In the meantime, spring has also arrived here in Amsterdam, and while the canals during misty winter mornings have had a certain romantic touch, especially with a thin layer of ice and maybe a snowflake or two on the bridges (part of me had hoped that we would see the canals frozen solid, but you'd need around a week of temperatures far below 0 for that to happen), I definitely prefer the longer days, stronger sun rays and budding flowers everywhere.

And we've opened the barbecue season!

At home I've started a small attempt of proving to myself that my black thumb might not be as black as I think it is and have started a little herb garden, courtesy of Ikea, with coriander, thyme, parsley, oregano, basil and lemon balm.

So far, I seem to be rather successful - only the lemon balm doesn't want to grow, but I wouldn't know what to do with it anyway. Also, I'm still not entirely sure what I should do with our little piece of garden, where so far only ferns grow since some corners of it barely get any sun.


And I finally made it to the Rijksmuseum! I've had my Museumkaart, which gives me access to most museums in the Netherlands, for a while now and never used it. And since I bike past (or rather: through) the Rijksmuseum on a daily basis, this one was first on my list. Apart from the famous Night Watch and some other Rembrandt and Van Gogh paintings, I especially liked their antique dolls' houses: collected by rich women as a hobby, some of them were so exquisite, that they would cost about as much as a real house.