eurozack! version 1.0: a'dam - day 3 - van gogh, elephants, & a brew

today i moved into the Flying Pig Hostel which has won many awards over the years for being one of the world's best hostels, and also the #1 ranked hostel in the Netherlands. you'll notice this is a trend through all of my cities. since the one part of my trip i did plan in advance was flights/accomodations, i was able to book the highest ranked hostel in each city. so far, they have not dissapointed. after staying on the ring of the city center for 2 days at the guestroom, my second two days at the Flying Pig were nice, because it was right across from Centraal Station with direct access to trams and you could reach any area of the city within minutes because of its central location.

this day, i headed out to the museumsplein area to see what it had to offer. they had a really cool iAMsterdam sign that was popular with all of the tourists (including myself) and the largest collection of the colorful painted elephants that are scattered around the city (similar to Berlin's bears). i decided to go to the Van Gogh (pronounced Van Gockht) which was a great pick. it does bug me that you are not able to take flashless photos inside these mueseums, but i followed the rules, only taking photos of the duplicated prints outside.

a woman was kind enough to take my photograph next to a self-portrait of Van Gogh himself, but with the glare, it is tough to tell that we have similar hair color (red for those who don't know me...why are you reading this blog if you don't...?).

after the Van Gogh museum i decided to skip the tourist infested Heineken Brewery and opt for a local brewery instead for my local beer tasting. "Brouwerij 't IJ", the local micro-brewery) was marked by an old windmill on the outskirts of the city and i headed there by tram as it would have been quite a hike just walking. locals use this micro-brewery as the local pub, and i treated it the same. i settled down at a table and sampled 4 of their beers over the course of an hour and used the time to scribble some postcards. time to go find dinner!