After a cold and rainy night, Sunday, October 2nd dawned as a cool and cloudy day.

With our room window facing an alley one would of thought it would be a quiet night for sleeping. One would be wrong. The only time there weren’t people talking/yelling/fighting was when it rained around 5:00 am.

Needless to say, it wasn’t an overly early start to the day for Lynda and I as we got ready to go out around 9:30 am. Lucille and Curtis had been to Starbucks already but I wasn’t going to be hurried.

We checked out of the hotel but took advantage of being able to check our bags with them.

It was time for breakfast and Curtis wanted some French fries and dip but no one else wanted fries for breakfast. Lucille convinced him that they could share an order of the mini pancakes AND get an order of fries to share. She had him at AND so we headed towards De Carrousel Pannenkoeken for breakfast.

We hadn’t gotten far when we came to Blomstermarknaden – Flower Market.

Lynda found some tulips that were legal to import to Canada that she liked.

We finally made it and Lynda and I ordered an order of Poffertjes (Dutch Mini Pancakes) with strawberries and whipped cream to share. While we waited for our pancakes to arrive; Lynda decided to see what activity she could find for us to do and soon she had booked a wine and cheese canal tour for early afternoon.

The pancakes were just as good as they had been yesterday and we left as it was starting to get busy in there.

We picked a different direction to walk and set off to see the sights.

Pretty much everywhere I looked I found something that caught my eye to photograph so we weren’t moving along at a very fast pace.

As we wandered down a street we came to a place that had some bags of what looked like crackers and a sign that said; “Free samples inside.” So naturally we went inside to see what it was all about.

We had stumbled upon Peppernuts Amsterdam Spiegelstraat. Peppernuts are traditional Dutch cookies that come in a dizzying array of flavours and the lady in the shop was more than happy to let us try a bunch of flavours. I picked a few small bags to bring back to work for my co-workers to try and Lynda picked a few of the bigger bags for us.

I think the lady was actually trying to get her store ready to open when we got there and wasn’t actually open yet as her vacuum was underfoot as more and more people came in. Since we’d been there a while and had tried a few flavours, I wholeheartedly endorsed them to the American girls trying to decide on a flavour.

Most of us were feeling quite full after our breakfast and samples but Curtis wanted to get some fries and dip for lunch so we started making our way in that direction.

Since we were close to our hotel we decided to drop our shopping bags off.

Okay, so now it’s time to head for lunch.

Until we found more shopping.

Finally we made it to Vlaamse Frites Snackland (Flemish Fries Snackland) and Curtis got in line to put in his order.

And the line is pretty long as the fries are very good but the choice of dips that can be ordered to go with is pretty extensive.

We all shared an order of fries and dip and then started off in the general direction of our canal tour.

We found our way to the Ann Frank House to get our tour. We were a bit early so we stood and watched the drama on the tour ahead of us as an American woman wanted them to wait for her husband to get there but she had no idea where he was. The boat finally left without him and our boat pulled up to board.

We were again at the front of the line so we got our pick of tables when we got on.

As we got settled in; our tour guide, Fedja, informed us we could have as much wine and cheese as we wanted. Now to a Broomfield that is taken as; “challenge accepted” and while my sister may have changed her name by getting married; she’s still a Broomfield.

The cheese was pretty good and soon Lynda and I ran out so we asked for more. More cheese came fairly quickly. (Almost as fast as the wine refills.)

Our hour tour just flew by and I’m sure the wine had nothing to do with that. We still had cheese left so Lynda wrapped it up and put it in her purse for the trip home.

We thanked Fedja and the boat driver, Fep, for a great time and we tried to wangle our two inebriated ladies along so we could go and find some food before we had to get to the train for our trip back to Paris.

We weren’t going all that fast as they were easily distracted.

We found ourselves at the Hotel Amsterdam De Roode Leeuw. We weren’t overly hungry but knew we should have something before getting on the train. We picked a few appetizers and a beverage. Lucille and Lynda had a beverage and ordered a shot of Jenever – it is a straight gin that has a fiery taste.

We survived supper and had to get ready to get to the train station.

The downside of eating were we had was we were about half way between the hotel where all our stuff was and the train station. Neither Curtis or I could go to the hotel and get all our bags and luggage by ourselves. We could go get the bags a lot faster if we didn’t have to have the girls come along but that meant we had to trust two drunk girls could get themselves to the train station unsupervised.

Since we didn’t have much choice; we put that plan into action and watched the girls leave before we walked back to Hotel Pagi.

We got our bags and started heading back when our phones were blowing up with messages from the girls pretending they had gotten lost.

Lynda sent me a text asking me to guess where she was but she forgot to attach the photos she’d taken. She then posted that on Facebook all the while thinking she was asking me again. Of course people started asking where she was but she didn’t answer them very promptly.

It was hard to walk in the crowds and text back but I answered her as best I could.

There was some kind of protest happening at Dam Square and it was busy enough that there was a little separation between Curtis and I as we passed and a scuffle broke out right after Curtis passed. I made it past the kerfuffle unscathed and we continued on our way.

We found Lucille and Lynda easily enough at the train station and we went inside to check in and wait for the train.

We were on the platform outside while we waited for the train and I really liked the colour of the light but I decided not to risk taking my camera out just in case I had to deal with security so I just enjoyed it while we waited.

The wait was longer than anticipated but boarding went smoothly and soon we were on our way back towards Paris.

Lucille and Lynda fell asleep pretty much the moment we started moving.

I tried to take some photos of things I liked the way they were lit up but riding backwards at a decent speed did make things a bit difficult.

About an hour into our journey and the girls were still sleeping.

Another 2 hours passed in relative quiet and as we were getting close to Paris, they were still sleeping.

Both of them woke up as we were pulling into Gare de Nord and Lucille exclaimed that it was the fastest trip she’d ever made between the two cities and this was now her preferred way to travel.

We were soon off the train and on the RER back towards the apartment.

About half and hour later we walked into the apartment in time for bed.

It felt like we’d covered a lot of ground today but at just over 16 and a half thousand steps; less so than yesterday.