First of all, the title of this post refers to the fact that on our second trip to Amsterdam and Bruges, taken in September of 2008, our camera freaked out and every picture has a trippy purple tinge.  It does not imply that we spent so much time hanging out in coffee shops that we ended up in a cannabis induced fog.

We did visit a few coffee shops - when in Rome, after all - and I have to say they do actually make good coffee at these places. Some of the best coffee I've had outside of Italy. Certainly much better than in Paris.

We went with Anthony, Marissa's younger brother, and his friend Steve. They travel well and I would go with them again. Relaxed, open-minded, ready for something new - they fit in well with our Dutch hosts.

This time in Amsterdam we rented an apartment - something I am finding more and more is the best way to go if you are spending more than a few days in a city. And while we didn't utilize this one as much as the one in Paris, it was still nice to have the place to ourselves and to feel so much more what it might be like to be a local ( a local with money, these apartments we have rented have been in pretty desirable areas, but still).

The place had huge windows opening to a canal view. It was just a short walk from Leidseplein, the Spui, the Jordaan, the Red Light District, etc. A great location.

Anthony and Steve rented an apartment too. Theirs was in a great neighborhood about two miles north of us, on the other side of the Jordaan. It was a ground-floor studio with no windows and a bathroom that was toilet, sink and shower all in one. The owner left the key under a brick by the front door and they paid him by leaving the money under a giant orange plastic bunny in the kitchen. There was a bong under the sink. It was a great place for a couple of bachelors on their first trip to Amsterdam.

There are a number of Web sites you can rent apartments from, all over the world. We got this one through vrbo.com - Vacation Rentals By Owner. The one we got in Paris, which I loved, we got from allorenta.com.

In Bruges - which I will get to later - we stayed at a Bed and Breakfast.

I almost named this post "Amsterdam 2 - Too Gouda to be True." But that seemed a little over the top and besides, we didn't eat that much cheese.

We did eat a fair amount of yummy ethnic food. The Dutch history of maritime trade and colonization has resulted in a lot of good food being available in Amsterdam. We ate Indonesian - both the fancy-pants rijstaffel at Sampurna and takeout from Kantjil & de Tijger To Go.

The rijstaffel was amazing, but I swear I enjoyed the takeout just as much. One of my favorite moments was sitting on a bench on the Spui, scooping delicious curry and noodles from a carton, watching people walk by or watching the people at the outdoor tables of the bars on the Spui watching people walk by.

I also loved the Surinamese food. For those not familiar, Suriname is a former Dutch colony in northern South America, just above Brazil. You might know it as Dutch Guyana. After slavery was abolished (yes, the Dutch do have slavery - a lot of it - in their history as well) there was still a need for manual labor, so the Dutch imported to their South American colony a large number of contract workers from Indonesia, India, China and the Middle East. Mix those folks with the descendants of African slaves and native peoples and you end up with one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world. No wonder their food is amazing.

What is Surinamese food like? Well, it seems to be a combination of curry and creole. You might be eating a plate of chicken with curry and noodles when POW, here comes a bowl of something resembling Red Beans n' rice. And in Amsterdam at least it appears that most Surinamese places do mostly takeout, so the restaurants have two, maybe three tables at the most. It is like eating at your mixed-race friend's mom's house. What could be better than that?

What else happened in Amsterdam? Marissa got to meet David Sedaris and get his autograph. We were in a coffee shop one afternoon and she noticed in a newsweekly that he was going to be in town for a lecture and to sign books at the American Book Center. So while I sipped a beer at a nearby place and Anthony and Steve sought out a coffee shop, she waited in line for a while and got David Sedaris' autograph on her copy of "When You Are Engulfed in Flames", which she had just happened to bring with her for the trip.

We also took a side-trip to Haarlem. As expected it was lovely and interesting. We spent a good amount of time at the Grote Kerk. I learned that the term "stinking rich" was coined there. It seems that over  1,000 rich (at least in the material sense) people are buried under the Great Church. Even though they were embalmed, their corpses still put off quite an odor so the poor folks attending services each week had to put up with the "stinking rich".

After staying in Amsterdam for several days we took the train to Bruges, Belgium.