We spent the morning packing and organizing to leave the next morning. Cleaning up a bit. Adam and Natasha went out to get some special foreign beers to take home with them. We left the house at 12:30 to head out for the rest of the day. Not a lot on the list so we were trying to be leisurely but that led to a lot of standing around and a little bit of irritability. But we did get to see the Cat Boat and pet some kitties which was fun. :) We walked around a lot, got some pastries, until we settled on a small café in the gay district and had a drink out on the street, enjoying the weather and people watching. It was very relaxing. Then at 2 we went to Café 't Mandje, a famous bar that opened in 1927 by Bet van Beeren, an open lesbian. It's mantra was that everyone was allowed - gay, straight, black, white - and after closing for 26 years and reopening in 2007, it was sort of adopted by the gay community. We were the only people in the bar, so the bartender talked to us for a while about the history of the place, and Adam and Natasha tried some of the local beers on tap. He then recommended that we check out a local brewery around the corner, we we went there to try more local beer. Afterwards, Adam and Natasha went to a wellknown burger place and Winn and I went to an Argentinian tapas place for some lunch. Amsterdam is FULL of Argentinian restaurants - sometimes there were five or six on ONE street. Every corner we'd turn, we'd see another one! Very unexpected.

The plan was to meet up with Kevin and Mel at 5 at this brewery called 't IJ on the far side of Amsterdam (even past the zoo!) so we walked over there and got there at 4:30. It was a happening place - full of tons of locals. Since it wasn't near the center of town, I don't think a lot of tourists happened upon it. It had a neat atmosphere and a giant windmill. Kevin and Mel were late because of trains being closed in den Haag due to Veteran's day so I don't think they got there til 6:30. We had a few more beers and then just before the brewery was about to close, we decided to head over to this other cool restaurant Kevin had recommended, on the OTHER side of town, closer to where we were staying, called Barney's Uptown (part of four Barney's owned establishments on one street) that had a nice chill vibe and pretty decent food. For a Saturday night it wasn't very crowded at all and we got a table, though we didn't get any service for close to 30 minutes lol. Dutch service is not particularly exemplary. After ordering drinks it took 45 minutes to get them so as soon as we received them we ordered our second round which didn't come out for another 30 or 45 minutes. But despite the less-than-stellar waitstaff, we had a WONDERFUL time with Kevin and Mel. So glad we got to hang out with them some more. :)