Day 4: New Apartment & Museums

Sunday morning, after a last treadmill run, we had to pack everything up. Though we had another week in Amsterdam, we were moving from the hotel paid for by the conference to an apartment we'd rented. We couldn't check in to our apartment until the afternoon, so we left our luggage at the hotel (in their left luggage room) and set out to see some sights.

We went to the Amsterdam Historical Museum (they are in the process of rebranding as "Amsterdam Museum"), which was incredibly interesting. One of their exhibits was the recreated interior of a famous lesbian bar that had closed, but may possibly have been reopened?Since it had gotten to be lunch time, we stopped at the museum cafe. Brian had another sandwich and I had a pancake with apples, raisins, and honey.By the time we'd finished lunch, it was time to check in at our apartment. The entrance was in the middle of this picture. We were two flights of stairs up.
Brian, waiting for Daniel to show up and let us in:The apartment was very cute and well-designed to take as little space as possible. This was quite possibly the smallest bedroom I've ever seen -- pretty much just room for a bed:
The kitchen:The bathroom:The living room:Having dropped our stuff off, we walked to the Botanical Gardens.
We joked about what this tree must have done to get itself locked up:There was a building with tropical plants. It was very warm in here, so we spent a lot of time looking at the plants!
Our plan was to then go to the Tropenmuseum (which has exhibits on the tropical former Dutch colonies) or the Amsterdam Resistance Museum (about the Dutch response during WWII). We thought we were heading in the right direction, when suddenly we saw the Amsterdam Hermitage (which is in the opposite direction):Since we were here, we decided to visit. They also were having an exhibition on Alexander the Great.

Brian was standing there, trying to figure out how we got turned around, when a stray cat started rubbing against his leg. He was so startled and I got a good laugh out of that! Though she's trying to enter, we did not let her in the museum:
As it had gotten to the time when the museums were closed, we headed back home. The window of this coffeeshop made me laugh every time:
Though we didn't take any pictures, we stopped at the grocery store to buy dinner and snacks. (Our host stocked our fridge with bread, cheese, and yogurt for breakfast every morning.)

Then, we went to a coffeeshop for the full Amsterdam experience. Neither Brian not I felt the effects of this trip, so we were a bit disappointed; though in retrospect, perhaps that's a good thing. We returned home, munchie-free, and went to bed.