food, food and more food (oh, and there's work in there somewhere)

So this entry is all about eating...basically besides "work", we've just been going out to dinners. You'll notice that I don't really talk about my work very much. A few people have even been asking me about it and my co-workers, etc. Basically I'm doing Sarbanes-Oxley work but it's nothing new from what I did at PwC. Just some details that are different. The biggest difference is now I only have to work 8 hour days. And even then, it's a pretty chill environment. When talking to Shannon the other day I even said something about being on vacation. She cracked up and reminded me that I was actually here working. That's probably about all you're gonna hear about my work. Nothing exciting or interesting, but it's kinda nice that way. My co-workers are good. Rafael is the main person that I'm working with on this audit. We have different teams at different locations so I'll be working with new people when I go to Romania in June. Shannon and Lily are our IT people and are staying at the same hotel as us so we go out to dinner with them, etc.
Shannon's husband, Kevin, flew in to Amsterdam on Wednesday and is here for a few days...hanging out in Amsterdam during the day, going to dinner with us at night and going to Prague this weekend. He seems nice enough, very easy going and the best part is he's also from Bama! kinda random. Anyways - he's done some touristy stuff but also hit up the Coffee Shops. Something I noticed while here...you should partake in all the cultural activities - it makes you smarter ;-). Kevin's first day here he went straight to a Coffee Shop and somehow lost his map. Basically he said he found his way back to the hotel by following the train tracks! Amazing...it makes you smarter! That's basically become our coined phrase of this trip.
OK, so Lily had been talking about this Pancake Bakery since she got here. It sounded so good that we decided to go there for dinner (you can eat breakfast food any time of day!). The girls got back to the hotel kinda late so we grabbed a cab to take us 1 mile to this place. It's right down the street from the Anne Frank House. Our cabby was hilarious. Somehow it came up that Kevin had gone to a Coffee Shop so the cab driver recommended that we go to The Grasshopper (which was also recommended to me by one of my friends). The cabby said that he didn't smoke, but he was definitely on something! Funny guy, very entertaining and told us his life story...those guys are great. So he took us to the Pancake Bakery and the pancakes were these gigantic crepes. We got 2 - 1 with strawberries, powdered sugar, whip cream and ice cream toppings and the other with bananas and nutella toppings. Both were great but the strawberry pancake won out. Lily and I also split an extremely large omelet. I took pictures of all the food and will put them up in a few days.
So our dinner was fantastic...we left the Pancake Bakery extremely satisfied and walked back to the hotel to burn a few calories. Apparently it was noted that I eat a lot for my size...actually, I think it's only with dessert - somehow I can always make room for it!
The walk back to the hotel was great. The weather was perfect again and we just strolled along the canal. A lot of people had their blinds open so we were checking out the inside of their houses....amazing!! I can't even imagine how expensive these places must be!!

Thursday, May 3rd-
Today was a busy day of work, so the day flew by! Got back to the hotel and had to pack up everything so we could check out for the weekend...we're going to Prague! We realized that there was this really nice Italian restaurant right next to our hotel, so it was agreed to go there for dinner tonight. Bice - they actually have one in Chicago, NYC and several other big cities around the world. I packed up while waiting for the girls to get back (they were driving in from Breda, so it took a little longer to get home). Rafael had to do some work so he skipped out on dinner and went to the hotel bar (I think he spends more time there then in his actual hotel room!). We got to dinner around 8:30 and the place was definitely fancy schmancy. The food looked great though, so we were in!
Our waiter was pretty good - I wish I got his name so I could give him props, but oh well. He was from Italy (Naples actually) and quite the character. Service was slow - but that's to be expected here...We ordered 2 bottles of wine, Falanghina, which was awesome! The bread was great, some kind of parmesan-type break and we mixed the balsamic vinegarette and olive oil for a great dipping sauce. For dinner I tried the Linguine with Seafood....little did I realize that my plate would come out with a huge shrimp head on it. It was so disgusting!! I was thinking - am I gonna have to get the meat outta this thing? Thankfully it was just on there for "decoration" and the meat had already been taken out. My pasta also had mussels on it - which i'm not a huge fan of, but tried it anyways. The sauce was great - so all in all, my meal was good. Again - always room for dessert! Lily and I split a hot chocolate souffle with vanilla ice cream and rasberry sauce. AMAZING!!! great finish to a good meal.
I hope you didn't read this if you were hungry, but that's what I've been up to for the past couple of days. Today's another busy day of work and then we're heading to Prague tonight for the weekend!! Unfortunately it's supposed to rain, so that might be a little bit of a damper but we'll make the best of it.
Have a great weekend everyone!!