Housewarming | London

Our housewarming gave us yet another chance to try more artisan beers and a really beautiful scottish whiskey, thanks to our friend Grant who generously brought these:

Grand Theft Orange - mikkeller.dk

Mühle & Bahnhof - brouwerijdemolen.nl

Wild Winter Ale - mikkeller.dk | bedow.se

Autumn Porter - mikkeller.dk | bedow.se

Cocoa Psycho - BrewDog Prototype - brewdog.com

Paradox Grain - brewdog.com

10 Heads High - brewdog.com

Whiskey: Octomore

http://www.bruichladdich.com/the-whisky/peated-whisky/octomore/octomore-5-1-169-ppm-whisky

Natural beauty

Some beautiful mushrooms I photographed on a tree before the snow came.

Brunch

with homemade scones.

Oliebollen met krenten of rozijnen

Here is an explanation of what 'oliebollen' are.

S for snow and Saturday

It's a privilege to have such a window view while having my morning coffee. 

Being able to watch the snowflakes fall while steam rises out of my mug.

Blue Monday was white

Amsterdam is always packed with tourists, they say Paris is the most visited city in the world, but Paris is so big that you can manage to avoid tourists even being a tourist, well that doesn't happen in Amsterdam, because it's a very small city.

Advantages of having lived in Amsterdam: knowing a few nice places where tourists hardly go to. 

The view from my table next to the window.

White week

It has been snowing this week, temperatures went down to -15 with a wind gust of 40km/h (25mph), but it was all so beautiful and worth seeing!

Sunday in Rotterdam

Sunday we went to Rotterdam for lunch. Rotterdam is really close to The Hague, we took the train through fields of sunshine. After lunch we walked around and ended up in a little "café" by the dock and had a cup of nice warm "gluhwein" (spiced red wine). Temperature outside was 2˚Celsius.

Rotterdam is a city that grows on you, even though I still wouldn't want to live there.

 I love the mix between old and new.

The sun setting behind the buildings, close by to where we sat for our "gluhwein".

The Central station of Rotterdam, still under construction, but getting beautiful by the day.

I love bicycles and bike paraphernalia. This basket is so original!

There is hardly no green in Rotterdam, it's literally a concrete jungle, so the picture of this forest was actually quite soothing, pity it is almost faded.

The reflections on the mirrored buildings, it's like a city inside the city.

The "Kijk-kubus",  the cube houses that were designed by Piet Blom in the 70's. 

Caffé Italia in Rotterdam.

We had lunch in "Caffé Italia" in Rotterdam. Good pizza crust, good house wine, good service and an amazing salad. Absolutely delicious. Not cheap but not expensive either. 

Salad ingredients:

Lettuce,

arugula,

roasted pumpkin,

buffalo mozzarella,

red cabbage,

pickled red onion

and hazelnuts.