Wednesday, December 31st: Amsterdam - Bitterballen, Oliebollen, Skating Rink and Fireworks

Our food missions for the evening (once we arrived in Amsterdam) were Bitterballen and Oliebollen!

Bitterballen: Little spheres of meat, cheese, and dough, deep friend and crunchy on the outside.  A classic Dutch food, often served at pubs as a snack.  We bought ours from a hot vending machine!

Weird system, but super convenient, and probably super popular for anyone who's heading home after a night of drinking and craving some greasy salty snacks.  I watched one guy chow down on three vending machine sausages in a row while I was standing here!

Oliebollen:  When we first arrived in Amsterdam on the 22nd, we noticed little seasonal food stands set up serving sweet donut-y treats with names like "Oliebollen" and "Appelflappen".  When I was in Aruba, I remember eating Oliebollen, and thinking that they reminded me a lot of Tim Horton's "Dutchies" and then it all started to make sense (Aruba was a Dutch Colony!).  Appelflappen was new to me, but equally exciting (I mostly just enjoy saying "appelflappen").  When we'd first arrived, we Googled both of these to see what the deal with them was.  Appelflappen translated to "Apple Fritter", but "Oliebollen" translated literally to "Oil Sphere".  Mmmmm!

Taking in the pre-midnight fireworks (I'll get to that in a second), we ended up wandering past an Oliebollen stand (no appelflappen, unfortunately), so we decided to try them out.  We ordered one each, but because the stand was closing right away, the fellow serving us filled up the entire bag (more than 10 for sure).  We each tried one and decided that as tasty as they were, they were also pretty true to their name - so greasy!

In looking for a nice spot to warm up and kill a bit of time waiting for the midnight countdown, we got some glühwein at the bar next to the central skating rink and then tried to pawn off our oliebollen on other customers.

Me, enjoying some glühwein in the skating rink shack

This girl had no interest in our Oliebollen

Now, New Years Eve in Amsterdam is very different from New Year's Eve in Canada, mostly because fireworks are legally set off by anyone anywhere.  Earlier that day, the sound of firecrackers could be heard occasionally, but as soon as the sun set (around 5:00pm), it was a non-stop cacophony of explosions, and we literally had to dodge some firecrackers and roman candles on the street while we were walking.  This continued until about 3:00am, but the frequency and intensity definitely increased from midnight until 1:00am.

I found a video online of this year's fireworks in Amsterdam, shot from the 20th floor of a building.  Being at ground level (and much closer to some of these fireworks) has a different vibe, but this gives a good idea of just how many were being set off at any given time.

Tomorrow we're heading back to Minneapolis.  Unless something outrageous happens, I don't think there will be any more updates.  Until our next adventure!  Thanks to everyone who commented/emailed while we were here.