I am in love with this city! Well, to clarify, I am in love with this neighborhood.

I started the day at Svaha Yoga, a studio in Jordaan that I chose because one of the teachers there had visited my studio in Frankfurt. I love how you can meet people in one city and connect with them in another.

After I got my namaste on, I came back to my bed and breakfast. I think Frank was upset that I hadn’t taken advantage of the place he had set for me for breakfast. I also think he still hasn’t realized that I ate almost all of his peanut butter and lunch meat upon my return from yoga (luckily I brought my own eggs with me to Amsterdam).

I fueled up and set out exploring the neighborhood. I had mapped out a few health food stores where I could pick up some protein, almond butter and healthy snacks–some of the things Frankfurt is lacking. I was pleasantly surpised that a health store was literally around the corner from my hotel. And as I walked the streets, I realized I was a moron for mapping out health food stores. They are everywhere here, thanks to the hippies, I guess.

I visited the Noordermarkt, which was also right down the street.

On the scale of markets I’ve visited in Europe, this one ranks pretty high. Although it wasn’t as large as some of the markets in London, it did have a selection of superfoods like I hadn’t seen before.

Of course, there were still breads and cheeses…

This girl was going at it slicing cheese!

Brood!

Sipping kefir (if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em), I spent the day wandering up and down the canals (did you know Amsterdam has more canals than Venice?), without a real agenda, other than to check out the interesting stores.

I found a tea store, a chocolate store, and they both ship to Germany! I stopped in so many small boutiques, and really got a taste of how charming this town is.

As the sun started to set, I headed over to the red light district to check it off my list. Well. I couldn’t find it.

The Royal Palace at Dam Square

I was starting to think I was the only person in the history of the world who couldn’t find the red light district in Amsterdam. I was walking up and down the streets, and nothing. I saw a couple of red lights and headed in the direction and it ended up being a Subway or something.

Fed up, I walked back to my hotel.

Then, I saw some red lights! Success.

But then I walked by and nothing. No girls in the windows, no shady guys going inside. Just some red lights and open curtains.

When I looked at my watch, it said 6:30. Duh. Well, it was cold, I was hungry, and I couldn’t care less. I tried.

I had dinner at a tapas place, where they made sure to ask multiple times if I was alone (still not as hilarious as when they couldn’t comprehend that I was just one trying to buy tickets to a show in London).

Although it was supposed to be a nasty day of rain/snow mix, the sun was out for most of the day. So I got my vitamin D, I drank a ton of herbal tea, and I ate a lot of superfoods.

Amsterdam. Good for the body. Good for the soul.