recovering in our self-made spa

this is who designed the hotel we are staying in along with the owners of the hotel...

http://www.moooi.nl/content/people/person.php?unid=14
http://www.sevv.com/

he is available to design home interiors. it is our dream now to have him design our bedroom. we would like it to look exactly as it does now but with a bit more room for end tables and dressers. it is dutch design and it is fantastic.

this is the lamp we want.
http://www.unicahome.com/p20839/moooi/fringe-2-lamp-by-edward-van-vilet.html
i am looking at it right now in black as i chill on the comfy bed (with a laptop the hotel let us borrow!) carlos is napping. i think the fountain sounds from the garden put him to sleep, plus italy was very exhausting (more on that later). if you scroll down after following the above link, you may check out the black lamp by clicking on the photo of it. it is just over $1,000. i actually thought it would cost more. way too much for a lamp. but i just might be able to look up at this light from my bed for the rest of my life. i am inspired.

our entire room is white/black/off-white with a few splashes of dark purple. we can recreate this bedroom somehow and make it our own!
http://www.channels.nl/11325b.html

Scandinavia eat your heart out! actually here is a local store we have yet to make it to http://www.bedhabits.nl/new/ they carry Scandinavian furtinture and accessories that look really cool.

today we decided to have breatfast at the hotel so we could get to know more about it. the sister of one of the owners works here during the summer (she's from austria). we chatted her up over espresso and she showed us a couple of magazines where our very room is featured on the cover. of course they are in dutch, so we couldn't read the articles, but i could tell these were top design magazines. we could pick out a few words here and there. i am trying to locate the magazines online without success.

the only drawback so far in amsterdam is the food. there is so much to choose from and you just have no idea if it's going to be surprisingly good or surprisingly bad. we've had a bit of both. falafel is a good choice, cheap and tasty. but the first day i had an overdose of falalfel because i had been craving something other than italian seafood. i sure miss italian seafood and the food there in general now that we are in holland. after learning how to say "i am allergic to dairy" in italian, everything i ate was fantastic. freshest seafood i've ever had. the best and only handmade gnocchi i've ever had. the sauces were light but still full of flavor. we might try a restaurant out in utrecht tonight. probably the vegetarian one. there are a few here in amsterdam, but the crowds are large and it will be nice to show carlos what small town holland is like.

we have a great bathtub here at our hotel and Lush products (i believe they originate in Canada) has a small store not too far from where we are. we bought some "bath bombs" to sort of create our own in-room spa. the bathroom itself isn't very large, but it is only the 2nd bathtub we've had and it is the largest (the one in nice, france was very narrow). we've each had a soak and had to call out from the bedroom area to make sure the other wasn't falling asleep during their soak in the bathtub. i almost fell asleep 3 times. the 3rd time i decided i better get out. these "bath bombs" work. they are each made for different things. the store here in amsterdam has everything written in dutch so we couldn't tell what each product was for if it wasn't in a bottle (many of their prodcuts are not in a bottle because they are handmade of natural ingredients days/hours before you buy them). without knowing what we chose, we chose two that were for relaxing and one of them had aloe to help dry skin which we both have after our time in the sun in france and italy. so this has sort of become our resting point. we were going to visit the Anne Frank museum today, but we read about it and both cried. we haven't decided if we really need to see this place we've known about since we were 12 - we are horrified enough about all that surrounds it without even having to see it. right now we are gearing up for a late lunch, a visit to the Van Gough museum (the modern museum which i really wanted to see and the classics museum are both under construction), then hopefully we'll go for a stroll through Vondelpark.

tomorrow we plan to spend an entire day in utrect, netherlands. just 30 minutes train ride from amsterdam. a place i adore. and a place where we will probably spend the entire day with one break for lunch in a record store. i've been telling carlos about this place for years!