Tourist Capital

The Netherlands technically has two capitals: The Hague is for the serious business and Amsterdam is for the crazy business. At least that is my summary, do your own research to see if you agree. But for those of you who don't already know, Den Hag is the headquarters for the Parliament and the Embassies, where as Amsterdam is crawling with the tourists who come to gawk (at more racy things than brick) and smoke (things that are illegal elsewhere). That isn't to say that you shouldn't take Amsterdam seriously, you should, it has some outstanding museums, restaurants, and stores, but tourism has a tight grip on it.

Unlike the 70% of the people on the streets we weren't tourists when we went to Amsterdam, we had an important reason:  repair/prevention of screen burn on our Mac computer. So we headed straight for the largest Mac store in continental Europe (at least that is what we were told).
And if you're interested you can also read a little about the Apple Store here.

(Not my photo, thanks goes to Wikipedia. I took a photo and it's far from impressive, so I thought this would leave a better impression.) 

But we had a little time to kill while waiting for our 'appointment' at the Apple Store so we walked around the city with the tourists and took some pictures like the rest of the multitude. 

And then, because it was raining and we were wet and cold we took refuge in this elegant shopping plaza/mall/building: 

I will need a few more zeros added to the end of my salary before I go back there for clothing, but it was warm and pretty inside and that's all we wanted. 

After our Mac appointment we walked in the cold some more, and after all that wet and walking we thought that some refreshment was well deserved. We found a nice cafe and had some delicious hot chocolate topped with plenty of whipped cream.