At the start of September I went to Amsterdam for a long weekend, to celebrate my partner’s birthday and to attend the tattoo convention.

General vibes

As soon as I landed in Amsterdam, and made my way into the city I really liked the vibes that I was getting. Buildings are large, generally interesting to look at and things feel busy but in a calm way. We spent the first evening (and a couple of other evenings in the trip) wandering around exploring and taking photos (putting my recently purchased camera to good use).

The city is very easy to get around, and there’s so much to see that there’s something for everyone (especially if you like smoking weed, which I had no interest in trying). The people are very friendly and helpful as well, and despite being a popular tourist destination you don’t get that feeling of being oversold everything like you sometimes get in other cities. Amsterdam is content to just let you chill and go at your own pace.

Museums

While there we went to a range of different museums. Unfortunately we found out about the museum pass near the end of the trip, so we probably could have saved some money on admission. But that’s my only complaint.

I won’t list all of the museums we visited, but my favourite of the bunch was Art Zoo. I’m not a huge fan of taxidermy, but it was presented in a tasteful and interesting way, in an interesting venue and with some cool fossils as a bonus attraction.

The actual zoo was my favourite ‘attraction’, even though the capybara decided to go and hide. There’s a good range of animals and it feels like they’re being well cared for and given a good quality of life. The Barbie dream experience was a close second, but was tainted lightly with the number of children present in the ‘adult only’ slot that we booked.

Food

There’s a range of food available in Amsterdam. It’s easy to find a place that caters to your mood, be it a nice Italian or some authentic Dutch pancakes (we managed to find a place that offered gluten free pannenkoeken for my partner, which was a nice surprise). Costs varied and if you wanted to spend the time shopping around a bit you could probably stick to a strict budget. We ended up at a resaurant called Satay Club a couple of times, which I’d definitely recommend visiting for a nice meal with a relaxed atmosphere.

Albert Heijn was also great. Yes, it’s just a supermarket so I’m essentially saying that Tesco Express was good – but they had a nice range of products on offer and it was convenient and fast to find one, buy what you want and then get out again. Something I value a lot.

Tattoo convention

The tattoo convention was fantastic. The venue was really cool and had great lighting, there was enough space to get around easily even when it got busy and although we had some difficulty finding the entrance (most artists weren’t using coil machines, so we couldn’t follow the noise) once we got in there was a clear path to follow without feeling like we’d missed anything out.

There was a lot more variety when it came to the range of styles on offer – one of my biggest complaints with the UK conventions I attend. The most interesting thing for me was getting to see some artists working on large scale Japanese tattoos, and some traditional tebori tattooing. I also got to meet my friend, Drew the tribal guy, in-person for the first time and say hello face-to-face.

I also took the opportunity to get shot by Jobstoppers at the convention (an early Christmas gift from my partner). I’ve been a fan of his photography for a while and thought that his distinctive style would result in some great photos. I found Joakim really easy to work with. His instructions when posing me were clear and we were able to take a range of photos for me to choose from. I’m very happy with how they turned out and would love to do an updated photoshoot with him later on in my bodysuit journey.

Conclusion

I’ll definitely be visiting Amsterdam again at some point. It was my first holiday with my Fujifilm X-M5 (which I purchased because flying with a Polaroid is a pain) and I really enjoyed taking a lot more photos than I usually would.

The convention was fantastic, the people were friendly, the atmosphere was relaxed and there was a lot to see and do. No complaints from me.