Forty Ninth Parallel Cafe & Lucky's Doughnuts (Kitsilano): donut worry, be happy

So the reason Zach and I didn't get dessert at Maenam was because we wanted to drop by 49 Parallel for donuts. I personally enjoy this location much better than the one in Mount Pleasant due to the brightness of the cafe. I also used to live around here so naturally, I came to this one more often. Now that I am in East Vancouver, I have not been here since the summer.

It was a Saturday afternoon but I did not expect it to be SO busy. There was a lineup far outside the cafe and everyone was looking for seats. Luckily, Zach and I were going to get a coffee & donut combo to-go and walk down to Kitsilano beach for a stroll. While in line, we realized that they were hosting the hot chocolate festival. They had a deal on hot chocolate & donut for $6 (it may have been $6.50) so we decided to get that instead. I've tried many of their donuts already: peanut butter & jam, salted caramel, oreo, lemon mergue and etc. but they had a couple new ones I never tasted before.

Amsterdam

After 6 months.. I am attempting at writing again.  This time, it will be a bit different because I am actually headed to Kenya for about 2 months with a volunteering organization called GIVE (Global Initiative for Village Empowerment).  Since flying over to Kenya is not the easiest, my teammate Rashma and I decided to stop by the Netherlands for a couple of days instead of being in layover for about 35 hours.  We flew to Amsterdam from Vancouver which took us around 9 hours, found a nice cozy place on air bnb and decided explore this city.  

We didn't do any research before our arrival so it was exciting to find things along the way by asking the locals. After yesterday's first glimpse of Amsterdam, these are the things I learned about Amsterdam.

1. Cafes everywhere.  Funny enough, I was actually looking for a big fat burger with fries to realize that I wasn't in N. America anymore.  Most places serve sandwiches with soup.
2. Cannabis.  You can get your own starter kit for 2.50 euros.  
3. Sex.  Sex museums, red light district, prostitution etc. etc.
4. Flowers.  There is a flower market which sells the root of the plant.  It was an interesting to realize once again how ugly roots grow into something so beautiful.
5. Cheese. We went into one of the stores and just tried out their cheese. #hippielife
6. Canals. Of course the signature. 
7. Cyclists. Some, very angry if you are getting in their way. This lady gave Dina, who is also a GIVE traveler this year, the biggest disapproval when she stepped on the cycling lane.  We went because the signal told us that we could walk.  I am not sure how that works around here. 
8. Very tall people. Some look like models.