Noordermarkt en Uitsmijters

This morning I woke up really early (around 9 am) to go to the noordermarkt with my friend Alex. I unluckily and accidentally shrunk my warm winter coat while trying to wash it and have been coatless for the last two weeks. Despite various efforts to locate a new coat, I wasn't having any luck and finally convinced myself that the Dutch stop selling coats in March in an effort to call in warmer weather or somethin. Sara also tried to convince me that I wouldn't need a new coat soon because Spring was on its way- I am not convinced that this will be true because today, March 9, the wind was literally howling and I could barely pedal my bike forward against it. As a final attempt at locating some form of a warm coat, I went to the noordermarkt- the flea market of flea markets. I found a very plain black peacoat right off the bat and a really nice shirt all for 10 euro! Unbeatable. After my success (and Alex's lack thereof), we went searching for some coffee/brunch in the neighborhood of the market. The market is located in the Jordaan which is a very trendy neighborhood with many art galleries, trendy shops, coffeeshops, the Anne Frank House, etc. We went into a farily empty cafe ordered up some coffees and remembered our program coordinator and our Dutch professor mentioning a typical Dutch breakfast dish called an uitsmijter. We ended up splitting one, but one was definitely enough. The uitsmijter was, in this case, three fried eggs atop a giant slab of ham/bacon and toast covered in melted cheese...delicious. The best breakfast I'd had in a long time. Overall, a great morning.
After brunch, I dropped off Chiara's bike (she left and we had a great time) and went to the hardware store because my adapter (american plug to european plug) broke off in the socket for the second time. So now I have one of the prongs from the male side of the adapter stuck in the socket right next to my beg- is that safe?
I also bought a ticket for Dublin tonight. Justin, Sara, and I are flying to Dublin and will be there for Easter. We're not sure that being there for the second biggest catholic holiday of the year will be amazing or not fun at all, but we're pretty sure it will be really fun.