I like to try new things, so when the roombroodje was on sale at the supermarket, I figured I'd give it a try. Leave it to the Dutch: roombroodje means cream sandwich and that is exactly what this is... custard cream on a dinner roll with a little powdered sugar on top. I must emphasize that the bread is NOT sweet - it's just ordinary bread, the same kind used to house pickled fish and krokets. The Dutch will make anything into a sandwich. And it looks for all the world like a stick of butter on a bun. Mmmmm... butter sandwich. I won't be trying this one again.

Is it really a morel martini? No, these particular morels (see the photos in april 08) were just filthy, so I put them in a glass of water and shook them around a while to knock the dirt loose. It looked a lot like a morel martini though, so I raided the herbs for some garnish and set up the photo.

It was actually sunny today, so I decided to take a walk through the Gaasperplas, one of the bigger green spaces in Amsterdam. There were only a few mushrooms out, mostly of the same type as the ones in the photo above, so the photos are all flowers.

These small white flowers occupy most of the grassy areas in Amsterdam at this time of year.

These little flowers are also all over the grass, but they are mostly too small to notice. Most are about 3mm wide.

The macro mode did its job though. It looks like a tiny penstemon from this photo, but the leaves look quite different.

There were certainly plenty of them.

These guys were even smaller, at about 2mm.

Gray herons are rather common in Amsterdam, but I still really like seeing them.

Getting this photo was sheer luck. The wind was blowing, but it stopped for just long enough to snap this shot. Can you find the spider? I didn't see him until I was looking at the photo. These are much less macro - the cluster of flowers is about the size of my fist.

The leaves discolor in an unusual way too. Notice how the black intersperses with the red one chamber at a time. The white spots were left by a bird - I didn't notice them until reviewing the photos either.

More tiny flowers. These were also about 3mm wide, but are clearly a different kind than the other little purple grass-dwellers.

These were certainly the showiest flowers I found this day.

A close look is reminescent of a passionflower. I have no idea if this is a native or introduced species. Sue suggested it could be a variety of tulip, which certainly wouldn't be impossible around here.

Feral daffodils - or wild ones? Wild daffodils do occur around here and look about like this one, although the petals are generally narrower on the wild ones.

More in the series of tiny violet flowers. Yet another species fitting the same general description. The buds were much too small to see in real life. One of my native guides has identified this flower as a forget-me-not,

This one is without a doubt the best picture of the day. It's still a little chilly, so the butterflies were moving slowly.

I've included both pictures of this one, because they show slightly different things. This one is a bit closer, and is good enough to pick up the texture of the wings.

This one, though, has the wings a bit more open, and you can see the black and white stripes at the top edge of the wings.