Just my cup of coffee

Location: Starbucks 'The Bank', Amsterdam

In the Netherlands, we are getting used to the 'grab a coffee and go' mentality that clearly finds it's seed in the USA. And I know a lot of us Dutchies were more than thrilled to discover the first Starbucks at Schiphol airport, where we could pretend to be in NYC for a while and get our coffee-to-go in style.
But March 8 marked a special day for Amsterdam: Starbucks's new coffee experience laboratory opened it's doors and invited us in to come hang out in cute corners, read local newspapers, see local bands perform, enjoy poetry readings, eat fresh cookies straight out their own bakery and.. ow yeah, drink coffee.
Located in the vault of an old bank and decorated with contemporary Dutch designs makes getting your coffee here an event on itself. What I love about this store is that it pays tribute to the age-old coffee traditions that our country holds, an awesome 'tattooed' Delftware mural for instance tells the story about how the Dutch traders played a big role in exporting coffee around the world in the 17th century. So now the Americans can come to us for their hipster coffee experience, new style.
Ha, how 'bout that!