I found Hôtel Droog (Staalstraat 7b) listed in the “Distinctly Amsterdam” section of the National Geographic book Walking Amsterdam: The Best of the City.

The hotel part is a one-bedroom attic apartment on the top floor. The Droog part is a design emporium, designed interior, exhibition space, and café. The interiors turn your expectations upside down. In one room blue birds fly across the ceiling of a room with walls of windows as if the outside has come in.

In another room, a young man examines you from the safety of his place on the wall.

And in the café, even the aquarium interior is a surprise:

Tiny gold-fish eat algae off of the dinner table. Definitely not what I expected. Did you?

One of the things I like about travel is that is causes you to re-examine what’s necessary (to pack for example) and to open to new and different ways of doing/seeing/being. And that’s exactly what a visit to Droog will do for you.