Amsterdam

My really good friend Katie came over to visit us! We were so excited to have her here. She arrived in France from Michigan on a Wednesday. She had one day to "adjust" to the time change, then we got on a plane Friday for a weekend in Amsterdam! She's tough so we knew she could handle it.

You may be thinking that the middle of February may not be the most ideal time to visit a city like Amsterdam, but it actually worked out really well. After consulting some guide books, we learned that there are less lines / crowds this time of year, and things are less expensive which is a definate plus. Also, the leaves have fallen off the trees, leaving a clear view of the canals and homes, that is after the fog cleared a bit.

The first place we visited when we got off the plane was the Van Gogh Museum! I'm a fan of his work and this was one place I've been wanting to see. The collection was impressive, containing around 200 paintings (including several masterpieces) out of a total of over 800 of his paintings. It was pretty awesome.

We also walked by the Anne Frank House. It was enough for us just to observe the place from the outside, which was depressing enough. It's a famous museum in Amsterdam though and lines to get in stretched around the corner.

We hit up the Rijksmuseum De Meeterwerken or Rijks Museum for short. The museum houses the world's largest collection of paintings by Dutch artists. Although most of the museum is under construction, several key pieces were still on display including a famous and really huge Rembrandt painting. I didn't really get a good picture of the museum because of all the constrution, so here is one of Max and I.

We stopped by the Bloemenmarkt or Flower Market because we're toursist and it wouldn't be right to visit Holland without seeing (and in Katie's case, buying) some tulips. I think they had every imaginable shade of tulip avaliable. Knowing my luck with flowers, I decided to spare the poor things and buy some art at a nearby shop instead.

I anticipated needing to buy a transport pass of some kind, so we could use the trams and buses to get around the city. It turns out that we really didn't need them. The city was small enough to get where we wanted to on foot. We did do a lot of walking, but that's how we like to roll anyway.

Although not the best shoes for getting around they work on Katie! She really could almost pass as Dutch, without the shoes even.

There were bikes everywhere. Apparently it's not all that uncommon for a person to have more then one bike. For instance, a daily commute may involve a bike ride to the train station and then another bike ride on a different bike from the train station to work. Crazy. This family sized four person bike took the cake though.

And yes, we walked through the infamous Red Light District. The experience is enough to make anyone blush. I found it difficult to look up from the sidewalk most of the time. Max says "it was very interesting". Katie and I behaved ourselves and made it through without being too scarred.

Amsterdam was overall "very interesting" and easy going. Everywhere the canal houses seemed to be leaning and sagging in ways that didn't exactly make them look stable. People came out of "coffee shops" looking not so stable themselves. Everyone was friendly, and mostly spoke english. They were tall too! What a change for us.