It was cold and partly sunny. Traffic wasn't too bad. On the way (on the freeway) we saw lots of sheep and a couple of pairs of Egyptian geese. There were also lots of modern windmills. Holland now gets 9% of its power from wind. We did see one old windmill right next to a tall modern one. We made it to Amsterdam in about 40 minutes. Luckily Holger was driving and with the help of the GPS we found a street parking spot near most things we wanted to see. One uses a credit card or money in a machine at corners to pay for and print a receipt that one puts on the dashboard. Parking is very expensive in Amsterdam - 30 euros ($40) for all day street parking. But we had a good spot, and the machine took Bill's credit card, so we headed out at 10:45.
First we went to Anne Frank's house. We just saw it from the outside as the line to go in was huge and the wait had to be a couple of hours. The line stayed that way for hours. Next to Anne Frank's house was a beautiful old church called Westerkerk. So we took photos of the house and church and moved on.
We bought tickets for a one hour canal cruise (of which there are many) and boarded at 11:30. Now it started to rain heavily, but we enjoyed the cruise anyway. I could open the window next to my seat and got lots of neat photos.
Things we saw: lots of houseboats along the canals, locks to keep out salt water when the tide comes in, neat bridges including Magere Bridge (the skinny bridge), the mayor of Amsterdam's house, the old train station, Montelbahn Tower, house of the two sisters (2 identical caps on top), the modernistic new film museum on the outer harbor, old beautiful homes, a group of old homes leaning into each other called the dancing houses, The Rembrandt house. By the time the tour ended, it had stopped raining.
We walked a couple of blocks to the Magna Plaza shopping center to use the toilets - 75cents each. Then we walked across the street to Dam Square between the Royal Palace (17the century) and Nieuwe Kerk (new church) built in the late 14th century.
There was a festival going on in the square - lots of rides, food booths, and tons of people. Puhls chose a lunch booth and ordered us "curry wurst". This booth had 2 large round charcoal pits and many men were cooking a variety of wurst. Curry wurst is a long cooked wurst put through a special grinder resulting in dime sized chunks. Then a curry ketchup sauce (a real product) is poured over it and served with a roll. A rather interesting lunch.
When we headed across the square to a hotel to find a currency exchange, Bill spied one, and we exchanged enough money to last us the rest of the trip, I hope. To celebrate I bought a plate of poffitjes (small pancakes - same as in Delft) from a fair vendor. We were about toured out and had seen most of what was important to us, so we walked back to the car. Barbara and I popped into a souvenir shop where I got Mandy a surprise!
Then it was on the road back to Rotterdam. On the way we saw one field of red tulips. We arrived back at 3:30, had a beer in the hotel, and then went to rest. At 5:30 we walked to the corner to Ari's for dinner. It was asparagus night, and I had a bowl of wonderful, fresh white asparagus soup. I also had a small steak, baked potato, and a good salad. Bill had the special - ribs. Barbara had a good veggie lasagna and Holger got the veal cutlet. We went outside to have coffee and so the Puhls could have a cigarette and their after dinner drink called Jenever (a schnapps). I ordered my coffee and asparagus ice cream. The waiter came out and said the ice cream was not ready yet (he may have been pulling my leg when he talked about the specials of the day!), but he promised a good surprise for dessert along with my coffee. He returned with a beautiful plate containing a poached pear, lots of fresh whipped cream, cinnamon ice cream with crushed walnuts and caramel sauce as a plate garnish. We all shared, and it was truly good. I love cinnamon ice cream, and I usually never see it. We lingered over my coffee and their Jenever and then walked back to the hotel. It was 8:30, so we called it a night.
I went to the room to write this long missive and then came down to type it on the hotel keyboard. Tapping this much on the pad is not fun and would have taken all night. We are meeting for breakfast at 7:30 to get an early start for Keukenhof Gardens to see the tulips and the surrounding fields. Hopefully we will have decent weather, although there is a 60% change of rain.
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