Day 2 - Amsterdam

Well Grandpa and I really picked a day to be in Amsterdam. It was the day they were celebrating Gay Pride. There was a huge water parade, parties and music until way past midnight. But more on that later, first we caught the hired bus to the port and the boat. For the most part Amsterdam looks like any other city as you drive in, the closer we got to the port the older the buildings looked. The boat was directly in the cities port, so we were across the street from the old city. We boarded the boat, ate lunch and decided to go see the city.

The picture below is of our boat the Embla.

Grandpa has a better picture of the Embla than I do. You'll have to see it later. But it's really long.

Our room is small, almost as small as my NYC stay 2 years ago at The Pod, I think the bathroom there was bigger. But the view is awesome! (pictures to come)

Our first adventure was in navigating traffic, bike traffic! Everyone owns and rides bikes in Amsterdam, there are more bikes than cars. Which explains why there's a road for cars, one for bikes and then a path for pedestrians. Look out though, those bikers will run you over, Grandpa almost got it a few times. He forgot that the "path"was not for peds but bikes.

The top picture is showing the line of bikes chained to every fence, post, and each other. The bottom picture is to show the roads (black is for cars, red is for bikes and the little sidewalk to the left is for pedestrians. Bikes have the same traffic signals as pedestrians and most people really do obey them. In Amsterdam bikes don't think they are cars, because they are the car.

We decided to take the water bus to our first destination, the Rijk museum. It's exactly what it sounds like, a large ship for people to ride from one destination to another on the canals. Because there are almost more canals than roads and the roads are one way, most are for bikes only too. Along the way we began to see the parade goers and "floats"begin to congregate for the big city event. Floating next to us was a huge pontoon like boat with dancers in gold swimming suits, I leave it at that. Everywhere were people in pink feather boa's, pink bunny ears, pink shirts, guess what I was wearing. Yep a pink shirt, I must have known 2 days ago when I put it on in Utah I was going to a party in Amsterdam.

Riding around in the bus was cool to see old houses, houses that literally are on the canal and the history of a city older than america. About half way through the bus ride I was getting so tired that I literally fell asleep until Grandpa woke me as our stop was approaching.

 One of the canals, you can see the boats and the bikes parked above.

Houseboats line the canal in some areas.

The Rijk museum has alot of art ranging from it's early days to modern art. We navigated ourselves to the Rembrandts, Hals, and Vermeers. It's so amazing to me to see the size, quality and way these men and women created using the talents given to them and the influence they have had on many for hundreds of years. My favorite was Vermeer's painting of a street in Amsterdam.

I was so struck by it, I bought a print. I'm looking forward to staring at it for hours.

Leaving the Rijk museum we were serenaded by a young man on violin playing Vivaldi's Spring and many other favorites. I managed to video tape a small portion of the concert for the budding violinist to be. We decided a brisk walk to the Anne Frank house would wake us up and keep us going until dinner. Boy was that an education.

The Rijk Museum

We ran right into the thick of the parade, the parades there don't go down the streets, they float on barges on the canals. Lining the canals were hordes of people whooping and screaming at the display down below them floating buy. Grandpa and I didn't dare peak over, enough education was happening for us on the sidelines. We tried to navigate away from the crowds but that's not easy. We ended up going around and around to find the Anne Frank house, and finally found it right in the mess of the parade with a line going around the block to get in. With tired feet and tired bodies we took a picture and made our way slowly back to the boat.

Some of the streets in Amsterdam and there were ones even skinnier.

Our day was finished with a good meal with a couple from Bolivia and a lady from Venezuela who is an electrical engineer. There's a big group of 15 or so on our boat from Bolivia, some from Australia, Canada, England and the Netherlands. I'd say less than half on the boat are american. It was declared from a passenger that I am the youngest on the boat. Looking around at the white and bald heads I'd say that it's true. Nevertheless we are enjoying the trip.