Amsterdam!

We've been to X:Amsterdam twice now - most recently in November 2003 with Karen's parents (they were visiting for Thanksgiving), and previously in June 2002, to visit a friend of Karen's.  Both times we really enjoyed ourselves - despite its sometimes less than wholesome reputation, we found the city pleasant to walk through, several nice museums (X:Van Gogh Museum, X:Rijksmuseum, among others), and it is the site of one of our favorite TV shows here, X:Baantjer! (site is only in Dutch though)


Below is the main square, with the classic Dutch shoe.  The kids quite enjoyed it!  In November, though, the middle of the square had been converted to house an ice skating rink, and John, Karen, and Granddad all went out ice skating together!  Too dark for pictures, though.

J in shoe John and Lydia in the shoe


The main square in summer, which, like most European cities, has it's share of fake statues who move when given money.  This morning there were probably ~6 statues on the square, but the one in the picture below attracted the most tourists by far - John, of course, absolutely loved having his picture taken with the statue!  [[[ And, of course, he loved chasing the pigeons and teaching them how to fly!! ]]]

Amsterdam statue  Pigeons

Here is the famous lifting bridge in Amsterdam - the precursor to the modern drawbridge.  Underneath you can see a boat with St Niklaas, who comes (offically) on December 6th and brings presents to the children.
The famous bridge

And here are some tourists on the bridge one cold November afternoon.  Don't they look cozy warm?
On the bridge

 

Nearby Amsterdam we also went to Floriade - a huge show which takes place every 10 years.  It is billed as a flower show but it is really much more than that, with displays on all kinds of flowers and plants, displays about all different European, African, and Asian countries, playgrounds for the kids, etc.  We had planned on spending a few hours there and then going home - we wound up spending all day there and only left because the show was closing for the day!



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