The canal that seemed so quiet in the night, is loud as it comes to life with the Amsterdamites off t work and starting their day. We are slow moving but off to visit the antique/flea market. Two blocks down, and we are shopping. Trish was able to find a pair of super cute rain boots for 5 Euro. To bad she was beat to the punch and there is only one pair in a size 41 Damn. Oh well the sun is out and it is a lovely day to be out on bikes with all the locals. We duck, bob and weave our way on the bikes to the flower market. This place is a paradise for bikers. It is quite difficult to explain the feeling of biking through the streets and over the canals. You can’t help but be smiling the entire time. Everyone is biking and loving it. It is truly a way of life here. Nothing stops the bikers, rain, cold, nothing. You can get anywhere you want quite quickly. Chris seems to have figured out the streets and canals, he bikes like a local.
We saw what we can only call an Amsterdam Mini Van. This has our friends the Yorkins written all over it.
Another great site, is what we refer to as the man of the house taking his wife's car out. We saw a dapper gentlemen, with a bike that included the kid carrier on the front and darling, flashy, flowery saddle bags on the back. This is the life of being a parent in Amsterdam. Pretty sweet.
The flower market was great, we shop around and are amazed by the selection of flowers to purchase or take home and plant. Time to tourist it up. We head for the Van Gogh museum.
The Van Gogh Museum is of course amazing. There are over 200 of his masterpieces to view. He did a lot of work in a short period of time. Vincent may be one our favorite painters with his vivad use of color. We come out of the museum very low in energy. We have not eaten yet and it is getting late in the afternoon. So we zig zag our way through the strrets looking for a lttle cafe for lunch. The one we find is on a back street and cozy. Just the kind of cafe we need in SLC. IT has coffee, breakfast, lunch , good Eventhough we are now refreshed with food and beer we head back to our little houseboat to regroup and plan the evening.
We take a little nap, whynot it is vacattion,and then off to Amsterdam at night. We got a great recommendation for is indonesian restaurant for us to try. If youhave never had Indonesian food, do so immediately. Also watchout, they give a whole lot of food. We weren't sure what we ordered, so when they came and literally filled our table with small plates of food Trish and I were dumbfounded. We looked around and no other tables had quit so many plates as we did. We didn't finish all the food but it was delicious, delectable, yummy!!
Well we are in Amsterdam time to checkout the Redlight district. Not as hopping as I might have thought. I pictured more bars mixed in and happpening. Instead there is the seady area and the really seady area. Most of the bars are on the outside of this area, at least the one that aren't filled with crazy looking guys. I tried to get Trish to go to this IrishPub I saw but she was having none of it. I told her," Live sex show is Dutch for Irish Pub." Still a no go. Not real keen on these bars we decide to head back to our " home neighborhood" when we run into a great jazz bar. Live music and freindly bartenders, as well as a quit old and very freindly director of music. Eveyone there wanted to talk and discuss music. We meet the one band from Argintina and Brazil. They want us to send some photos we took while they played. This bar was hoppin with two bands switching off and no less then 5 muscicians sitting in. It was definetly a jazz "scene". The beer was flollowing as well as the jenivier, a gin like liquor. This seems to be the spot where Trish and I will live when we become expats.
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