Amsterdam

The back roads of Texas can lead you anywhere :)

For our 40th anniversary we decided to go on a small boat cruise down the Rhine River with two other couples that have been friends since Walt's college days.  A good friend requested that I repost photos from the trip.   I took over 5,000 photographs and most were useable...but don't worry only a sampling will be posted here.

Our journey started in Amsterdam.

 We came a day early so we could explore this interesting city a bit more.  Lovely architecture, beautiful canals, lots and lots and lots of bicycles.  One local told us that when they dredge the canals they recover tons of bicycles that were stolen, ridden to the destination and then dumped in the canal.  

The buildings are narrow and tall because of the taxing structure (not sure if it is still the case but was when these buildings were built).  The owners were taxed on the width of the building, so they were built tall and deep. 

Beautiful details on the buildings.

One of the interesting items on most, if not all the private buildings was this "hook".  The reason behind it is to haul furniture to upper stories.  Due to the narrow stairways, furniture of any size can not be carried up in the normal fashion, so a pully system is used.

A pretty nice block to live on don't you think?

The public buildings were equally as interesting and much more ornate.  Our hotel was something from a foreign film.  I wanted the other five to follow me into the lobby carrying my luggage and tending to my every need....mere mortals :)   

We are pretending to be in the windows of the infamous Red Light District...nobody even offered us a dime.

After we settled in and a few people had a nap, and another one blew out the electricity on one floor by plugging in a non-European powered plug (innocently looking at the ceiling and whistling Dixie) we took off for a wine and cheese tour of the city via canal on the pretty blue boat.  The other pictures are just things we saw along the way.

 

Some of the details seen on all the buildings.  I could have spent a month just snapping pictures of all these little treasures.

Below is one of the many barges turned into homes.  They ranged from simple to WOW.

After the tour we walked back looking for a place to eat.  We chose NOT to eat at either of these cafes.

You have to admit they were interesting choices at least.

We ended up eating at a place that didn't speak English well and Dianne had a bit of a problem ordering her beer.  She asked about a light beer and the waitress said "Gross" in a heavy accent.  She asked by name, "Amstel Light", again the waitress said "Gross!".  Finally after another couple of tries Dianne, tired of the woman's unasked for opinion of light beers, told her to just bring a light beer and let it go....the waitress happily delivered a Grolsch light beer.  Sheese dang feriners!  

The Night Watch painted by Rembrandt in 1642 was transformed into more than life sized statues and placed in a park in Amsterdam, we were fortunate enough to be able to see them.

There are a total of 22 figures that have been replicated, 23 if you count the guy in blue that was in almost all the photographs I took.  I did not create an international incident by telling him to move his sorry butt more than twice. :)

After a quick lunch we wandered over to the a beautiful park dedicated to Rembrandt and his famous painting "Night Watch".  These figures are done in bronze and are the work of artists from Russia, Mikhail Dronov and Alexander Taratynov.  The figures were transported to Amsterdam in 2006 a year of remembering Rembrandt.  More about the transformation from a painting to a 3D 

 representation can be seen at Nightwatch 3D.

All too soon our day in Amsterdam came to an end and we headed back to the hotel.  We were pleasantly surprised to find the electricity was back operating to full capacity.  :)