wednesday, April 18: Amsterdam

We took a canal tour; all in all, it was nice and we learned a but, but it was slightly boring and Nina got antsy toward the end.

This is interesting; apparently, the stairwells and doorways in many of these Dutch buildings are so narrow that it's hard to get furniture in that way. So most of the gables have hooks. I probably wouldn't have noticed them if the canal tour hadn't mentioned it, after which I saw them everywhere.

For the afternoon we decided to take a train to Haarlem and walk around there. We had been told that the town square was very picturesque and the town gives a better idea of Dutch day to day life. I took pics of some Dutch windmills for ya:

When we got to Haarlem there was a carnival going on in the town square, so the quaintness was a bit masked by all the scary looking rides and screaming.

It was very picturesque still, though. This is a bikes only street and I was so charmed that I took a bunch of pictures. Most of these places were residential. I think when most people get around on bicycle there is more emphasis on making it all look pretty.

We also took in the Teylers Museum, which was wonderful and informative, especially after Larry found the audio guides.

When we got back to Amsterdam we spent a lot of time looking for an Indonesian Restaurant and finally found a really nice one, then went back to our hotel and collapsed.