Man, it's a little after midnight, and when I think back on this perfect day, it's hard to remember everything we did! Resting off our long walk from yesterday, we woke up around noon. We watched some soccer, ate cheese and crackers, and finally got out of the hotel room. We probably wouldn't stay in so long, but the room is so nice, it's easy to be very comfortable.
We had heard about this "secret" free canal tour, which is operated very informally by a group of guys with boats. One of the guys has a brother who has a bar, and in this bar is the sign up sheet. After searching for the bar, we finally found the sign up sheet. The only spot left was on the waiting list for the three o'clock trip, and we checked the time and it was three exactly! We ran out into the square to find the group, and we were the last 2 on a boat that can hold 12. Perfect! The tour was low key and relaxing, just cruising around in the canals of Amsterdam. We saw an old school windmill, ducked down for the lowest bridge in Amsterdam, and took loads of pictures.
Then, we finally figured out how to work our phone card! I've been very frustrated with that, so it was a significant personal victory.
We wandered down through flower-lined streets to the lovely Vondelpark, where we relaxed in the sun watching ducks in a pond and people of all kinds on bikes: men in suits, old women, pregnant women, bikes loaded up with kids like a minivan, people texting on bikes, women in tall heels, you name it. Everybody in Amsterdam rides bikes. There are supposedly two bikes per person in Amsterdam. We ate snacks and had a delightful time.
Then, after a good dinner at the American Hotel in the busy Liedseplien Square (pronounced Led Zeppelin), we walked over to the Anne Frank museum. In the middle of the day, it's an hour's wait, packed with jillions of tourists. But at nine pm, it is a very quiet, reverent experience, and CheyAnn and I were the only people in many of the rooms. It was quite a sobering experience for us to put our Amsterdam escapades on hold for a moment while we reflected on the suffering of Anne Frank, her family, and millions of others, a seemingly unthinkable tragedy that occurred only so recently.
After the museum, we walked around for a bit and took some more pictures. We had some tasty dessert at a small dive where a smiley Syrian dude cooked from a very homey kitchen. CheyAnn finally got her requisite Amsterdam waffle--covered in milk chocolate, chocolate ice cream, and chocolate sauce! Mmmm, waffles!
And that was the cap to a perfect day. Made even more perfect by the fact that we discovered the continuous shooting function on our camera. Just hold down the trigger, like a machine gun. Click, click, click, click, click. On such a perfect day like this, in a beautiful city with the one you love, you could take 500 pictures. We were a little short of that--we took 489.
The boat tour
The canals are beautiful here
One of 3 working windmills in Amsterdam
The phone finally works!
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