One final glimpse of Amsterdam...for now

Since it is now July, and we went on our trip in May, I think it is time to wrap up my recap. Above, some of the wonderful roof lines of Amsterdam. I don't know how nice these houses are inside, but outside they were so much fun to look at.

The totally awesome Amsterdam Public Library - free internet for everyone! The library building is fairly new, and has great views, cool architecture, and as I said, free internet. Who needs an internet cafe when the library is available? And it wasn't being abused, like some libraries in the United States that I can think of... Anyway, we didn't really explore the library too much, but we did like what we saw.

I think this is the same view that is on the cover of our Rick Steves guidebook. A canal in the Jordaan neighborhood, complete with bikes, canal boats and a lovely sky. Ah...

That little building in the middle is reputedly the narrowest house in the Netherlands. It is full-sized farther back, but narrow at the front, because there used to be taxes based on how much canal frontage your house had. So, to avoid paying an exorbitant tax on a wide house, this builder just put most of the house off the canal. Sneaky.

The Anne Frank House Museum. The line was around the corner of the building, and we had already seen so many museums (including the Amsterdam History Museum, which is enormous), so we skipped it. I assume the house is somewhere behind that facade.

Enlarge this picture to see the lovely way the Vondelpark rules are spelled out. What I don't understand is why trumpets are allowed, but not drums. Must be anti-hippie or something, since the Vondelpark was overrun with hippies in the 70s...

And thus concludes my tour of Amsterdam, Delft, Brugge, Brussels and points in between. I hope you enjoyed it. We shall be returning to normal, somewhat boring, Arkansas in your next post.

Friday (Foreign) Food

It is Friday at last, and I don't know about you, but I could use some good food. How about a lovely Belgian waffle (which we actually ate in Amsterdam, I think)? A nice, dense, sweet, but not too sweet waffle, with real chocolate syrup (none of that corn syrupy Hersheys junk).

Not a waffle person? How about mini-pancakes?  These little beauties are from the cheese market in Alkmaar. Fresh and hot off the griddle. I am making myself drool.

And of course, we need something to drink.  This lovely libation is a cherry beer - tart and tasty. Benjamin imbibed this one at a restaurant on the covered shopping street in Brussels.

If you prefer a more traditional beer, here is one from our beer tour in Brugge. I even tried this one. I think I prefer fruity beers myself, but that is what is great about Belgium: there is a beer for everyone!

And, should you need some solid food after all the sweets and beers, try a rice table at an Indonesian restaurant.  You get all these little dishes, with enough for each of you to get a taste. So very good... Is it lunch time yet?

More Amsterdam

Here are some more pictures from our days in Amsterdam.  We saw a lot of herons around town. This one happened to be right outside the front door of our Bed & Breakfast one morning. Just strolling along. You can see the canal in the background, and all the trees. Not to mention that the Vondelpark is only a block or two away. Seems like a pretty sweet place for a bird.

Here he is, having crossed the road. Still just strolling, totally ignoring the paparazzi.

The canal our B&B was on is a busy one, with actual working barges on it.  This barge even had its own car, for those jaunts into town from the harbor, I presume.

This car is even smaller. Smaller than the Smart Cars that we have here too. Huh. I bet my bear-sized dad couldn't even get into this one, it is so small. And I certainly wouldn't want to be driving that around on the American-sized freeways...

Don't want junk mail? Tell the mail-carrier right on your mail slot. Some of these say nee ja, or ja nee, or ja ja ( I don't actually remember seeing any of those though. Junk mail isn't popular anywhere!), depending on if you will take all junk mail, or only certain kinds.

Yet another heron, even using the crosswalk! Those Europeans, so sophisticated!

The Bloemenmarkt

I was going to move on to other parts of Amsterdam, but after looking through our photos again, I have to share more of the Bloemenmarkt with you. I love the colors in this photo - the blue of the tulips and the chartreuse of the hydrangea. Yum.

So many tulips! In as many colors as a box of crayons.

I love these not yet open ones, with the hint of green around the petals yet, waiting to bloom.

These too, on some of the really closed ones, you can't even tell what the final color will be.

But tulips aren't the only flower available at the market.  Here are birds of paradise, and behind them, seeds for morning glories (or a type of clematis, can't tell from this picture) and cactus, and off to the right, some white bloom peeks its edges out.

And should you want lilies, instead of tulips, there were plenty of bulbs to choose from as well. Not that you were supposed to touch them (in 5 languages)...

So many bulbs - I wished over and over again that I could have bought some to bring home, that I lived in a climate conducive to so many bulbs.

For the more adventurous gardener, there were also cannabis starter kits. I kind of wanted to bring one of those home as well, but I KNOW that wouldn't have made it through customs, and neither would I. So I had to be content with a picture.

Amsterdam, at last

Sorry for the lack of posts this past week - I was in Washington D.C. for the American Library Association Annual Conference, and am just now getting back into full working/blogging mode.  But pictures of that will have to wait, since I left you hanging with the promise of pictures of Amsterdam.  So, without further ado, here is the first set.

A slightly askew view (I think I was trying to be artistic) of one of the awesome electric trams that run throughout Amsterdam. Quiet, clean, quick, and safer than a bicycle ('cause you are less likely to be run over by a silent tram...), you can take them all over town.  We actually only used them a few times after we had been walking all day and just couldn't walk all the way back to our B & B from the other end of town. I sure wish we had something like them here in Little Rock.

The building behind the sign is the Rijksmuseum, which is currently undergoing a many year renovation project.  The sign itself you may recognize from a beer commercial that has been on TV recently.

Although most of the Rijksmuseum is closed during the renovation, they have helpfully moved some of the most interesting paintings and other objects into one small wing, so we were still able to see Vermeer (now one of our favorites) and Rembrandt. It took a couple of hours just to see that, so I can't imagine how much time it would take if the whole building were open; probably an entire day, like the British Museum.

The bloemenmarkt - flower market - was wonderful. So many tulips! 10 euros for 50 tulips! Here, it costs something like $15 for 6 or 7, and they don't last long, since they have had to travel all the way from Holland...  I couldn't buy any, but I did take plenty of pictures. They last longer anyway.

Ah, spring flowers. In Arkansas, we are entering the dead part of the year - it is just too darn hot for anything much to grow or bloom. Sigh.

And, to make you drool on your Friday: Waffles. Waffles...