Forget Us Nicht: Hamsterdam

Hello Everybody,

Well… ‘L’ surprised me for my B-day by taking me to Amsterdam with a couple of friends of ours. The trip was a blast we left early Friday and stayed until Sunday evening.

We walked around town and even went to a couple of places. Such as, the Anne Frank Museum and a super cool local district that everyone told us we couldn’t miss.

Below are pictures of our exploits.

The hotel

Taking the Tram…which travels at an alarming speed.

Heading towards the local center market

Something for the VanVeen part of the Family

I just couldn’t get enough of the buildings. Since Amsterdam wasn’t bombed, during WW2, many of the buildings are super old - dating back to 1486. And many of the buildings have sunk and shifted because I believe Amsterdam was built on a marsh. Thus if you look close at the buildings in the pictures…you should notice things not so “square”.

the canals were great as well.

Can you see the supporting beam in between these two buildings (in the picture below)

Ah Yes!!! the outdoors market.

So many Mushrooms!

Anyone for some raw Mackerel…apparently it’s a local favorite and I have to say it was quite tasty.

What did you say?

Anyone need to stop at the bank?

Below you can see L freezing as I ask her to pose in front of the old city gate - that is now a restaurant.

…And the Red-light District.

Way more tame than I had envisioned

Fastfood for the late night munchies… L sure seemed perplexed…we don’t get to see vast amounts of junk food on display in such a manner…well maybe back in the states we do.