We had a fun day in Amsterdam this weekend. We had planned on parking in a lot and taking the tram on our adventure, but the lot was full, so we braved driving to the heart of city. One thing I notice about driving in Amsterdam, versus Amstelveen (just to clarify, Chris was driving-I don't drive into the city) is that bikers and pedestrians really have no fear of being run over! You literally have to drive into a mass of people and/or bikes, in order to get through some intersections. Then they look at you like, "Oh you silly tourist in your car..." Anyways, I digress. We got to our destination and found a parking spot close by-amazing. As Chris started to parallel park the car along a canal, into a space that was about 6 inches longer than our car, I realized that the canal side had no little rail. It was even pavement from the parking space to the canal. I don't know if those of you in the US can picture this, but if you look closely in the picture above, you will see a little rail that would suppossively stop a car from going into a canal. Upon realizing this, the girls and I got out of the car and wished Chris well. (With the parking job he did, I think he is going to look into quitting his job and teaching driver's ed full time.) As we went to prepay for our parking at the pay station we were trying to figure out the machine when Chris pushed the 'English' button and the machine spit out a slip that said our parking was paid for 2 hours, a total of 10euro. We didn't put in any money or card. I guess they figure if you are bold enough to not be Dutch and drive into the city, they will pick up your parking tab...
I am always amazed at the buildings in the city. Many of them actually lean in towards the street or are crooked. I tried to capture this in the pic above, along with the red corner house that must have some pretty odd shaped rooms inside! Tessa is lauging in this pic because she just about fell into the canal seconds earlier. Good thing she is taking swimming at school...A friend here saw a man ice skating last month with a life preserver on-not sure if that is smart or stupid. Maybe we will start putting one on Tessa when we go into the city...We went to the Bibjles Museum which is in a beautiful old canal house. It is a neat museum. It had two large dioramas; one of the Tabernacle and the other of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Alongside this was an explanation of the 3 religions that consider Jerusalem a holy place: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. It was interesting to learn some the history of Jerusalem changing hands in rulers. There were some Egyptian artifacts, including a mummy that freaked Tessa out! One glance at it and she was onto the next room. They also had a room full of Bibles from all over the world, including the first Dutch Bible. There was a little artwork and some other artifacts they we breezed by in order to keep our littlest ones engaged.
Then we walked over to Metz & Co., which is an upscale department store. On the 6th floor there is a coupola that has a restaurant in it. We went up and were amazed at the views of Amsterdam! Very cool. We ordered drinks and some fries and 15 minutes later a woman brought out 2 plates of chicken nuggets and fries. We told her we didn't order chicken nuggets, only fries, and she kindly took them away. Our waiter came back to explain that you can't just order fries, even though it is listed on the menu. Yada, yada, yada, the fries and nuggets were superb!
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