City of Bikes

Our ship docked in Rotterdam, Netherlands this morning, but we were off early to drive to Amsterdam for the day. Amsterdam is a very interesting city and reminds me of what Venice would look like, since I have never been there. Canals are all through the city and they use it like we use streets. Taxis can take you everywhere you need to go. And bikes? OMG, bikes are everywhere! I heard that there are 10 million bikes in this city. And beware if you are walking anywhere. Bikes (and scooters) have their own path, but don’t care if you are in their way or not – they will run you over.

Our first part of the trip took us on a canal ride through the town. We saw many beautiful architecture and houses in bright colors and VERY close together. There was one house which claims to the be smallest in the city. It was 4 stories tall and only as wide as a picture window that we have in the states. Along the trip we went by Anne Franks’ house where she was in hiding for more than 18 months. The lines are usually hours long, but today it was only about a block long. Unfortunately we didn’t have enough time to go back to visit since we only had about 2 hours on our own. On the canals there were many houseboats – some really nice and others, well, let’s just say that they could improve them by taking them out of the canal and burn them. When we returned to the launch point we took a bus tour of about 45 minutes to see the city from the street side. Then we were on our own. Our first stop was for some lunch. Three of our party of four had the famous split pea soup. The fourth (me) didn’t want any part in that. Can’t stand it at home and didn’t want to eat it out. Our next stop was in the red light district per instructions from my son. “Mom, make sure you stop in and see.” Well I did and I was surprised. It’s like shopping for a piece of clothing – you look in the window to choose what “kind” of girl you want. Then we walked a little farther and came upon the famous “coffee houses”. You don’t drink the “coffee” there, but you do go and smoke weed instead. In fact they have stores that see “vision seeds” for you enjoyment. Most of the coffeehouses you can stand in the doorway and just get high from the smoke coming out of the store. But remember, prostitution and drug use is legal there. Unfortunately the city is full of graffiti because of how open they are.

Now for some trivia - just remember these and impress someone – Dutch windmills use to number over 10,00. Now there are only about 900 left and of those only 600 really work. Take a look at the blades on the mil – if they are in the + position it’s not working at the moment. If it’s in the X position that mill is out of commission and isn’t working anymore. The next day we are at sea steaming towards Oslo, Norway which is good because we need a day of rest.