All righty-- so it's taken me a while, what with travel and all, to get this last set of photos edited and uploaded, but here they are. And they're worth a look... Saturday was the most scenic day of all, so go see!
Friday I wandered about Amsterdam on my own, mostly to check out the rest of the sights I'd failed to see so far. I went to the Anne Frank House, which I recommend to anyone who can brave the lines. I only waited half an hour or so from line's end to the door, so it wasn't that bad. And when I got out, I was hungry and dehydrated so I got the most touristy food I could find-- a pickled herring sandwich! I know it looks gross, but it really cures what ails ya.
After walking about town, I biked back to the Brouwerij T'IJ to pick up some beer. They were having an impromptu (English!) tour so I tagged along to see all the nifty beer-making machinery, like these yeast vats. Then I hopped back on my bike and promptly got lost. Well, not really... I got mistirected into a part of town I wouldn't have otherwise seen, down by all the museums. I sorted myself out and went back up north to catch a canal boat ride before heading home.
The canal boat ride was a bit of a fiasco. First, because I tried to get a snack before catching the 6PM boat, and the restaurant made me miss it. Second, because this LOUD Chinese man sat next to me and proceeded to shout to his family in Mandarin during the English portion of the narration. I wanted to punch him.
Anyway, did you know that there are over 1,000 bridges in Amsterdam and nearly 100 canals? Well, that's the kind of trivia we learned while boating all over for an hour. We saw a few unique oddities and admired much of the city's traditional architecture.
Saturday was the day of my Aunt's performance, a concert featuring a soprano, a pianist, and my aunt on viola. I took the entire morning of the day to bike in the countryside just outside Amsterdam before meeting her in the afternoon on Durgerdam Dike to take tickets for the performance. The bike ride was probably the highlight of my trip because it was so beautiful, warm, and relaxing. I have to recommend you look at the whole Saturday Gallery to really get a feel for what it was like... miles of canals and farmland dotted with windmills and livestock. I even came across one swan family. I took several pictures of them swimming in the canal before finding another swan roosting next to the path not 100 meters down. They were rather mild tempered for swans. Even so, they hissed at me a few times and I had to speak gently to calm them.
I met my aunt on the Durgerdam Dike to watch the concert around 3PM. Unfortunately, all the countryside biking, combined with my bugbites, histamines from wine, and general stress, led me to have a pretty severe allergy attack and I was itchy, exhausted, and miserable the rest of the afternoon. After a shower and a nap, we headed out to Wynand Fockink, one of Amsterdam's legendary schnapps bars. Even though I was well over the duty-free limit on alcohol, of course I had to bring back a delicious bottle of passion fruit schnapps. Of course, security never even asked!
I went out to the red light district later that night for another walk around of curiosity. If you don't remember my original post about it, I had a pretty miserable experience and it was kind of a lame way to end a good trip. But overall, I had an amazing time. Hope you enjoyed the photos!
Posted on August 16, 2006 @ 7:46 PM | 1 comments
Comments:
Loverly photos!
By 
Rachel, at
10:24 PM, August 18, 2006
