Another weekend, another country! This time we loaded up the car, then got on the airplane and went to visit the Dutch in Holland. The above picture is of me in front of Rembrandt's house, which was close to our hotel. Apparently it is the 400th anniversary of Rembrant's birth. As you can see by the picture I thought it was pretty funny.
The most unique thing about Amsterdam is the bicycles. All main roads have one lane for cars and one parallel separate road (with its own set of lights and other traffic signals) just for bicycles. To cross the road is kind of a chore. You need to cross a bike lane, then a car lane, then a car lane going in the other direction, and finally the bike lane going the other direction. Each lane passing requires waiting for the 'walk' signal from the cross-walk light. Needless to say crossing the street can be quite tedious! Strangely all the bicycles are street bikes (not mountain bikes) and they are all quite junky (i.e. out of the thousands of bikes we saw not one bike stood out where I would think "that is a sweet bike"). Many bikes were not even locked up and apparently anyone could just take the bike. I guess if you needed a bike you could just take a different one.
On Saturday I took mom and dad on a canal tour of Amsterdam. It was pretty neat. In Amsterdam many of the streets are not made of concrete, they are made of water. I know the picture isn't too good but the above picture is of the smallest 'house' in Amsterdam. Because the population expanded so quickly in the seventeenth century land was divided up into small rectangular parcels and all the buildings were crammed together.
Here's me during the canal ride. You can see some of the great houses in the background. You can see over my right shoulder there is a light that looks like an Easter egg. For some reason I was constantly trying to rip the light out of it's socket and it took a concerted effort by mom and dad to keep me away these tempting eggs. I can be determined!
The canals are really pretty. Here's a picture of mom and me looking over some canals that we road down on canal boat.
This was the view from my hotel room. We stayed at the hotel Ibis in central Amsterdam. It was a pretty decent hotel although the quarters were quite cramped. I slept right beside mom and dad in my crib. By the third night I figured out that mom and dad were sleeping right beside me so when I work up in the middle of the night I demanded to let into bed to snuggle with them. So after I got into bed to sleep with mom and dad they got almost zero sleep. By the end of the trip we were quite tired but that's what you get when you don't get me my own room.
The bathroom in the hotel room was quite hilarious. The bathroom was almost a one piece bathroom that was literally inserted in the side of the room. The bathroom didn't have a bathtub so I got to take my first showers (not counting the pool). Dad helped me out but I think I'll stick to baths from now on. Baths allow you to splash a whole lot more.
Overall Amsterdam was one of our least favorite visits so far. The weather was fierce (wind everyday and rain on Sunday) and the city was not that kind to babies. Plus the Amsterdam 'lifestyle' caters more to 'adults' than families. However, it was still fun!
No comments:
Post a Comment