Sunday, April 6, 2014

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is a city of canals, bridges, bikes, museums, flowers, and much more! Saturday morning we woke up early and made the 2 hour drive to the center of Amsterdam. We started at the Dam Square...
...where there was randomly a huge pillow fight going on. 
The picture does not do it justice. There were hundreds of people and after the pillow fight this huge square was covered in feathers.

Amsterdam is known as the "Venice of the North" because it has over 165 canals in the city. Since it was a beautiful sunny afternoon, seeing the city from the water seemed perfect. So we decided to take a tour of the city in a canal boat.
During the tour we learned that Amsterdam is really down under, that is below the sea level. 25% of the city is below the sea level and the lowest part is 6.7 meters below sea level (about 22 feet) - crazy! 
Here is a picture of the famous seven bridges where you can see through seven different bridges in a row. Sorry the picture is too dark to see them all.
Another fun fact: every house has a hook at the top so you can tie up furniture with a rope and hoist it to the top floors! The homes had such small, winding stairways that this was the only possible way to get large items to the upper floors. This method is still used to move furniture today.
After our tour, ee wandered around the tourists shops. These wooden clogs are actually pretty comfortable. Maddie did not think they were very stylish though.
Mean mom :)

Then we went to the Bloomenmarkt which is a flower market. 
You can buy every kind of flower bulb and seeds imaginable and even some that I would never think to imagine.
We bought a pine berry plant- strawberry+pineapple=genius!
We concluded our day with a walk by the Anne Frank House - we would have visited if it weren't for the hour and a half line. For dinner we had a classic Dutch meal, well almost... It turned out to be a good old hot dog from a street vendor for me and Chinese takeout for Kellen and Shannon because Maddie was tired of walking around and being out.
Of course we couldn't be done without a little dessert. 
It was a beautiful day and by the end we were exhausted from walking all over the city! 






No comments:

Post a Comment