Amsterdam

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People in Amsterdam are internationally recognized for their ability to party, but I think they take partying to a new level on the Queen’s birthday. We arrived in Amsterdam on Thursday, the day after the Queen’s birthday. Once we received our book of scavenges, we sought out a food challenge, a habit we often did, and headed out for lunch. On our walk to the Pancake house, we could not get over the amount of litter. Beer cans, bottles, and random orange colored litter. Orange is the color of the Queen. I basically got the feeling that there was a great big blow out and the clean up was just starting.
The Pancake house was great. They have 56 different types of pancakes! Basically savory and sweet. Mom and I decided to go for the savory - bacon and cheese and chorizo and cheese. It was really nice.
After we had lunch we visited the Ann Frank House. I have heard a little about her tale, but going to the house that she and her family hid from the Nazis in was a little surreal an event. Her story was so tragic. Her and her family hid from the Nazis for two years in the house before they were discovered and sent to imprisonment camps. Her father was the only survivor of the camps. The story was heartbreaking, but I was happy to be able to learn more about it.
After visiting the house we decided to take a canal bike to our next destination. I never realized that Amsterdam has so many canals! It was really interesting. The canal bike is basically a paddle boat and if you are brave enough to take it, you are only given a map of the canals. We set out down the river to see if we could do it and not get lost. Once the steering was figured out, we did alright. It was really fun. Needless to say, it only took us ½ hour to get to the museum we were headed to, and we only went off track for a small bit.
The next day we decided that we could no longer stand our clothes and our lack of clean ones that we were going to go shopping. In the morning we did some scavenges, visiting the flea market and floating flower market, and then headed to the shopping district. It was really nice to blow off the afternoon and just do whatever we wanted. We both were successful in finding some great things, including this great little café for lunch.
When we returned to our hotel, we were ready to fly! Fly to Canada!

Xoxox
Leslie and Sandy

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