Amsterdam Part II

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Today went very smooth as far as transportation. We had no problems getting to the Park'n'Ride. Then the attendant was out of Metro tickets (subway/bus) so gave us 4 train tickets instead. The train was easier than the subway/bus (no transfer required) and was sort of like the GO train (not quite as nice but fine). It probably also helped that the weather was not quite so hot today. We found our way easily to the canal bus and hopped on. Made it to the Anne Frank museum with time to kill so we wandered the streets for a while and Nigel and Russell found some more herring which they cautiously ate!

The Anne Frank museum was really great! The space they lived in for such a long time was SOOO small. The tour was very well done and informative and had taped interviews with people from her story who survived.

We took the canal bus back to the station and hopped back on the train. Then we stopped on the way home for our (possibly) final trip to a pannekoeken house. Yummy!!! For dessert we shared an apple strudel pancake! It was so good!

Our GPS navigator, Lori, took us straight down a dead end road and also made a few other bad calls today. We fired her tonight! She has been replaced by Richard and he has been suitably forewarned that we won't tolerate that kind of stuff! Actually, the GPS is probably just a little out of date and with summer construction under way, we've had to pass right by highway exits that we want to take but are closed due to construction. Even so, she is still fired!

We are still sometimes finding the Dutch language a barrier. For example, we just discovered yesterday that we have been washing our clothes with stain remover....We've since moved over to laundry soap...Also, when we were driving down what turned out to be a dead end road yesterday (under construction), we kept seeing these large yellow signs with Dutch words....once we got to the very end, we figured they were probably trying to tell us something (like, "local traffic only", or "turn around you idiots"....). We are figuring out some common words but once they get into longer phrases or sentences, we get lost quickly. People are happy to help though if you ask (or look confused enough). We've taken to moving quickly to the asking stage (especially when wandering around a train or bus station).

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Photos

Typical Canal Bus
The drivers recognized us from yesterday. We didn't even have to show our passes.

Bubble Boy
Russell at NEMO enveloping himself in a 4' bubble

All Aboard!
Today we rode the inter-urban Conexxion train into downtown Amsterdam

Typical Canal house
Along the canals, people have tied up houseboats as permanent residences. They never (rarely at most) sail them.

Typical Coffee Shop
The Amsterdam euphemism for a soft-drugs or marijuana store. They are basically like a bar only you order weed, hash etc.. There's a sign in the window that says "stop hard drugs.":

GPS Lori...you
We've had it up to here with GPS Lori. Tonight she guided us, not to the restaurant, but up a series of dead end roads like this one. See ya GPS Lori!