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Published: March 30th 2018
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Amsterdam
Pretty view from the canal Friday- Starting tonight for the next week we are basing out of Ghent. It is about 140 miles from Amsterdam to Ghent, but it took us nearly 3 hours to get here because of the fact that we were never on the same road for more than 18 miles, heavy Easter weekend traffic, a weird toll road that backed up traffic for it seemed like forever, and multiple loops around our apartment building because we were counting round-about exits differently than our navigation system. But - Dave persevered, and dodged the people, the bikes, and the trams to successfully complete our journey.
We spent most of the day in the historic downtown of Amsterdam - and Dave saved my life on multiple occasions by pulling me out of the way of an oncoming tram, bike, car, moped. In comparison, I only had to save him once. Wedid take a canal boat tour. Here are the fun facts from the tour:
1 - The Dutch have a saying that God created the world, but the Dutch created their country. No where is that more obvious than in Amsterdam where the Dutch have built much of their
Draw Bridge
One of many bridges across the canal city below sea level, and on man made islands.
2 - The buildings in Amsterdam are built on over 1 million wood pilings driven into the sea bed at either 8 or 18 meters. And, fun fact - in the olden days, the timber came from mostly Russia and Norway.
3 - We boated by the "crying tower" where women would cry as their boyfriends, husbands, and fathers left on sea faring voyages. Sea faring was presumed to be a dangerous occupation because many sailors never returned. With the advent of genetic testing though, at least some of the lost sailors are now known to have stayed in the South Pacific and started new families. So they could have come home, they just decided not to.
4 - Amsterdam City runs a state sponsored pawn shop that only charges an administrative fee if you can buy your goods back.
5 - There are 1.8 bikes per person in Amsterdam. This means that roughly, bikes are everywhere. In fact, there is a shortage of bike parking, that will be addressed by more bike parking ramps in the future.
6 - The floating Chinese restaurant is a
nearly exact replica of the one in Hong Kong, and opened in the 1980s. On opening night it was an exact replica - but when the same number of Dutch patrons were on the floating restaurant, the boat Braganza to list and sink - so now there are 250 fewer places. The people in the Netherlands seem to be a little larger/heavier than the people in Hong Kong.
7 - When Amsterdam was growing, in order to build a house, you had to build enough land to build a house that was at least 2 Windows and 1 door wide. These houses are mostly narrow - and tall. All of them have a beam, and hook that juts out of the rooftop to facilitate winching furniture up and through the windows of the house.
8 - The Waldorf Astoria Hotel patiently bought up a series of houses that it unified and connected to create their hotel. The Victoria Hotel tried to do the same thing, but one owner was not willing to sell even after several generous offers. So the Victoria Hotel, built their hotel around that private house, and it is still that way today. There have
Sea Going Tall Ship
This is a replica you can visit been times where the owners were willing to sell, but the hotel was not interested and times when the hotel was interested and the owners were not.
9 - The insurance industry approached the city about putting railings by the canal to prevent cars and bikes from rolling into the canals. The city agreed as long as the insurance companies paid for the railings - and the number of cars that fall into the canal now is down to about 5 per year. There is still a small problem of men - mostly drunk - falling into the canals they relieve themselves. New canal construction will have ropes or ladders included so there is a way for these men to get out - currently there is really no good way to get out once you are in.
Tomorrow we are going to Ypres and possibly Oudenaarde to check on the Tour of Flanders for Sunday. Cheers to all!
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