November 25th - Amsterdam

Amsterdam is known as the Venice of the North because of its many canals encircling the city center. It is the capital of The Netherlands. The seat of government is located in The Hague. Dutch is the official language.  The Netherlands is famous for its windmills. Cogs became another icon of the Netherlands. They are made out of wood. Being a very compact city, it is easiest to get around by "tram," bicycle, or on foot. There are bicycle lanes on every street, and bicycles have the right of way, so you have to be very careful. Amsterdam's top attractions are the Anne Frank House, the Rijksmuseum, and the Van Gogh museum, and the Red Light district. Coffee Shops are actually places where people go to have pot. A Coffee House is where you go to have a cup of coffee! The main shopping street is known as the Kalverstraat, which runs together with the street called Nieuwendijk. Both streets are pedestrian streets and are intersected by the main square, the "Dam Square."

Today is Thanksgiving. They only celebrate it in certain parts of The Netherlands, however, so not sure if we'll be enjoying a turkey dinner tonight.

The thing that I am most thankful for this year is that Harley is still here, and is waiting for me to come home. I can't wait to see her! And, thanks to my dad for taking care of her while I was gone.

Breakfast
Breakfast was uneventful. It was good, but we ate and went to the room until it was time for our tour.

Weather
The weather was sunny and brisk, but very nice.

Amsterdam Tour
Canal Cruise
First, we began our tour with a canal cruise. I made a grand entrance and fell right in the boat, scraping my face on the handle, and landing on my right knee! As I was walking in, I was about to warn everyone to be careful, and what did I do?!!! I think Gina jinxed me because she said she was looking for funny stories.

It's amazing how many canals they have. It's actually kind of scary having been there because I feel like the whole city can sink in. There were actually some houses that were crooked (I took pictures).

Bus Tour
We had a bus highlights tour that took us to the important sights in Amsterdam (including the Red Light district). We saw the prostitutes dancing in the windows. Lovely!

Flower Market
We stopped and had some time at the flower market and there were also many other shops in the area. It's a really great area for shopping. The flower market had some beautiful flowers and they were very reasonable.

Lunch
After the tour, the bus dropped us back off at the boat. I had a Minute Steak for lunch with Cream of Mustard soup and for an appetizer, they had mini Reubens, which were really good. They also had herring, and that sort of thing, but I don't eat that. I ate a piece of cheese and I thought I was going to be sick. It was the most disgusting thing I ever put in my mouth, and I had no choice but to swallow it.

Blog
I tried to blog again, but the computer would not cooperate, so I went back to the room and read a little bit then took a nap (which mom was already doing).

Dinner
Just before dinner, there was a very brief sleet storm.

We went to the lounge before dinner. We had to settle our tab and pay gratuities, etc. Mom's bar bill for the entire trip was $16.00 and mine was $0.00.

We ate with Kathleen and her mother-in-law Carol again as well as the two ex-sister-in-laws. We all got a turkey dinner, but not your traditional Thanksgiving meal. The best part was the dessert, which was a sundae with bananas and chocolate with rum. Almost forgot to mention that mom ordered the Shrimp cocktail, but almost died when it came out with eyes and all! LOL Kathleen told us that they were going to go home on thee 26th instead of staying over in Amsterdam because Duncan didn't really enjoy the trip. It was too structured for him.

Kathleen gave us blessed St. Christopher medals, which was very nice of her to do.

Everyone exchanged "goodbyes"and e-mails again if they didn't last night. It's sad to see the trip come to an end. We covered a lot of territory. Mom finally got to return to Europe.

Update on My Knee
My knee just has a couple of scrapes on it. It does hurt when I go up and down the stairs, like it's bruised though.

Blog
I went to update the blog again, and people were having issues logging on. Some smarty pants set the home page to some Bikini home page. Luckily, I'm the trouble-shooter and was able to work around it. I let everyone check their e-mails and print off their boarding passes before me.

Then, time to finish packing!