Since I am in the Netherlands, at some point I was pretty much required to go to Amsterdam. Tonia and I decided to wake up decently early on Saturday and take the hour long train ride to Amsterdam.
We ended up arriving around 11:30. We decided to be touristy and go on a canal boat. It was actually a lot of fun and we got to see more of the city than we could just walking. Also, everyone on the boat was taking tons of pictures, so I didn't feel awkward taking lots of pictures too! It was kind of rainy though, so some of the pictures look a little dark and dreary.
This first one was taken in the Harbor. You can see that the sky doesn't look all that pretty.
This next one was taken in a different part of the Harbor. Apparently the red building on the right hand side is the largest Chinese Restaurant in the Netherlands? The recorded voice that played on the boat seemed to think that it was a big deal to see the largest Chinese restaurant. I don't actually know if that is a thing to be proud of, but I took a picture of it (and more importantly the city in the background) anyway.
The next few are just pretty pictures of probably semi-important things. I really don't remember what they are of, but when looking through my photos I liked them the most.
By the way, when going under these arches, you can see where so many boats scratched the sides. I was impressed by the skill of our captain to squeeze through the passageways so easily!
Oh, and of course Amsterdam is known for its house boats. There were lots of them along the canals, and most had tons of potted plants. Maybe the plants were a substitute for a back yard? I don't seem to have any good pictures of them (although you can see parts of them in some of the above images), however, I did get a picture of this boat... which I think looks nicer than most of the house boats anyway.
After the canal boat, walked around Amsterdam for a while. To our surprise, when we got to the center square it was filled with tulips. After asking, we found out that it was the first annual "National Tulip Day" and it was free to pick a bouquet of tulips! The tulips still had bulbs on them (I think they were encouraging people to plant them or something), so we picked a bundle and left the bulbs on in hopes of keeping them alive a little longer. Here is me with the tulips:
After we got tulips, we continued to walk around. One of the things we particularly enjoyed seeing was the American and English delicacy store. The things that they think are American are rather amusing... for instance there were twinkies, pop tarts, and most importantly, chocolate chips. I didn't buy any, but it confirmed the fact that chocolate chips are in fact an American thing. This is the store front, you can see some of the things in the right hand window:
Of course, we had to see the "I amsterdam" sign. There was an ice rink set up in front of it. As you can see, there were a lot of people (mostly kids) skating with chairs. I suppose that is a good way of making sure they don't fall.
We went to the Van Gogh museum (which was really nice), and then walked back to the train station to head back to Delft. Here are some pictures from the walk after it started getting dark:
Overall it was a really good day. I saw a little bit of the city, but definitely hope to go back some time and see more.
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