Amsterdam!

We seem to be on a trend of going to places when there are national holidays. Our first day in Amsterdam, May 5th, was a holiday to celebrate Holland’s freedom from Germany after WWII, so there were a ton of celebrations in the streets. There was also some large concert in the middle of town, and the square was completely packed full of people. Our hotel was in the outskirts of the city, so we took public transit to get into town. That was probably for the best, because the majority of the population rides bikes, and the streets are very car-unfriendly. The picture to the right shows the bike parking zone by Central Station, packed full of around 9,000 bikes.



Amsterdam has many rivers flowing through the city, so a great way to get around is by boat, so we purchased a 24 hour Canal Bus pass, letting us see the city from the water. We also visited the Van Gogh museum, which had a lot of awesome paintings. I especially like his paintings of almond blossoms. Here’s a picture of me standing in the museum district, in the park in front of the “I amsterdam” sign.




One of the interesting things that we kept seeing around town were ads like this one for “Yofresh,” which I believe is essentially egg in a tube. I’m not really sure how that works, but in England they had something similar that was ham and cheese in a tube.