Wet and rainy Amsterdam

On Saturday, we had a busy day planned, so we got an early start and headed to Kinderdijk so Garth could see it. It was a cold and rainy day and Preston decided to stay in the car and sleep while Anita opted for a hot drink in the coffee shop. I walked out to the windmills with Garth and luckily it stopped raining right when we wanted to take a picture. As we walked we noticed that a guy who owns one of the windmills was putting the sails on and it looked like he was going to start it turning. It was really windy and the rain came at us sideways and soaked our pants. As we headed back, sure enough the windmill was turning and by the time we got into the car there were two mills turning. There is a short video of it at the end of the blog; I couldn't get it to download right here.
Next we stopped in Vreeland, a small village Anita had lived in when she worked in Amsterdam. It was absolutely beautiful and the rain held while we walked around and had scrumptious pastries. There is a river that runs through the village and a man is in charge of raising the bridge for each boat that comes along. Since it is summertime there are a lot of boats going along. The man holds out a wooden shoe on a fishing pole and the people on the boat put money in it to pay for the bridge being raised.

Here we are standing on the bridge that had just opened. Vreeland is an expensive place to live. Lots of people with money don't want to live in the big city anymore but need someplace close enough to commute to Amsterdam, so it is filled with expensive cars and the houses are expensive too. We saw several houses that were selling for $3,000,000.
Next, we found a place to park the car and took the train into Amsterdam. It only took us a few minutes to ride the train in but it was much easier and cheaper than driving into the city.

Here our tour guide, Anita, is explaining about the memorial to WWII soldiers and the ceremonies that are held there. Next we stopped for a drink and were glad we inside when the skies opened up and lots of people came running in to get out of the rain. Garth was really glad to get a coke anyway but he wasn't too happy to have to pay to use the restroom. But it would be that way all day - nothing is free in big cities.
This is the palace and one of the many churches in Amsterdam. This church is the one the royal family uses for weddings and baptisms.
Amsterdam is built around canals and we loved walking over them and were fascinated by the buildings along them.
I loved the white outline and decorations that were on many of the buildings.
Because Amsterdam was built on very soft soil, many of the buildings are leaning and sinking. Sometimes you can see that whole streets are leaning.

Garth is trying to push this building back up, even the door frame and windows are leaning. Notice the small iron bar just a few inches off the ground. Those were built because they had so many cars fall into the canals when people were trying to park them.
Our next stop was the flower market. It was beautiful and since the rain kept starting and stopping the flowers were wet and smelled wonderful. Garth and Preston were especially interested in everything here!
We stumbled on to this little park that had a recreation of Rembrandt's "Night Watch"made 3-D out of bronze statues. It was really cool. We didn't go see the actual "Night Watch" so this was the next best thing.

The "Night Watch" again with the a statue of Rembrandt in the background.
Our next stop was a chocolate bar and Preston wanted a milkshake. It was the best shake I have ever tasted and he didn't want to share much. There were little frozen chunks of chocolate in it and it looked pretty cool too. We were glad we made this stop because while we were waiting the sky opened up again.
More cool buildings.
Notice the on and off again of the umbrellas and the sun, that was the kind of day it was. I would just start thinking the rain was done, fold up my umbrella and the rain would start all over again.
We walked through the Red Light District early in the afternoon but there were already quite a few "ladies" ready for work. Here Garth is just at the end of the area. Preston was just blown away with the "coffee shops" that had the smell of pot coming out of them and all the stores that sold drug paraphernalia. We stopped at a store that sold magic mushrooms and Preston wanted a sweatshirt from there. The sweatshirts looked like Mario Bros. mushrooms and so Preston thought he would be able to wear it to school. We both had headaches by the time we got out of the area.

Our next activity was a canal ride. We sat right in the front and the boat captain took good care of us, making sure we knew right where to take our pictures. Actually, we made Preston get up and take the pictures. The sun came out and made the ride even nicer.
Below are a few pictures of our boat ride. This tower was built in 1620.

If you double click on the photo below, you should be able to see seven bridges all the way back.

One of our last stops was Anne Frank's house. I had reread her diary just before we came and so everything was semi-fresh in my mind. I had been here 30 years before but I didn't remember much of it. They had added some nice videos of her father, and Meip (one of the people who helped hide them) and quotes from the diary through the house. Preston and Garth weren't too thrilled to go through the house but we all ended up being glad we had.
We headed back to the car and since most of the traffic was gone we drove back into Amsterdam and drove around the Vondelpark which is to Amsterdam as Central Park is to New York City and Hyde Park is to London. The Rijksmuseum and the Van Gough museums are located near the park. We were too late to go into the museums and I decided to save up for all the museums in Paris next week. We found a close parking place and quickly took a walk in the park, then drove down one of the most expensive streets to shop in Amsterdam and headed home. Overall, it was a great rainy day and we loved Amsterdam.

This is the video of the windmill, Garth was just a little excited.