Busy, but Fun Day

I’m beginning to think that Amsterdam is the Pacific Northwest of Europe, always cloudy and rainy. This is my fourth time in Amsterdam, and I have yet to have nice weather for longer than a couple of hours. Today was rainy in the morning then cloudy, windy and cold the rest of the day. But that didn’t stop us from having a full and fun day.

Our first stop was the Van Gogh Museum. Much smaller than the Rijksmuseum, we saw it all in only 90 minutes.

It had just stopped raining.
The girls with the famous Sunflowers painting.

My favorite is Irises.

Vincent and his brother, Theo, though 5 years apart in age, were very close. Theo supported Vincent as the latter never sold a painting while he was alive. So, in return, Vincent gave all his paintings and drawings to Theo. Since he was a prolific painter (over 800 paintings and drawings in only 10 years) Theo had a lot of Vincent’s work.

Theo kept all of Vincent’s paintings, drawings and letters in this cabinet. It was gorgeous.
One of Vincent’s letters to Theo.
Nora listening to one of the letters Vincent wrote to Theo.
One of the many self-portraits Vincent did as he couldn’t afford models. We saw one yesterday at the Rijksmuseum.

After the museum, we walked to the Pancake Club for our first ever Dutch pancake. They’re more like French crepes than American pancakes and come in either sweet or savory. The restaurant only has 8 tables inside and they were full, so we ate outside. It had stopped raining and wasn’t too cold, so it wasn’t too bad.

Some hot chocolate to warm up a bit.
The girls had Nutella sweet pancakes.
Mom had strawberries and cream.
And I had a savory ham and cheese pancake.

All of them were delicious. After our mid-morning snack, we separated. Christina went to the Heineken Experience while the girls and I went to the zoo. These were the activities we were supposed to do the afternoon they arrived when we would have had a ton of time, but their delayed flight meant we lost half a day. As a result, we only had a little over an hour in the zoo before we had to leave for our afternoon activity.

The Amsterdam Zoo is 150 years old and is very pretty. I have to admit, though, that after seeing these same animals in their natural habitat in Africa, it was hard to see them behind fences. I felt a bit sad for them.

I saw tons of elephants roaming the wide-open spaces.
There aren’t any gorillas in South Africa, but I did see this guy’s cousins, the baboons.
The proud lion.
This peacock was gorgeous.

We caught up with Christina at the meeting point for our final activity, a half-day trip to Zaanse Schans. It is a small, planned neighborhood just north of Amsterdam. From 1961 to 1974, windmills and wooden houses were relocated here from all over the Netherlands as part of a cultural preservation.

As you can see it had gotten quite cloudy. Luckily it didn’t rain but it was very windy.
Two of the many windmills we saw.
We saw how they made cheese and then did tastings in the store. I bought some delicious red pesto cheese.

Many people in this part of the Netherlands regularly wear wooden shoes. According to our guide, Mikey, they’re very comfortable and practical. She told us that in the olden days (back 1,000 years ago), every region had a particular style and color of shoe. So, when there were large gatherings of people, like on market days, you could tell where everyone was from by their shoes.

There were also special shoes.

These are wedding shoes.

This pair looks like they could be used as weapons.

Yikes!

No way I was climbing into this.

But I did manage these.

When the shoes were made by hand, it took 3 hours to make one pair. Now with two different machines (one to shape the shoes and one to carve out the inside) a pair can be made in 5 minutes. Of course, then there’s the drying and painting of the shoes but the shoes themselves are made in a matter of minutes.

This is the machine that carves out the inside of the shoe. The machine was moving so the pic is a little blurry…sorry. The sizing is 2 sizes up from your normal shoe size.

The wooden houses were adorable.

This is the backdoor which is the only door that is used regularly. The front door is only used for weddings and bringing out the body when someone dies in the house.

We went into an active windmill that grinds limestone down to powder that is then used to make paint.

These gigantic stone wheels are used to grind the stone.

During the afternoon it had gotten windy and cold, so by the time we were back in the van, I was freezing. But in spite of the weather, we all enjoyed the tour.

After another Uber ride home, we tried to go to an Italian restaurant not far from the flat for dinner. But neither Christina nor I remembered that it was Saturday evening and without reservations, we weren’t able to be seated. We tried a second restaurant but weren’t successful there either. So, we ended up at home for sandwiches. Christina and Drew picked up some frites from the place on the corner, so it was actually a nice dinner.

Tomorrow the girls are doing Anne Frank and the Nemo Science Museum while I visit the Rembrandt House Museum and the Church in the Attic. It will give the girls a chance to have family time and me a chance for a quiet morning.

Night everyone.

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