Day 2 - Amsterdam 22nd May

Day 2 in Amsterdam

Day 36 of 91

5 weeks of 13 weeks!!

 

 

This has got to be the moral of our adventure!!

 

Phew they are dredging one of the canals, yucky!!  Funny Colin and I were talking whether they dredged the rivers or not and then we come across these men working with the diggers! 

 

We headed to Anne Frank's House today but wow the queue was incredible for 10am and it wasn't moving hardly so we didn't waste any time waiting in a queue we had the rest of Amsterdam to explore!

 

One of the Churches next to Anne Frank's House

 

Anne Frank statue

 

Classy Heineken bicycle or you could try one of the t-shirts advice that was in the shop

 'Smoke and Fly' funny!!

 

Pretty bridge over a canal

 

The start of Old Town

 

Old Town Square - Madame Tussauds

 

Another building in Old Town Square

 

Royal Palace not the prettiest palace we have ever seen!

 

Feeding the pigeons - they must be very friendly to eat out of his hands!

 

 

Looking back at the Palace

 

Hey look at this dude on his bicycle with a tank cardboard cut out, all sorts going on here!

 

The rows and rows of bicycles!!

 

So we had to visit Red Light District but we did so at 10.30am so at least the little eyes that were with us were not exposed to much.  There was one he/she open for business at a door but Amy didn't see her/him as her eyes were focussed on getting to the canal boat stop and the black cat that was scuttling around the street!  There were a few risky shops and bars offering various things on their signs too but no questions have arisen but there are loads of bicycles around and we keep on harping on about keeping her eyes peeled for bicycles so thankfully it has sunk in for this section of the street anyhow!

 

Out of the Red Light District now and here is a small market with a restaurant being refurbished in the background now that is an impressive building to have a restaurant in!

 

Cheeses for sale

 

Tulips for sale, these were the only tulips we saw over the last couple of days

 

Love this building with a bar on the bottom floor, so cute!

 

Next we walk past the Cannabis Seed Bank, we just say these are special seeds for special cakes that they sell here!

 

 

What a cool bicycle covered in rubber ducks, now this is more Amy's sort of shop a toy shop I need to rephrase that after us just coming from the Red Light District, a children's toy shop!!!

 

COOL!!

 

View down another canal!

One of the ‘special cake’ shops

 

Cute building but it is like the leaning Tower of Pisa

Here is Colin and his funny word on his mousse tin!!  Now Amy starts reading all the mousse tins, mmmmm, change the subject now before we are asked what it means!!!!



The flea market near the Opera House, how on earth can you find anything in this pile of clothes!!!

Some pretty buildings around

 

Opera House

Eventually we find the canal boat tour stop!!  So we jump on and you can’t buy tickets on board you have to go to Central Station and buy them there.  The lady is lovely and says hop on and when we stop at Central station you can buy your tickets there.  This is one of Amy’s wishes to go on a canal boat, so we go about half an hour, 3 stops to Central Station and none of us are that enamoured by the canal boat hop on hop off boat so we hop off and don’t buy a ticket!!  But atleast we got to do bit of the hop on hop off tour for free as we would have been gutted to use a chunk of our budget today and not enjoy it!!

There is the nice lady driver and we tricked her, sorry nice lady!

View from the canal boat

One of the gate houses

Pretty from the canals 

Canal boats and pretty houses in the background

 

 

 

Funny dummy sitting on their house boat :O))

Chilled on the boat 

A floating Chinese restaurant

 

 

The Nemo Science museum shaped like a boat

 

 

The Library and a museum

 

Central station coming into view

 

A fancy hotel with the flags flying

 

Central station from dry land

 

 

Central station tower showing the wind direction

 

 

So instead of going on the canal boat we are just going to head onto the tram instead

 

 

We get off at the Museum district

 

Family hug time :O)

 

Amy looks tiny against the I am Amsterdam sign!!

 

Amy being a ‘Y’ to make AMY!!

 

Stop for a play in the park before lunch

 

Swing just like the one in Whiteford near Uncle Brian and Auntie Nicola’s house!!  Brings back funny memories :O)

 

Van Gogh Museum

 

Last turn on the playpark as all our tummies are rumbling, Hard Rock Café here we come!!

 

Pretty gardens outside the museum

 

 

 

Sculptures at one of the Art Museums!

 

Gorgeous buildings for the museums

 

 

We have made it to Hard Rock Café Amsterdam

 

Bicycles are also dog transporters too!

 

We headed to Vondelpark, we thought we would have a chilled walk through the park but there are so many bicycles it just isn’t relaxing at all!!

 

Not a match on Gorky Park in Moscow as this park is just grass and some water!!

 

We spy a heron in the bushes though

 

And then Amy spies a park and a huge bouncy castle!!!  Bounce, bounce!!

 

Sweaty Amy now after being on the bouncy castle for 25 minutes!!

 

Now to try on the tyre treadmill, eh Amy no likey!!

 

My turn wow that is hard to try and keep your balance and not get carried away by the momentum of the tyres spinning round!  Eh me no likey either!!

 

 Swing time next!!

 

Seesaw and then home time!!

 

Here comes the tram to take us back to Central station and then jump on another tram to take us to Marnixstraat!  We never felt the love from Amsterdam it certainly hasn’t been our best city so far, not sure why, but it has been great to chill out in a really nice apartment and recharge our batteries! 

Tomorrow is a big day as we are now moving onto America, woop woop!!!  New York flight via Reykjavik as that was the cheapest route for us to take!!  3 hour 10 minute flight to Reykjavik and then a 6 hour flight to JFK New York.  We are in for a long day as we have 6 hours added onto our day with the time differences, wow!!  But we all think it will be worth it for sure!!  Frank Sinatra New York New York springs to mind, excited but it is bed time now.

Before I sign off I must tell everyone that we have no internet in New York so no blogs until we arrive in Orlando, sorry :o((  But I promise you will have the update on our adventures as soon as we get organised in Orlando.  Take care all.  Night night everyone and we will be in touch when we are in Orlando!!!  Lots of love from the Anderson gang xxx