Wednesday, September 16, 2009

1st Stop... Amsterdam

The good news is that I survived the first semester of full-time classes to go along with full-time work and full-time parenting, and now I am on a week break before the next semester starts.
I have missed reading all of my favorite blogs, but caught up on a few today. Only 2 more semesters to go~

This summer I went on my first trip out of the country to Europe and had a great time!
The first stop... Amsterdam!

Amsterdam was beautiful, inviting, friendly and had great buildings. I took a million pictures, ok really like 800... there was so much to see ~

Amsterdam is a city where the main mode of transportation is bicycle. You could easily spot the locals from the tourists as they were the ones cycling 25-30 mph one-handed while talking on a cell phone and smoking a cigarette, lol. And they will run you over.

After I got accustomed to staying in the 4 inches of space between the bike path and the road (the pedestrian walkway), my life expectancy increased ten-fold... as you can probably tell, I made it back alive and have no tire track scars.


Due to all of the canals, there are many house boats in Amsterdam. This one can be your for the low low price of $635,000 Euro. Yeah... I can't afford it either!

















....And mini cars - lots and lots of mini cars...




















The flower market was gorgeous, the scent was amazing. I did manage to find some U.S. approved tulips to bring home. I can't wait to see them next spring!






And in case you were wondering... yep you can buy that too!








Am I the only one that didn't know that this is why X-rated films are X-rated (XXX) at all? LOL It took me a minute to figure it out.. sometimes I can be really slow!





There were bikes EVERYWHERE. Broken bikes, decorated bikes, rusty bikes, bikes with words, bikes with baskets, bikes with trailers and even bikes with barnacles that had been fished out of the sea...







There were groups of these little birds with really cool feet..









I Amsterdam!

































This isn't really a tree, it's ivy growing on the side of a building that is made to look like a tree with branches.




I hope you enjoyed your mini tour of Amsterdam - Next stop Munich, Germany

8 comments:

uglyblackjohn said...

Did you partake in any of the local "flavor"?

RunningMom said...

I did not. I was with my dad so we stayed mostly out of the red light district which is where most of the coffee houses are that sell the local flavor, lol.

We did go down there one morning just to say that we had been there, but it was dirty and gross and looked too much like the movie Hostel, so I was like, mmmm, time to go. lol

Anonymous said...

awesome pics RM.

Glad you are back!

Curious said...

I heard recently that the average Dutch male was 6ft, well above most Europeans and slightly above that of the average American. My question then would be how does he get into that little red car?

RunningMom said...

Thanks GirlCas :)

Curious... he doesn't, he rides a really tall bicycle!

clnmike said...

I had no idea about the XXX.

Curious said...

Actually even though I'm not a catholic I would think XXX represents the holy trinity rather than the porn industry.

RunningMom said...

Curious - I'm not saying that the XXX means porn for Amsterdam, but what I thought was that the porn industry stole their trademark from the place where prostitution is legal and where the Red Light District is famous to make it their signature mark. That's what it seemed like to me, but I could be wrong, it was just a guess.