The next day, Keri, Jill, and I took a country bike tour of Amsterdam with Mike’s Bike Tour. Our tour guide, Petra, was hilarious! She was very entertaining and informative at the same time. She showed up at the tour saying that she’d just had a joint for breakfast and was ready to go. She seemed like what I would consider to be a typical Amsterdamian (yes, I know that's not a real world). The bike tour started out riding through the city on our way to the country. We stopped on the “skinny bridge” over the Amsteel river, which is a bridge where a protest was staged in the early 70s. The women of Amsterdam were upset that there are lots of places for men to pee (like the “urinals” mentioned in the last post... even if it is just a cylinder that runs off into the canal), but not many places for women, so they staged a protest where they all assembled on the skinny bridge, lifted their skirts or dresses, and peed all at the same time. The protest didn’t help though. They just ended up with soggy shoes. From this bridge, we also got a look at some very old buildings that have started to lean because the ground below them is sinking. Petra told us that the law is that if you can’t fix your leaning building; you must sell it to someone who can. Interesting. One more interesting thing is that "Amstel" beer was named such because it was made from the Amstel river... the same river that people used to empty their "waste" into before the city had a sewage system. Yum. It was great learning so much history about Amsterdam. I was very surprised at how well English Petra spoke. She told us that she learned most of her English through watching TV.
The tour quickly left the city and headed into the country. Our first stop was at a real-life windmill that doubled as a house. The Holland windmills are mainly used to pump the water back in to the canals. The windmill that we stopped to see had been destroyed at one point (as were most of the windmills in the area, until the people of Amsterdam realized that they could make money off of them when tourists came to see them), but they rebuilt it because it had commonly been painted by Rembrandt. We had fun taking pictures of this windmill and coming up with silly poses (although I'm sure they've all been done many times before).
Our next stop was a factory where they make both cheese (gouda, to be exact) and wooden shoes. We got to take some fun pictures with an extra large pair of shoes too out front of the cheese/shoe factory. I purchase a Heineken- I know I don’t drink beer- but come on you have to blend in. The cheese was wonderful, and the shoe-making process was pretty cool. I was surprised that they don’t make the shoes by hand, but the “copy machine” that they used was really neat. Between Jill, Keri, and I we spent over 100Euro in their shop Keri and I both got some wooden shoes for our baby(s) and I bought some cheese to bring home to Jason for cooking.
On the rest of the tour, we also saw a Picasso sculpture that stays outdoors (it’s one of only 2 in existence, the other is in Chicago), the Hilton where Yoko and John Lennon stayed and wrote all over the walls (this room was never “cleaned up” and rents for about $3000 euro/night), rode through Vondel park (where I discovered the name “A’dam West” on a street sign. So it actually stood for Amsterdam West, but I thought it was funny and pointed it out to the other riders and Petra. She laughed and said that she had never noticed that before. I was glad that I left a lasting impression. Lol. I wasn’t sure if she even knew who Adam West was, but she knew. She was a very bright woman). Anyways, so we went through the fields of tulips. Many of them weren’t in bloom yet, but it was still pretty. The tour was 4 hours long, but we never really got tired… just a bit cold since it was around 40 or 50-something degrees and raining for part of the tour. It was great, and I’d highly recommend it! I was VERY happy that we decided to do the tour and I would definitely do it again someplace else. I even added Petra, our tour guide, on facebook after I got back home.
After showering and recovering from the freezing cold, we grabbed Keith, Ben, and Nina to head out for a tour of the Anne Frank House. It was crazy to be in the house where all of that actually took place. I don’t remember seeing the movie, although we may have and I wasn’t paying attention ;) I definitely want to watch it now since I’ve experienced the house in where they hid for over 2 years. It was a pretty neat experience. Nanny is the one who told me that I needed to take the tour and I was glad that I did.
We were all starving so we found a nice restaurant for dinner. While Keri/Keith and Jill/Ben were having a conversation and I was reading over my Anne Frank book, I came up with an idea on who I feel turned the Frank family in. My current working theory is that the secretary did it because she was in love with Otto (Anne’s father) and wanted him for herself. After the concentration camps were over, he was the only one of the Frank family still alive and mysteriously went and lived with his old secretary- uh huh. I may have a little more work to do to prove that theory though. I did purchase the museum tour book for Nanny so I’m going to do some more research and dig a little deeper. Ha-ha. Anyways, back to our delicious dinner- Apparently white asparagus is really in season right now, because we discovered that it was everywhere. Keith and I split an asparagus soup, and both had a traditional Dutch meal. Amsterdam has the best food. I’m so glad I don’t live there because I would be so broke and fat. Keith and I seemed to have the same ideas for food, so we shared our meals- which lead the waiter to think we were together. Lol.
Keri, Keith and I hit the casino before calling it a night. Everything was electronic so I didn’t really trust it much, but the minimums were really low (like 20 euro cents) so I saw down and tried my luck at the electronic roulette wheel for a while. We all did ok, but eventually Keith and my luck ran out, so we moved on to blackjack while Keri stayed at the table. As soon as Keith and I started doing well, they were closing. Keri ended up doubling her money with that strategy. So pretty much Keith and I lost the money that Keri found. Lol! We had a good time- although Electronic gambling is NO WHERE near as fun as the real thing
RIDING THROUGH AMSTERDAM COUNTRY
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