Thursday, June 30, 2011

Day Ten: Amsterdam

Today we headed into Amsterdam. We were all very excited to head into the city. We saw a ton of great sights and ate delicious pannekoek for dinner.

Freezing today...a rare occurrence on this trip.
We arrived at the P+R (park and ride) to find the trams were on strike until 3pm. On to Plan B, driving into Amsterdam.
Dad's parking job today. Pretty impressive. Thank goodness for the rail.
Cars just keep getting smaller in Amsterdam.
We found a wolf for cousin Kyle. There are tons of weirdos here, just like in SF.
Hannah and Grandpa Klaver-we found a Spartan fan in Amsterdam. See, Amsterdam isn't all that bad Grandpa.
The Royal Palace
This is how you buy Macs in Europe. At the MacHouse.
A beautiful houseboat with flowers.
Inside Westerkerk

A statue of Anne Frank near the Anne Frank House.
Westerkerk
The Rijks Museum
Busparking! Just like our blog address.
Can you find Jackie and Melissa?

Where's Waldo?
Can you find us now?
We went to the Van Gogh Museum. A dream come true for an art major.
Brothers!
It's a duck...Amsterdam style.
Rijks Museum and I amsterdam

It's Melissa!

We went to the Blonde Amsterdam shop. They had awesome things inside this shop.
A wooden shoe boat.
The sticker says it all.
Beautiful flowers in the market.

This no bikes sign doesn't seem to matter if you put stickers over it.
Thanks to the wonderful recommendation of Ashley Wyatt, we headed to The Pancake Bakery for dinner. It was delicious.
Dad and Mom DenOuden
Grandpa Vandermeer
Your faithful bloggers
Justin studying a map
Jennifer and Dan
Melissa and Jackie
Grandpa's meal. Shh...don't tell Grandma about all that ice cream, chocolate, and sugar.
Nutella and Banana. My delicious meal.
Look! They have frozen yogurt, just like in California.
Oudekerk. It was near a shady area of town, so we had to be careful.
Here is a clue as to what area of town it is near. Needless to say, we only went to see the church.
On the way out of town we saw a huge cruise ship. It was the biggest ship I've ever seen.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Day Nine

We headed from the Alkmaar area to Appeldorn today. Guess what we passed on the way?
Too bad everyone was sleeping in the back.
The navigators and driver were wide awake.

We passed a shop in Appeldorn called Brenda. Who knew Brenda had her own store in Appeldorn?
This is Grandpa's house in Appeldorn. It is now a Chinese restaurant. He said it looks disgusting.
This is an awkward statue in Appeldorn. It is of a man and deer dancing. I would love to know what the artist was thinking.
This was a window display at a store in Appeldorn. Apparently the aliens are coming.
When we came back to the van, Melissa and Justin were laying in the next parking spot to keep cool.
A cool bridge on the way back to Alkmaar.
A school in Volendom. We were disappointed not to find people in authentic Dutch clothing like the guidebook said there would be.
We saw eels, birds, and more birds.


Delicious pizza for dinner on a hot day.