The weather was looking grim but we had already booked our flight and hotel so we had to go. Luckily the weather held out for Saturday and we had a great day walking all around Amsterdam and seeing the sights. The weather on Sunday was not as nice but we still had fun. Amsterdam is the capital of Holland and the biggest city in the country. Although Amsterdam is known for its lax drug laws with its "coffee bars" and the "red light" district, it has so much more history and culture to offer. There are several great museums that we saw. My favorite was the Van Gogh museum. It houses the biggest Van Gogh collection in the world and the scope of his work is amazing. I like his painting but I really like a lot of the pencil and charcoal sketches he did. The least favorite museum was the Rijksmuseum. It looks amazing from the outside but due to all of the reconstruction of the building, 90% of the museum is closed. Good thing we paid 20 Euros to get in. (that's about 31.50 USD) We also saw the Anne Frank house and the Rembrandt House. The Anne Frank house was very moving and amazing to see. The Rembrant house was very neat to see since he painted and sold a lot of his masterpieces out of his house. There was the flower market which floats on barges in the canal and Dam Square. Dam Square (pernounced Dahm) is a major gathering place of photo ops and street performers. With all of the canals and weird street names it is very easy to get turned around so luckily we had a good map. There are more bikes in Amsterdam than cars so you really had to watch out when crossing the street. We sampled the local Pannekoken which is like crepes but they call them pancakes. The only issue was a slight mix up with our hotel room. We were booked in a room with 2 single beds on Friday so we asked to be moved. They said they didn't have the a room at the time but that a room would open up the next day on Saturday and they would move our stuff. So after a long day of sight seeing we get back to the hotel and they are having a hard time finding which room they moved us to. They finally find the room and when we get to the new room our luggage is not there. The front desk tells us to go back to our original room and get our bags but when I open the door there are new guests sleeping in the beds. I backed peddled out of that room so fast I almost knocked Dena over who was standing behind me. We go back to the front desk and tell them what happened. They say, "we are really sorry about this mix up, please have a seat in the bar and have a drink on us while we figure this out." I try and stay as calm as possible and say to them, "I'm not going anywhere until I find out where my luggage is." Luckily they found our bags and moved us to a newly refurbished room on the 1st floor and send a bottle of wine and fresh fruit to our room with an apology note. Free liquor and food always helps to smooth things over. Overall we had a great time and new memories to add to our European Travel Extravaganza.
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