A Blustery Day in Amsterdam

Saturday, July 25
Our first night in Amsterdam was a lovely one and we quickly learned that we are located in an excellent part of one of the largest tourist areas of the city called Rembrandt Square. It is a bustling area of tourist shops, hotels, cafes and coffee shops. We had read that coffee shops aren't noted for their coffee but are instead marijuana shops, so we decided to not try to and buy our lattees there. We saw lots of people in all of the places and lots sitting outside around the square and park who had chosen to purchase some non-coffee products in those shops.  The smell in the air was indicitive of a 1970's rock concert.
We found a nice little place for dinner that was listed as a great local sandwich shop. We ordered some local Dutch food and enjoyed it very much. The food was not only good, but the prices were the best that we have seen since arriving in Europe. After dinner we strolled through the area with a thousand or so of our closest new "friends" as it was very crowded.

A bicycle parking lot

We had heard that bicycles dominate here so we watched the streets and sidewalks both directions as we meandered through the area. We were surprised to not only see such a dominance of thousands of bikes but not a one was fancy or even something that an average America would consider riding. They are all one style, single speed and mostly flat black in color. A few have hand brakes and most have racks or attached grocery or children carts but none are even new looking by our standards. With Amsterdam being so flat, there seems to be no need for anything more than the simpliest in design as they probably never see a hill or a need to change gears. We also hear that bike theft is the most common crime in the city so no one probably wants a bike that would stand out in the crowd. The bikes are everywhere and there are even parking garages and barges solely devoted for parking bicycles. Our only question is how in the world do the owners find theirs after work or shopping when they all are so similar?
This morning we awoke to a cloudy morning but the temps were warm. We went down for a lovely buffet breakfast in this newest hotel and then decided to venture out to see the city. We decided that it would be best to purchase a hot-on-hop-off bus ticket for 24 hrs so we could get a good overview of where all of the sights are located. With so many canals cutting through the city, that seemed to be a way to get our bearings. We did that in Paris and it helped us navigate much easier on our own for the next days. We wanted to hear the narration and learn some interesting history of the city. We even saw the last windmill in Amsterdam.
We also wanted to take a canal trip as that is listed in all of the tour books as a "must do" so we purchased the combination boat and bus pass and walked across one the many canal bridges to the boat dock and realized that the weather was starting to get worse the farther we got from the hotel. John was smarter than me as he took his anarack and wore jeans and tennis shoes. I only wore capris, sandals and left my anarack in the suitcase thinking that the light weight warm up jacket and an umbrella would surfice...WRONG!
With the rain starting to come down heavier,  we stayed on the barge boat for the whole loop which took over an hour and then got off and grabbed the bus for that loop tour of the city. We were glad that both were covered and that there were enough seats so we didn't have to wait for another bus.
The city of Amsterdam is filled with gorgeous canals and homes and buildings that line each canal. It looks like something out of a tour book everywhere we went :) We didn't get off the bus until we had made the full circle and got off as close to our hotel as we could figure from the map. Luckily, John had again marked our hotel spot onour walking GPS or we would have wandered around for a long time in the wind and pouring rain.
We found our hotel after about 15 minutes of walking. I chose not to use the umbrella as it was blowing so hard that the umbrella would have turned inside out, much the same as many of the others we spotted had done so we quickly returned to the hotel. 
It was nice to reeturn and take off some wet things and make some lunch and just stay inside watching the city down below from our excellent vantage point right over one of the main squares, canals and lovely huge flower market areas. We were much happier to be up in our 4th story room than down in the blustery streets dodging wet tourists, passengers on numerous trams going every direction and thousands of crazy bicyclists trying to make their ways to their hotels or homes to also escape the July storm.

Rijksmuseum

Life on the canals