aaaaaaamsterdam!!

After hanging out for the week in Brussels, Mark and I took a weekend trip to Amsterdam. I'd say Amsterdam is famous for three things: its canals, its museums, and its shenanigans. And you can certainly find all three of those there in abundance. While we did not engage in any activity that is illegal (well, illegal back in the US), or that could result in contracting a nasty disease, we still had a lot of fun. We hit up a bar crawl, wandered the red light district (such a strange/unique place - definitely a must-see, although I'd recommend against sampling the wares), and went to several museums.

Mark left at the end of the weekend, but I stuck around, hitting up a few more museums, and generally chilling out until the end of the week when when I'd head to Copenhagen for another reunion. Since I was in Amsterdam for almost a week, I managed to accumulate a lot of fun/interesting facts about Amsterdam through the ages:

• in the 1600s there were so many surgeons in Amsterdam that it was not possible to make a living just performing surgery. So, surgeons would give haircuts as well


• according to one exhibit "swimming lessons [in the 1960s] apparently dramatically reduced the number of people drowning in Amsterdam waterways." Wow, brilliant deduction there, Holmes!


• Rembrandt was a big fan of Bols liquors, but couldn't always pay the bills. So, to settle a large outstanding debt he gave them a painting


• Apparently when Amsterdammers have had a bit too much to drink they wander around chucking unlocked bikes into the canals. About 25,000 bikes per year are fished from the canals, refurbished, and sold back to the people who lost them in the first place


• so many horses fell into Amsterdam's canals that in the 1860s someone invented a special hoist to fish the horses out. And if a horse didn't survive the ordeal the guy with the hoist would buy the dead horse, and the next day he'd sell it in his butcher shop! I guess that's efficient, but kind of gross. Also provides a disincentive to actually rescue the horse if he needs more meat in his shop. . .

Enough talking - it's picture time!

the crowd at the Anne Frank museum. While it was cold and raining slightly, it was well worth the wait. Very well done museum - I'd definitely recommend it.

patriotic hot dog - one of the many strange things you'll see in Amsterdam

hangin' out with my buddy Vinny

me and Mark at the famous iAmsterdam sign. I think we had to wait 10 minutes until we could get a picture not blocked by random other people getting their picture taken / this one annoying couple who insisted on making out in front of the sign.

nice artsy shot - sunrise with windmill

fishing for bikes in the canals (as discussed in the "fun facts" list above)

one of the many cool canal views in amsterdam

windmill (sans sunrise)

the old-school equivalent of house numbers

Amsterdam has such a problem with people peeing on the streets that they have installed a bunch of splash guards which effectively pee back on you. And this one added in spikes! I wonder why the people don't just pee into the canals instead. . .

one of our favorite statues - "johnny bird-coat and his icosahedron" (no, that is not its real name, but it should be!)

cool street art

artsy shot - neat sculpture silhouette

Amsterdam canal in the afternoon light