Mary Jo, you would LOVE this place!!!

We went on adventure today. We rode our bikes through town, took a small ferry across the water, and went to an AMAZING store. I so thought of you Mary Jo. Tons of amazing furniture, and everything you can possibly imagine. I fell in love with a table set with a large bench and chairs that don't match. I wanted it so much!! And a bike that looks like a horse. And we rather laughed at the fact that they had book about Obama next to books about Hitler and Goring. Hope it wasn't on purpose. We saw some large ships, including a Green Peace ship, and had lunch. A bit of coffee as well! I'm starting to love this life big time!!! Some crazy street art, and some old train cars that folks are now living in. What a fun day.

Beer!!!

What a fun filled vacation we're having! Mark and I took off by ourselves (Cari making sure we could handle this...) and we walked around town trying to get the lay of the land. We had lunch outside (I show a shot of the cafe in one of the pictures below) next to a canal and it was a lovely, relaxing lunch. I had a mozzarella and tomato sandwich and some sparkling water. We sat next to a French family with several children and we got a kick out of the kids running back and forth, just having a good time. We then walked to the Heineken Experience (oh, one of Cari's friends told us the big yellow tubes we'd been seeing used to be women's bathrooms....) and took a tour. We did learn a lot about beer, but of course it was all about tourists and of course we took pictures. We were so 'Dutch': see the one photo. At the end of the tour you get two beers and as you sit in the 'bar' they show pictures from around the world. One of the pictures below is for Kseniya. Then we walked back to Cari's place, and noticed that some of the neighborhood children had used chalk to decorate a statue of some bears: loved it! Then we took off with Cari on our bikes and went out for Ethopian food. So good!

Shopping and parks in Amsterdam rock!

Yesterday we went to one of the ourdoor markets, walked through town, and then a park close to Cari's place. Found a store with shoes out in the window and Oregon Duck and Beaver's colors: pretty funny. And we saw the biggest duck's nest I've ever seen. I have to say if I lived here I would probably take a walk in the park every single day!!!

Yachting on the river

Cari's friend Ignasi took us out on his boat. How fun was that? Nick, Joe, and 'Gary' went along as well. We went to a bar that is next to a windmill that had excellent beers, and since his boat is so small we were able to go under the 'low' bridge: now let me just ask you how many tourists in Amsterdam get to do that? Not many. Of course we had to duck, but it was so cool!!!