Amsterdam

One of the many canals through the city

So, I was only able to spend a day in Amsterdam on this trip, but it was a nice city.  The city has canals formed in semi-circles spanning out from the Centraal Station.   Amsterdam also has one of the largest historic districts around.  We spent a good part of the day just walking around the city and around the canals looking at the buildings and everything.  We passed some of the big museums like the Van Gogh museum and the Anne Frank museum.  The Anne Frank museum had an absolutely enormous line, so we decided since we were only there for a day that it would be better to try and go around more places than spend an hour or two waiting in line to get in to see the museum.  And for Van Gogh I don't think either of us are huge art enthusiasts so we skipped it along with the Rijksmuseum, which houses a lot of art and other things, including much of Rembrant's work.

Grand Centraal Station

Nice side street

Church near the Centraal Station

More Bridges

 We went by the main square the Dam, a few times during the day.  They had some street soccer going on in the square.  The first time we went, there were kids teams playing against each other.  Later on there were some older professionals? who would play with a group of the kids doing ball handling tricks with the ball and such.

The Royal Palace

The kids playing soccer in the square

Nieuwe Kerk

We also went to a cheese tasting where we had some great cheeses.  The first two were actually goat cheeses and they were very good, surprisingly.  The cheeses had different ages, so some were a bit older and were similar to like parmesan, while some were newer and thus a bit creamier and mild.  They were all great though.

5 of the 6 cheeses we tried (the first is on the other guillotine cutter thing)

Pro Cheese Taster

 So after the cheese we weren't super hungry so we went to one of the city parks (the Vondelpark).  There was some sort of children's show going on at the stage so we caught the end of that.  It was on Dutch, so I couldn't quite make out what was being said but it was interesting, certainly.  Then we found a spot in the park and napped for a bit after having to have woken up around 6 to catch the train to Amsterdam from Cologne.

The actors at the children's performance

Vondelpark 

We went to an old Heineken brewery and saw how beer was/is made there, so that was an interesting tour.

Brewery

Of course, we had to go by a windmill while we were in Amsterdam.  The windmills weren't built in the city, but as the city grew some are now within it, such as this one, De Gooyer.

De Gooyer

We took some random bus and tram trips around the city to make more use out of our day passes so we saw random other parts of the city, which was interesting.  We left the city pretty early though to get back to the hotel, which is close to the airport, outside the city a bit.

Canal at night

The Rijksmuseum

A church

Another church

Canal and bridge

Off to London

So, I've now been in London just short of a week.  It has been great so far and I have been meeting a lot of great people and have gotten just a glimpse into the city.  I still have so much I want to do and see and so little time.  I will update this soon hopefully with whats been going on for the past week.

Cheers, from the UK.