Thursday - Amsterdam again.

On Thursday we decided to take the train to Amsterdam again so we could shop and those who were interested could go to the Rijks Museum. We drove to the train station in Ede and found free parking. We managed to all get seats together and had a nice ride into Amsterdam. Once there we had some trouble keeping all 8 of us happy. The guys finally gave us one hour to shop in a certain store and we found a meeting spot. It wasn’t enough time and we were late meeting them. Fortunately, they could watch some street performers while they waited. We continued walking and mostly window shopping. We planned to stop for lunch but only half of us were hungry. The kids also decided that if we were only buying one meal, they wanted it to be the Hard Rock Café. We headed across town toward it and the museum.
On the way, Opa and Oma showed us a door in the center of town that we could go through. It looked like you were entering a building but once through the door, you could see it was a walkway into a large courtyard. The noise and hustle and bustle of the city disappeared and it was like being in a completely different place right in the center of the busy city. There are actual homes in there now and it was where women who had never married had lived. There was a church in there and we went into a chapel as well. When we left, our senses were assaulted as soon as we returned through that door!
We continued on and found the Hard Rock Café. Len planned to take his parents somewhere else while the rest of us ate there but they decided they could have the experience too. Fortunately, since it was only 4:00 on a Thursday afternoon, it was not as loud as it was in Berlin on a Friday night! We filled our bellies with American food and free refills and took many pictures. On our way out, the waiter told us that the museum had closed at 5:00. We were disappointed but nothing could be done. We wandered back on different streets than before until we realized that we were headed for the Red Light District. It was one thing to boat past it but we had no desire to walk through it! We changed course and stopped in a few stores. We found an old church and right by it was a store. Oma found several things to buy. Most of the time the stores close at 6:00 p.m. but on Thursdays many were open until 9:00. (Much to the boys' chagrin and our delight!)
We headed back to the train station and stopped by the queen’s castle to take pictures and for those who were interested, to feed the pigeons. It seemed like a much longer walk at the end of a long day of walking! Once at the train station, we plopped onto a bench, removed our shoes, and waited the 30 minutes for our train. Imagine our horror when 5 minutes before it was to arrive, the sign changed to what should’ve been our train and it wasn’t! Lindsay and Leonard rushed off to figure out the problem. We were at the right track but on the wrong side! Linz hurried back to tell us that we had 4 minutes to RUN to the other end of the track. Oma couldn’t get her shoes on her swollen feet and then couldn’t run. The train passed us as we rushed to the correct place. We made it to the door on the very end of the train while people were still exiting and actually had to wait a moment until we could get on. We settled our hot, sweaty, sticky bodies into seats and enjoyed someone else driving home for a change!