Tuesday - Amsterdam Canal Trip

On Tuesday we drove to Amsterdam to see Opa’s brother Cok and his “girlfriend” of 25 years, Yvonne. We spent much time driving around the city looking for a parking garage where we could park all day. A very friendly man who had just moved from Friesland to Amsterdam with his family directed us to one. When we got there, Len didn’t dare go in it because there was no person manning the gates and he was afraid we’d get stuck in there and would not be able to get out. (If I had been in his car, I would’ve reminded him of when Opa picked us up at the train station in Arnhem. We had to put the parking ticket in a “vending machine” and it told us how much money to put in. It then gave us the ticket back and we scanned the ticket (marked “paid”) on our way out to get the gate to lift.) Instead, we parked on the road. We found a box/pole on the road for parking. You decide how long you want to park and put the money in. (Like a parking meter.) It gives you a ticket which you then put in your front window. If you park longer than your ticket says, you get a parking ticket. It is nicer than meters because one pole can service a whole block! As we were figuring this whole system out, it began to pour! Several of us took refuge under a roof near a daycare. We realized that we did not have enough coins to pay for 2 vehicles for an entire day. We stopped some people on the road and asked if they had ten Euro in coins we could buy. They sold us what they could and we all scrounged our purses and pockets and came up with enough. We got our tickets, placed them in the cars, and were off a little later than we had planned on. We now had to walk quite a distance to Cok’s store, The Frozen Fountain. (If we had known we were going to be parking on the road we probably could’ve gotten closer but it all worked out.)

We walked down many streets and across several canals and found the store quite easily. We were treated like royalty and were given coffee, cold drinks, cookies, and a tour of the store. Cok even gave Ali a book and signed it for her. The weather was rainy and drizzly and Cok wanted to take us in his boat so we waited out the weather for a bit. Cok and Yvonne do not own a car but they do keep a boat on the canals. When most of the rain stopped, we all climbed into the boat where Cok served us dried apricots, mixed nuts and dried fruit, pepperoni-like paper thin slices of sausage, chunks of cheese, wine, beer, lemonade, apple juice, and red spa. (Spa is bottled water. Red spa is bubbly and blue spa is still.) We motored off down the canal. A short way down the canal we passed the Anne Frank house. We wanted to go in and Cok was willing to drop us off but the line was so long we would’ve had to wait about 2 hours to get in and you can see it in less than an hour. We opted to take pictures from the canal and continue on our tour. We boated through many canals and saw a good part of Amsterdam from the water. We took many pictures of the boats and buildings. Many of the houseboats are hooked up to city water and sewer. They have gardens and clotheslines right on the boats. We even boated past the Red Light District!

We went through what used to be the harbor and went to see Yvonne at her studio. She is a free-lance artist. She was working but took us around her studio and showed us things she does. She also gave us some books and posters to take home. She seems to really have fun with her work! Yvonne agreed to take off work early and join us for an early supper. We needed to get back to our cars by 7 p.m. We boated to a restaurant, tied up at the dock, and went to eat. Several of us got a meatball, Len got croquettes, and Michael and Lindsay decided to be safe with chips and cheese. They tried some bites of our food as well. Yvonne ordered some French fries and some extra cokes for us to have and several people shared desserts. It was very nice!

Next Cok and Yvonne boated us to the closest canal to our cars. The boys and I wanted to see the Hard Rock Café so Len thought we should buy more time for our cars and walk there. The same man who helped us before saw us and came out to see if we had ever found the parking garage. It turns out that his house was right where we parked our cars! He invited Len into his house to meet his family and to look for more coins that we could buy from him. Once we had the coins, however, we decided to drive to find the Cafe and just let those of us who were interested jump out while the cars drove around the block. We did that. (We had a few cars honking at us but we got our pictures and T-shirts!).

Next came the drive home. We returned quite late and we were all tired. We opted to not leave at 7 a.m. the next morning but to shoot for 8 a.m. again and we all headed off to bed.