Today we took a day trip to Amsterdam. We were told, true or not we don't know, that the name Amsterdam comes from 12th century sailors saying they were from an area by the dam that was on the River Amstel. In essence, the sailors slurred it all together and the name Amsterdam was created. In the 12th century it was a small fishing village and today it is populated by nearly 2 million people.
When we got to Amsterdam we had a reservation for a guided bicycle tour through the City. There were 7 of us on a four hour excursion. Our guide Karl took us through this very busy city and we learned that bicycles there have the absolute right of way over everything except the tram. We were cautioned that the tram will always win! There are more bikes in Amsterdam than people! We cruised on our bikes through a park where we were shown a Picasso sculpture that was donated to that park. We passed the Van Gogh Museum and several very old churches. We stopped at Dam Square and cruised the red light district. We crossed the oldest bridge in Amsterdam and saw windmills along with the rich and the poor areas of town. In the end, we made it back to the bike shop safely....even the Australian girl who hit both a tree and a parked car on our excursion. She wasn't hurt so I must say it was kinda funny.
After our bike trip we walked around some and went to a really cool liquor and dutch gin tasting room. There we had a shot of one of their specialty drinks. Mine was chocolate mint flavored and Nika says hers was very good, but not translatable or describable. Nika's drink had a meaning of, "the shirt comes off". The tasting room was established in 1679 and is named after Wynand Fockink. Don't ask me who names their kid Wynand Fockink but this was a pretty cool and very busy place. The bartender filled customers drink glass to the absolute rim and before picking it up, it was customary to "sip" from the glass.
And of course, no trip to Amsterdam would be complete without a visit to see what the red light district is all about. Photography in the window viewing area is prohibited and I really didn't feel like getting beat up by somebody's pimp today so I abided by the signs. You can see in the pic though that there are 2 fine modern gentlemen "window shopping" (one wearing red and the other next to him in white).
An interesting day after which we took the train back to Haarlem and the bus back to the hotel. Tomorrow we're on to Germany.
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