Sunday, April 11, 2010

More from Amsterdam....

Sitting here in Amsterdam using the MacDonald's free internet and eating dinner while I post my blog I will have to pause every few minutes to make sure the pigeons do not swoop down and steal my fries...and we are inside!!!

We have had a wonderful time here in Amsterdam except that Saturday Ed's cold from last week hit me with a vengance and spent the day in bed several boxes of Kleenex, orange juice and some powdered decongestant that Ed bought at the local pharmacy. I slept and he ventured out to get food for himself and get more familiar with the tram and bus routes so we could find out way to church today. It was not a fun day for me more because I was losing a day of exploring and seeing the sites, but I couldn't do much about that. Today I am well enough to go out.

We went to church this morning and found to our delight that there was a Sunday school class in English and that they have wireless translators for Sacrament meeting. They were having trestimony meeting this week and it was very special to listen to the testimonies of these gtood saints. It was a small group, but many bore their testimonies and we learned that many of them had not been members of the church for very long. What I loved was when one woman stood up and then the Bishop stood up with her and she started and she was speaking spanish and he was translating to the congregation in Dutch while our translator (a sister missionary from the US) translated to us in English from his Dutch!!! hahaha I just love this world!

On Friday we decided to go to Kuekenhof and see the flowers. We loved walking around this very famous and very beautiful botanical garden. Unfortunately, we are in the middle of the season so most of the tulip beds were just green plants, but there were enough that I am satisfied and very happy to have been there. I asked Ed what we should say about Kuekenhof and his response was, "We saw lots of tulips. Im doing well, I'm going, I'm smiling, don't ask me to blog!" :) Yes, ED is being a great sport. Nothing has wowed him yet so we will see. He is enjoying figuring out the trams, the money and figuring out where we are going. He thinks the transportation system here is amazing. He thinks this is better than anywhere else in the world.
We have both loved seeing the bikes....the bike parking lots and free bike racks have been very interesting. We had to stop and examine one in Leiden to see how it works. It was ingenious.

After going to Kuekenhof we went further on to The Hague (De Haag). I forgot to bring the information and couldn't remember the museum where "The Girl with the Pearl Earring" is located but I thought that most everyone would know where she was. Well.......wewere sent on a wild goose chase just to end up 2 blocks from the central station where we began and we missed the museum by 15 minutes. We had a fun adventure but I hope we will have the time to go back and see the painting. Having lost a day to illness I am not sure we will have enough time.

We have seen much of the city just by staying on the trams and riding around. It is a wonderful city. I love seeing the families all riding their bikes along the special lanes for bikers. Little children in carts that are mounted on the bike frames....it is amazing.
I have many pictures but will have to be better organized to download them onto the blog.
I will try and do that another day.
Until then, we will continue to enjoy our adventure here!


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