Amsterdam for the weekend!

KA and I went to visit her sister and brother-in-law in Amsterdam this weekend. I had been to Amsterdam once on a long layover, but didn't really get to see much of the city. This time we were treated to a private boat tour through the canals!! Our hosts belong to a boat share so they can pretty much reserve a little boat for whenever they want to go out!!


The tour was wonderful and Amsterdam is so interesting. The canals are highly regulated - every week or so they are flushed and new water is pumped in to keep them clean, the depth is regulated at the ocean, one canal was getting so dirty they just filled it in and made a street! The boat tour was great, even the parts where we got caught in a hail storm, that cleared to a sunny blue sky within 5 minutes, and when we got sloshed around on open water where all the commercial boats go!! Oops!!!

About 2000 of Amsterdam's 700,000 residents live in houseboats on the canals. The houses on land in Amsterdam were all built with a slight tilt leaning forward and have a post sticking out the front at the very top. This is so they can haul up furniture or other large objects on a pulley system because the stairs are so steep and tiny!!!


Saturday night we went to see an improv/comedy show - Boom Chicago! Basically it's American comedians making fun of the Dutch and their mannerisms. The theme to the show that night was "fears" so a lot of the show was taking suggestions from the audience on biggest fears and doing funny skits. It was hilarious!