Amsterdam

We arrived on Monday morning.  Easy flight.  The hotel let us in early so we had a nice nap before we took off for the day.  One of Mark's colleagues, Carla, met us and after lunch, we set off on a walking tour of Amsterdam.  This place walks your feet off.  The day was nice which I guess is unusual during this season in Amsterdam.  Lots of picturesque canals and buildings.  It reminds me of Venice a bit.  We stopped for a happy hour right on the canal.  It was cold but we toughed it out.  We had a bite to eat and I returned to the hotel via tram.  Lots of great public transportation here.  Mark stayed out late with Carla and they met some of the other IBM people.  I was glad to opt out of that.

Tuesday morning, Mark left for his class.  I spent almost the entire day at the Van Gogh museum.  They pronounce it "van guck".  So that must be the true pronunciation, who knew?  He was Dutch after all.  It's a great museum.  I like smallish museums like that because you can really get a picture of the artist's work when you concentrate on only one person.  Ask me anything about Van Guck and I can tell you.  At least until tomorrow and something else fills up those brain cells.

I then went to the Anne Franck house.  My granddaughter, Julia, 8 years old, just finished a report all about Anne.  She reminded me of all the details of Anne's Diary and inspired me to get the book and reread it.  So my visit was much more meaningful than it would have been otherwise.  Thanks, Julia, you are the greatest, teaching an old grandma new tricks.  They wouldn't let me take pictures so I had to get Julia a book with the pictures of the house in it.  I'm sure she will love it.  I've only just started to reread the book, but I'm certain I will finish during this trip.  A typical rainy day today but a bit warmer so it was a great day to do museums.