We are glad to hear that Ben, Sarah, Dante and Tessa are all OK after the very early morning fire in the “house” next door to them last night. A bit scary but it sounds like they are all OK, which was great to hear!!!   (We are also pleased to know that there was no-one in the house at the time)

Now for our day,  .

Breakfast was delivered to our room at 8am and we slowly got our day going. (was very nice Carly all on this lovely china )

We walked down to the Rijksmuseum and arrived there about 9:45am. Only about 2 floors of the museum are open due to major renovations being carried out. But even allowing for that it took us the best part of 2 hours to go through the museum. I think it is the longest we have ever spent in a museum. The art works were totally absorbing. We stood and read about almost every piece we looked at and studied many of them very closely.  I think the second floor was the best, it had all the old Dutch masters works, particularly Rembrandt.  It is very hard to go past The Night Watch, but there were so many others that were equally as wondrous, including a special exhibition of works by Vermeer, including The Kitchen maid, Woman Holding a Balance and Woman Reading a Letter.   There was only a small area of garden outside to see, but you could imagine how the gardens in full might look and how peaceful and manicured they would be.

We then strolled down to the Van Gogh Museum. They had a special exhibition called “The Colours of the Night”. It featured the work “Starry Night”, and works representing his whole life. It was interesting to note that he didn’t develop his own distinctive style until about 4 years before his death. His art was amazing and throughout his life he sent letters to his younger brother about the works he was working on, or had planned, and described what his thought process was. It was a real insight into the life and times of a, sometimes very disturbed but, brilliant artist. I guess we spent another 2 hrs or so in there, time flew by, it’s just so interesting.

We had a late lunch there and then walked over to Vondelpark. It is Amsterdams version of Central Park in New York, it nearly gets there but just doesn’t match it. The park was full of locals of all ages enjoying the sunshine on the grass, in the gardens or around one of the many ponds. We took a little time out and just took in all the sights for a while.  Nice and relaxing.

We then set off and walked up to the Jordaan district. It is a well to do area with lots of quirky shops and cafes. Jordaan is a place of real colour and fun to walk around.  As we approached the Westerkerk we realised that we would be exploring that part of town tomorrow, so we decided to head back to our hotel.

Once back, I went back out and found some stamps to post our postcards to D +T and E +E,  a supermarket to get some Muesli and the local laundrette to find out the opening hours (yeah, we can wash on Thursday morning before we have to head off to the airport).

At about 5:45pm we set out to find somewhere for dinner.   We first tried a couple of restaurants recommended to us by our hotel, the first, Italian, was closed Mondays, and the second, seafood, didn’t do it for us. But the walk was worth it. We walked up through and around the Rembrandtpleis, a large plaza area, that is very cosmopolitan and so alive with young people. It is full of recycled clothing shops, “smoke” cafes, bars and various eateries. We both thought that all our children would love it.

We finally decided to try the Indonesian recommended to us. It was the best Indonesian I have had since living there! (Deb still rated the satay last night as better). The waiter, probably the owner, was Indonesian and had a great sense of humour.  We had a “Rice Plate”, which consisted of a bowl of white rice and a bowl of yellow rice, and then we got 18 very small bowls of different dishes. There were 6 mild, 6 medium and 6 spicy. (And I ordered a bowl of sambal to go with it all, just to ensure I had my fill of chilli too!!   ) . Before all that came out we were given 4 small appetiser dishes to whet our palates. It sounds a lot, and it was, but it was all so good. Deb stopped at the medium dishes  (the medium were a little bit too hot for me, I just couldn’t do the hot ones , I am sure that suited Greg though!!),   so I got to have all the spicy ones, which suited me.  So yummy!!!! The waiter was impressed with all the hot stuff being gone when he came back to clear the table.

After dinner we walked back around our neighbourhood a bit and then back to the hotel for the night and a well deserved rest.

That’s all for another busy day, our love to you all, xox

(Carly here is my bit here, so you don’t have to reread our blog!! J   We got up too late to go to Anne Frank Museum, so we will have an earlier night and do that tomorrow.   We were pleased at both the Museums we went to today there was very little queuing and not too many people inside, we really enjoyed them both, I think the memory of them will stay with me forever – well at least until I start forgetting everything!

Some observations - Dutch people are generally very tall many even taller than Kieran and Ben!!  Women too!  They are evidently the tallest white nation.    They are also generally slender, must be all that bike riding, they go crazy fast on their bikes and you are expected to get out of their way.   They do not wear helmets and it is common to see bikes with an adult and a child/ren.   We have not seen any accidents yet which is surprising with how fast they go.  

There are a lot of smokers here and the smell of marijuana often fills the air. 

Like the rest of Europe they don't have rubbish bins, remember back in the 70's when we used to put out our rubbish in garbage bags, they do that here too, there are mountains of rubbish on the side walk.    It feels like visual polution.    There is often the smell of urine on the streets too, like in Paris, but not quite so bad.   Here they have metal deflectors in the corners of buildings to try to deter people as they cause splashback!!   It seems so odd, as Europe is such a cultural place.   

Anyhow, I love it here, really glad we came, an unexpected delight!)