Tram & Paul in the UK

Welcome to Amsterdam! There what we initially thought was a concert, but ended up being for some TV show.  The theme music was very catchy though; they had an orchestra playing it.

Tram in front of Anne Frank's house, which is her actual house where they stayed during the holocaust, and has the original bookcase that hid the staircase to their hiding place.

This is a picture of an interesting sign post that we saw.. see the little guy standing on top of it?  Needless to say, we followed it.....

And came to the actual monument.  It's kind of suggestive... I think that it's a monument to those who were persecuted or something.

We took a lot of photos around the place, but the next most interesting one was our canal cruise by candlelight.  We had three bottles of wine and a whole heap of cheese and crackers (no, we didn't drink anywhere near all of the wine).  Amsterdam is very pretty by night.

The two of us.  Psychedelic... unfortunately in the mode I had it on, you have to hold your hand very still when taking photos.  The hostess didn't, hence the psychedelic effect :)

This is the "Bridge of Eternal Love" or something along those lines... rumor has it that if you kiss as you're going under the bridge, you and your love will be together forever.

If you look closely at the house you will see a hook.  This is where the phrase "The Flying Dutchman" comes from.  Supposedly, women would hang their drunk husbands up the hook to sober up.  A more common use is to lift furniture up to the top floors of the house as they are all very narrow.

The Christmas Shop.  This shop is very famous, and has sooo much Christmas stuff...

... including a big Santa Clauses :)

Paul in front of the Van Gogh Museum.  It has the biggest collection of Van Gogh paintings in the world.

Paul just couldn't wait to go

This is the royal palace at the Grand Place.  It's quite impressive from outside, but inside it's all marble and carvings and painted ceilings etc.

The inside of the palace.  Amsterdam used to be the centre of all the world's trade, so the palace is very ornate to reflect the wealth.

This is a gigantic painting.  Tram's in front of it for some scale... The artist managed to sneak himself in the painting in three different places.. it's like the original where's wally.

Tram at the torture museum.  I think she's enjoying that!

Paul is about to be put into the .. whatever it's called.  It's one of those things with spikes all around the inside and they close it while you're in it so you have to stand perfectly still.

Just look at the picture in the background and you'll get the drift.  Ouch.

Tram at Rembrant's drawing room in his actual house.  Well, it was his house until he went broke.

Last but not least, a multi-level bicycle car-park!