Our further adventures - July 24 through 26
I guess it must be Wednesday now
It's hard to know what day it is when you're away from all the normal clues. But if yesterday was Tuesday then today is almost certainly Wednesday.
I slept better and longer last night than I can ever remember sleeping. I guess all these stairs and all the walking are good for me. I went to bed at 9, and I wasn't awake for more than 10 minutes, and suddenly my alarm was telling me it was after 8 in the morning.
We had planned out first expedition into Rotterdam for today, but it rained all night, and it looked like rain in the morning, and my feet hurt, so we decided to stay closer to home. Then pretty soon the sun came out, and my feet hurt a little less, so we decided to do Dordrecht.
We found the Dordrecht Museum, which is probably wonderful if you like old paintings, but neither of us seemed to be too excited by them.
At least now I know my way around Dordrecht, and it's fun for me because Daddy has his directiions turned around and has to depend on me to tell him where to go. Whe I ask him to point to something he always points in the opposite direction. 
Fortunately he trusts me and follows me, so we manage to get where we are going. It's too bad for him, though. Maybe he'll get himself turned the right way soon.
The only picture I took on this trip was of this cute little car.
Drawbridges - Many many drawbridges.
We hadn't been aware of them before today, but we sure saw a lot of them being used today. The canals that are all through Rotterdam have tall sailboats in them, and low roads across them. Obviously something needs to be done to make that work, and drawbridges are the answer here. We saw big ones and small ones, and one was operated by a couple of little boys, maybe 8 and 10, who got off the sailboat, lowered the gates across the street, cranked the handle to turn the bridge sideways, waited while the boat when through, turned the handle the other way, opened the gates, and got back on the boat.
Once we became aware of the drawbridges we saw them everywhere.
After the museum we found a Subway Sandwich shop, so we had a sandwich and headed home. I guess now I'll just stay home a few hours until Carmen comes home and feeds us the casserole she promised.
Daddy's off to check out the grocery store and see about getting some more Euros. We are having to spend a lot more cash than we expected, since so few places accept our credit cards.
Another Thursday!
Today is a rest day for me. The weather report indicated rain, but it isn't. My ankle hurts and is trying to tell me not to do so much walking and stairclimbing.
Daddy has already gone for his morning walk, and then we had lunch and he went off to the grocery store. I took a long hot bath and washed my hair. We could have done all these things at home.
Later we'll probably watch TV and see if we can find anything to read. Maybe Daddy will go for a bus ride to see where it takes him. Then tomorrow we can go back to being full-time tourists.
We like to follow the stock market, and when we're home we wake up and see how it's doing, then by early afternoon it's over and we can forget it for the day. From here we have to wait until late afternoon for the US markets to open, and unless we stay up late we don't even see the close.
The charming Dutch language: The Dutch word for bicycle is feets. (not sure if that's how they spell it) If it has a motor it's a broomfeets. Make a motor sound, then say feets.
We had a bit of mis-communication, so I won't be able to drive Lucien's car. That's probably a good thing. I found out that I didn't need an international driver's license to drive here, so I didn't get one. Once I was here I found out that I would need one to be included on the insurance on his car. No problem, I thought, I would just get one here. Seems it doesn't work that way. I could go home and get one, but I don't think I should, so I won't.
We had dinner at a nearby restaurant, came home and here I am at the computer checking on my mail again. It's getting close to bedtime, and all my friends in California are just getting started.
I finally figured out how to get to the games on this computer. All the instructions and labels are in Dutch, and I couldn't find the games until now. But now we'll have something to do when we don't have anything else to do.
If it's Friday this must be Amsterdam!
We got up all full of energy and decided to tackle Amsterdam today.
20 minutes walk to the train station, an hour and a half on the train, then a 20 minute walk to our first destination, the Maritime Museum. They have a boat there, really beautiful, called the Amsterdam, a recently made replica of a boat by the same name that sank on its maiden voyage. I didn't ask what made it sink. But I will before I agree to go for a ride on this one.
The museum has a large section dedicated to the slave trade. They admit they participated in it, and they show pictures and diagrams of what the slave ships were like. They do mention that there were some 10 to 12 million slaves transported to the new world, and the Dutch were responsible for around 1/2 million of them.
After a tour of the museum, and the boat, we walked back toward the train station, to a "one hour canal cruise" that we had noticed on the way out. I took a lot of pictures on that hour, some rather good, I think. You can see them all here.
Then back to the station and another 1:30 ride and :20 walk.
I'm tired.
Carmen came home from work around 7, saw that we hadn't eaten, and rushed out to the store to get us a pizza. Then she went out for her driving lesson and I went to Lucien's studio to check my email. When I returned Carmen and Daddy were discussing all sorts of things in Dutch, and I couldn't understand a word they were saying. They seemed to be having a wonderful time, though. Maybe I should have studied the language? Nah.
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