After the canal trip, we wandered the city some more. We went by a few sites, such as the Anne Frank house where she stayed. The prices were high and the line was extraordinarily long, so we decided that an outside view of the house was sufficient. Next we headed back to the train station to goto the nearby town of Zaandijk. No, I don't know how to properly pronounce that.
Zaandijk is an area that feels like it was built up or preserved at least just for tourists. It was still really cool to see though. It is a village with a lot of windmills and some little exhibits. There are several tourist shops around. The interesting ones were a cheese shop where they have people making cheese that you can watch. They had about 20 different types of cheese for sale, so I enjoyed having the samplers. Every one of them was good. They also had a wooden shoe making place. I tried some on and they aren't too bad.
We went back to Amsterdam, walked around, and then ate dinner. We watched the Eurocup game (Holland vs. Russia). The streets were decorated for the game and tons of fans were around all day. It was loud of packed for the game. Unfortunately Holland lost.
The red light district has these lights all around it so that's probably where it gets the name...
Okay, not really. It comes from the red lights that are lighting up the windows that the prostitutes are standing in. There "coffeeshops" (shops where you can buy small amounts of marijuna), sex shops, and bars everywhere. It was quite unreal.
Overall I'd say it was an interesting experience. It was a bit too extreme for me. Definitely worth a visit so you know what people are talking about.
All images here: http://picasaweb.google.com/wcleveland/Amsterdam
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