Some Random Pictures and Canal Tour

Day three, my last day in Holland, ended with a Canal tour of Amsterdam. It was ok, short but the views were nice. I had already seen most everything by this point though. One of the things they mentioned that I didn't know were the houses used to be taxed on their width so home builders began making homes thin but deep. There's also a hook at the top of each home. When moving in and out those hooks are used to move large items like furniture since they will not fit through the doors.

Anyway here's random pictures:

A long line for the wax musuem, the wax figure of Obama was quite a draw I suppose.

I took a boat like this for my Canal Tour.

Jesus Loves You! At least we Americans didn't get all the religious freaks.

A copy of Jumbo, a Chinese floating restaurant in Hong Kong. I ate at the real thing when I was in Hong Kong.

A chocolate covered waffle that looks way better than it tasted.

This ended my last full day in Amsterdam. Overall Amsterdam was nice, but gets old quickly. It is a very beautiful city, very walkable, and easy to see. Everyone bikes, though I was afraid to because the streets seemed a bit chaotic to me. It wasn't as chaotic as Asia, but it was enough to scare me. I didn't want to get run over you know.

Amsterdamers don't really seem to like tourists. I can't totally blame Amsterdam people for not liking tourists though. They do get the dumbest of the dumb coming to their city to smoke weed, gamble, and whore. I mean, that's not going to attract a great crowd, it's going to attract people that are willing to jump in the dirty filthy canal water instead.

I assume how Amsterdamers view tourists.

Some other random tid bits...
For a long time Holland was quite liberal but now it is starting to shift more conservative. The hard right wingers in Holland all live outside the major cities. They want to preserve their Dutch heritage and basically get rid of Muslims (maybe other groups too, I dunno) though they themselves live in isolated white Dutch only communities. It strikes me as blind nationalism or a desire for racial purity. It's probably a mixture of both and seems quite backwards to me.

The Dutch take global warming seriously. The country is below sea level, dams and dikes keep the water from flooding their country. Should the water level rise too much their country could be no more.

Also a random note, starting Thursday shops will actually be open until 9 PM. It's shopping night, I guess the weekend begins now. The Dutch seem to be a people that don't work that late, at least not in retail stores, I don't know about their corporate culture. Most days as soon as the clock hits 5 they are gone.