Amsterdam

A canal at night
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The city is a gem. It is a canal town just as Venice is, but they do allow cars, bikes, and bladers. Everyone rides bikes in the Netherlands, so we decided to do as the Dutch do and rent bikes. We had such a great time riding around the city and we even were able to venture outside the city a bit.

We went to the VanGough Museum and lucky for us they had a special temporary exhibit about Barcelona. The exhibit was called Barcelona in 1900. It had pictures of what the city looked like and it also had a few pieces of Gaudi's furniture displayed.

Belle...this is a statue behind the red light district and is symbolic of the plight of the prostitute
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We also took a great free walking tour of the city that our hostel offered. We saw Dam Square, the smallest house in the Netherlands, the Anne Frank house, and many other sites. Free walking tours are fantastic. The tour guides work off tips and they are very knowledagable and obviously enjoy what they do. The last day we were there, we were awoken to the sounds of cheering. OUr hostel room overlooked Vondelpark (Amsterdam's largest park), and when we looked out we saw that a marathon was going through the park. There were a few people dressed up in costumes and it looked like they were having a lot of fun (or at least as much fun as you can knowing that you still have like 12 miles to go). It had a real Bay to Breakers vibe about it and it was a great event to stumble upon.