Moving on...to Amsterdam!

After visiting Germany, we traveled up to the Netherlands, also known as Holland. We spent a day in the capital city of Amsterdam and got to see where Anne Frank lived when her family was in hiding. That was very neat to see.

Amsterdam is an interesting city. Now if it isn't confusing enough that the country has two names, people who are from Holland (or the Netherlands) are called Dutch. The Dutch, in olden days, were great sailors and masters of the sea. 

Amsterdam is a city of canals. Because it used to be a very important shipping port, there are canals all throughout the city. They are all connected by tunnels and bridges.  We were lucky enough to get to take a boat tour of Amsterdam.

Every single house has one of these funny hooks at the very top. You see, the doorways and staircases are very, very narrow.  Whenever anyone moves into a different house, they use these hooks, called "furniture hooks" to move the furniture out through the windows! I'm sure you've seen cartoons or movies where they lift a piano this way and it falls to the ground...I don't want to know how many smashed pianos there have been in Amsterdam.

Because this is a city of canals, a lot of people have houseboats. There are apparently two kinds:  legal and illegal. You know a houseboat is legal if it has running water and electricity, which can only be obtained by registering your houseboat with the city. If you don't do that, you don't get plumbing or electricity, and therefore, it is illegal for you to be living on the canal.

The other type of transportation you see a lot in Amsterdam is bicycles. There were literally bicycles everywhere. At the train station, there was a separate parking garage...for bicycles.

Fun fact:  the Dutch were the first to settle in what is now the state of New York. Before the English took over, New York City was called New Amsterdam, and New York the colony was called New Holland. Neat, huh?