Rembrandt and R.L.D.

After our tour of the Anne Frank house, we were able to tour the city for the rest of the day. It is quite large so we purchased the daily transportation tickets which allowed us to ride the city's many trolleys, Metro, and buses. The bus we took from Volendam to Amsterdam dropped us off at Central Station. I must say that this was the most confusing public transportation system that we've experienced so far (DC and Rome were by far easier in our opinion).

Here is Central Station.

We also toured the Rembrandt House and Museum.

This house included one of his studios which was cool to see. The inside was quite interesting and contained a lot of dark wood trim and narrow spiral staircases. Rembrandt was also an eclectic collector of MANY things which are on display inside of his house(sculptures, rocks, shells, butterflies, skulls, antlers, and armor to name a few). Of course, there were many early sketches and paintings on display.

Rembrandt is buried inside the tower of this church which is located about a block away from the Anne Frank house.

One of the many canals in Amsterdam.

We did make it over to the Red Light District because we were told that it was "safe" for kids during the day. FYI.....apparently 5PM is too late!! It is a much larger area than expected from the map we were using. We were about halfway down the main street when we saw our first window "model" so to say!

It looked pretty much like this on both sides of the street until we reached the end. Luckily, our daughters really didn't notice (HOW? I don't know)....Colton did and we had a little explaining to do. They were all in something that resembled a bikini so it could have been much worse! Should have headed over earlier in the day.

Love this picture of Sarah riding on the trolley!

We had a crazy trolley driver for one of our rides. Shim as we (husband and I) called her, skidded into 2 different intersections AND had an ongoing argument with a Muslum teenager that boarded. Shim taunted her over the speakers until she finally got off and then continued to yell at her and make sounds at her through the window. It was horrible and we didn't even know what was being said...Dutch is much different than German. We couldn't wait to get off!!!!

...and here we are at Central Station waiting for our bus after a LONG day!