Amsterdam

Over the May bank holiday weekend, I visited Amsterdam with another expat friend.  We had a great time! Here are a few of the things we saw.

Bicycles and tulips...

Cheese...

 

 

Heineken...

Rembrandt at the Rijksmuseum...

 

The Anne Frank house...

We happened to visit the Netherlands during a festive time - just last week the current Queen Beatrix passed over her throne to her son, the new King Willem and his wife, Queen Maxima.  Beatrix retired and abdicated to the younger generation.  So there was a lot of festivity surrounding the event last week.  This is a flower petal arrangement we saw at Keukenhof.

 

Saturday was Remembrance Day (aka Memorial Day) in the Netherlands.  There was a ceremony at Dam Square in the evening that we attended.  It was very solemn, but we did get to see the new King and Queen pass by!  Unfortunately, none of my pictures caught them, but this is the Square we were in.

 These are some of the wreath memorials that were placed in the Square.

Finally, Sunday commemorated Liberation Day from the Germans after World War 2.  There were concerts throughout the day and we attended the largest in the evening.  It was set on one of the canals, with the stage on one side, barges for the important people in the canal and the rest of us on the roads and bridges all around.  Sorry these pictures are a little blurry. 

Love the canals here!!