Amsterdam Day 2

Today we ventured out to Edam, Volendam and Marken in Hollands Waterton area. We had a look at some towns caught in time.  They were for the most part quiet and that allowed us to wander around apart from the busy tourist pockets. The day had a little rain in it which made for some dark photos. On that note, the weather here changes quickly and rather dramatically.  I thought Colorado changed quickly, but here you can go from hot to cold in minutes. The sun did come out after a while and gave us some better lighting. 

We stopped at Edam first. They had all sorts of manually operated bridges over the canals and counterweighted so you would not need anything more than human power to operate. There were car sized bridges. 

And people sized bridges. 

When you park your boat out back I suppose you need all these bridges. 

We next visited the port village of Volendam. It was a little busier and colder in this port. I made the poor decision of dressing comfortably for Amsterdam and not for being on the water. 

We sampled some chocolate and cheese from Holland. The Germans and Swiss have our chocolate vote but the Dutch get our cheese vote. I think I have mentioned this, we are eating cheese as a dietary staple now. 

From Volendam we took a ferry to Marken. The folks running the ferry had a pretty good sense of humor.  This was evidenced by their playing of a remake if the Love Boat theme song. Who knew that someone would remake that song. 

This cat ducked in behind us and crossed our wake. 

Marken was much sleepier than Volendam.

Except for the carnivorous duck that wanted some of Rileys fish and chips.

We found some traditional shoes that might fit the girls Grandpa Bapa. 

We had what I thought was an interesting, potentially troubling, interaction while waiting for the bus at Marken to head back to Amsterdam Central rail station. A guy came up and gave something to Riley. It was a bookmark that Riley was playing with at a shop when we first arrived in this town.  He acted surprised to see her again and said that he had bought this for her because he saw that she liked it.

He was complementing Riley on how beatiful she was and Tara as well and he started to talk about where he was staying and asking about which country we were from and hotel we were staying in. Patti began to give him more information about how we were not in a hotel but in an apartment. That was more detail than I was comfortable with, so I nudged her, which was not a clue to her at all. Then he asked us how the girls enjoyed the Red Light District. We told him they hadn't and wouldn't. He was pretty confident they would like it a lot. His insistence seemed more than a little strange to me.  I was done talking to him at this point so I thanked him in a way that he knew it was time to move on. He left us and went to stand and talk with three other younger guys. With whom he boarded the bus. 

About halfway through the bus trip one of the younger guys he was sitting with went to another seat while the rest of them stayed together. At the second to last stop dropping near the East end of the station, the old guy, who had given Riley the bookmark, got off without the younger guys he was sitting with. That seemed odd to me. 

When we got off the bus the three younger guys went to the North away from the station, I thought that was a good sign. We went South through the station. About a hundred yards along I looked back and caught them all looking at me as they had turned around and were now heading in our direction. Could be coincidence. I directed the girls up the stairs out of sight from them at the next rail platform where we waited for some minutes to give the impression that we were not staying in Amsterdam but boarding a train. I said a prayer then we dropped down into a different part of the station and exited. 

We headed in the direction of the bus stand while I continued to look behind.  I was not seeing them. If I did I was going to shuffle us on a bus and forego our walk home. If they got on the bus then I would know something was up or at least too highly coincidental for my comfort level. This could have been nothing, but on the other hand a little precaution goes a long way. We are thankful to God that this was only a good story and not something more. 

Images in Amsterdam Day 2.