Amsterdam Day 4

This morning the sounds of the garbage man filled the air. Pretty exciting. When we first arrived I asked the owner if we need to separate the garbage, having just come from Germany where you even separate out the composting waste. Nope, it all gets incinerated, and you dump it all in the box down there and it falls into a container under the street.  Then the fun part, they pull it high up above the street by a crane on the truck and dump it in. When I walked by driver/crane operator and he saw I was taking pictures, he winked and smiled like 'Oh yeah...this really IS awesome!'.

We caught a few rides on a hop on hop off canal boat and saw the city from water level and motored by some fine houses...

...and houseboats. 

We visited the Gassan diamond operation and had a little tour and were able to ask a few questions.  We are all familiar with at least a few of the cut styles that diamonds come in. I was not away that you were able to patent these cuts as Gassan did with a 121 facet style. Apparently it took them a number of years to acquire the patent but now it's theirs. Some cutting is still a rather manual process as seen below. There was a nice sales pitch at the end that was handled tastefully and came with free coffee, tea, and bathrooms when we were done. We made the mistake of asking them about blood diamonds and price fixing in the diamond market and they took our free drinks away. 

We had lunch at a strange combination of a grocery store, deli, drug store, fast food joint. The lunch was fine and the girls had found the cheapest Stroopwafels we had come across yet. So we bought 2 packages. Think of these like those wafer cookies that have a little cream in the middle except this is some sort of buttery honey. I have cycling friends that eat Honey Stinger Waffles and I suspect that product has it's roots in the Stroopwafel. 

When we attempted to board what was going to be our last boat of the day that would take us up North by the central train station again where we would begin Fry-Quest. Amsterdam and Belgium are known for their French Fries and we needed to begin the competition as soon as we could. We had visited a few other notable fry locations earlier in the trip only to find them closed. Had hit another holiday?  The boat came and went as it was at max capacity. So we decided to take a walk through a few different areas as we made out way home and not simply abandon the quest. We did manage to find one where two guys were kicking out the fries. 

They had all kinds of sauces, chief among them was mayonnaise. But having seen the Joppie sauce poster in Germany and now seeing it again on the sauce option list, I knew we were fated to be together. Patti was skeptical and did not want to buy it without some information. So we asked and found it is made of curry, onions, and mayonnaise. Splendid!  I tried curry-wurst in Germany which was really nothing more than wurst with catsup and curry in top, but this sounded much better. Everyone agreed it was a fine sauce indeed. 

We ended that night with another dinner at home and a little more Lord of the Rings along with the least squeeky contest. This apartment had the squeakiest, creakiest floors my kids, even Patti and I, had ever been on. The girls had fun trying to see of they could navigate it with out making a sound.

Not even this expert in weight distribution could manage the task. 

The Huth family did not really click with Amsterdam and we had too many nights/days here.  It seems that there are many people who come to Amsterdam with some particular activites in mind.  Those were obviously not on our list of things to do. It is hard to pull these long itineraries together and get it all exactly right. Patti has done a great job planning this all out. 

Images in 2015 Amsterdam Day 4.