iAmsterdam

Landed in the evening and checked into our very nice rooms at the Radisson Blu.

Morning and afternoon of the first day were free, so Reuben and I headed into Amsterdam to see the sights. We saw the Van Gogh museum, which was under renovation last time I was here with the Cats. It was worth the wait. The museum strives to portray Van Gogh (pronounced more like "van hoch" in Dutch) as an artist who honed his craft over many years, experimenting with various styles before achieving the mastery we love today.

Then we took a lovely cruise of the canals, half of which I decided were wonderful, but not more wonderful than a nap!

We sang a concert at the hotel that evening, and chatted with the president of the local Yale club over dinner.

The next morning, we had the entire day free to explore and sightsee. Brandon L., Spencer, Reuben, and I went biking all around Amsterdam, taking the ferry across the bay to the northern part of the city, then returned to bike along the Amstel river (Amsterdam gets its name from the dam built along the Amstel by its first settlers). What a gorgeous bike ride with house boats, luscious fields and estates, and windmills! In all, we biked about 29 miles.

On the ferry!

After biking, we wandered the city and ended up going to Shabbat services at a Portuguese Synagogue, which was fascinating! The services were very different from what any of us expected, so it was great to see how various communities worship. We even got to sneak a peek at the main synagogue itself, apparently one of the biggest in the world!

Berlin next!