Day 4 – Amsterdam Last Day - Sunday May 27th

Chris and I woke up around 8:45 and ate another traditional breakfast. Mr. Turkett, Chris, and I soon headed out to see the Rembrandt House, and after taking the 14 tram down to Waterloo Plein, we made it there a little before 10am.

The House was mostly just recreations of the original made from references to sketches made by Rembrandt himself. The house was originally from the 1600’s, and the exterior was still the original. I found out that although many of the exteriors appear to be very old, most of the interiors have been completely reconstructed. The house also contained a large collection of paintings that Rembrandt owned and would have sold, but it did not carry any of his own paintings. The entirety of the Rembrandt collection at the house were etchings and sketches, and preliminary drawings for his more famous works.

After the house, Chris went on his way while Mr. Turkett and I met up with Dr. Evans to attend the final International Dance Theater performance of the season. The show was incredible. The dancers were all very talented, and they preformed dances from the Netherlands, Russia, Cuba, and the United States among others. In between each dance were performances by the live band they had playing the music for the dances. Towards the end of the show, a male dancer spun down to one knee, everyone stopped dancing, and he proposed to his girlfriend. The whole audience took pictures and everyone was cheering them on. They soon left the stage. The women in the show were very beautiful, noticeably so, and it seemed to be the common trend of the Netherlands.

After the show, Dr. Evans, Mr. Turkett, and I went to a flea market and to a delphware store. We soon headed back to the hotel, but we decided to walk which took longer. We happened upon the red-light district on the way back, but it wasn’t anything special. The women just stood in their lingerie staring at the crowds through their windows. We really just strolled on by. It wasn’t anything to stick around in, and we moved quickly through it.

Once back at the hotel, I met up with Chris and we decided that we wanted to see a windmill. Everyone was still out touring the city, so we rented some bikes from a nearby store, got directions, and headed out to Ouderkerk, a small town that was parallel to the Amstel River. It took us about an hour to get there, but we finally found a windmill. After a quick photo op, we headed on back to the hotel. On the way back, we stopped to take in the scenery. We found goats to take pictures of, and we found some beautiful countryside views. Biking in Amsterdam was fun, but many of the cars would follow too closely or cut narrowly past us. It was difficult to navigate some of the streets as well, but we stayed relatively on track the whole time.

We made it back around 6:30, and we met up with a large group of people (Brent, Sam, Drew, Nick, Rob, and four girls) to go out to dinner. We went to a place near the hotel that also served Italian; it was purely by coincidence that we ate Italian two nights in a row. Both restaurants still had a Dutch flavor to them, so I didn't feel bad. I got the spaghetti carbanara.

We headed out to Leidse Plein where most of the younger crowd hangs out at night. We sat down at a table outside, and some people got drinks. We stayed for a bit, but then headed back. The group wanted to see the red-light district at night, so I saw twice in one day. The crowd was livelier at night and more crowded, but the situation was still the same. The main differences were the actual red lights and the huge amount of people. We moved quickly through it, and some of us ended the night early and headed back to the hotel. Tomorrow is Paris.