Day 1 - Part 2

After lunch, we continued to enter museum Amsterdam History Museum courtyard. Tante Peggy showed us the Amsterdam's Coat of Arms

Indi took over and lead the walk around the neighbourhood he was not familiar with, and he did not even have a map! Tante Peggy was so afraid that we would be lost. We walked further, and saw Indonesian fast food restaurant "Kantjil and de Tijger"

We went to music store, and everything was expensive. Tante Peggy bought strings for Zicarlo's guitar. Then we passed by a book flea market “De Boeken Markt op het Spui” which take place every Friday. We saw a lot of old book about Indonesia. We also met an Old Dutch guy who was born in Indonesia, but had to leave in the 50s. Again, he was caught up listening to our Indonesian conversation. From the market I got GANEFO book entitled 'Tanah Air Kita' issued in 1963 which Tante Peggy managed to bargain down to 15 from 25 euros.

We then took a boat called 'Koningin Beatrix' from Rokin for a ride along the canal to see nice old and new architecture.

This is the ticket for the boat.

This is us in the boat, which is quite hot.

The guide explained that the old buildings have to get stuff inside thru the big window, and this explains the hook and crane located at the top of each building.

We were also impressed in the simplicity of Dutch architecture, with the nice human scale. We noticed that many of the old buildings (built around 17th century) are slightly tilted; this must be because of soft soil. We also saw a lot of boathouses by the Canal. If we were to live in Amsterdam, we would want to live in one of those.

There is a lot of old bridges like the one found in Jakarta Old Town.

There is a building called 'Nemo' shaped like a ship designed by the famous Renzo Piano.