Amsterdam is Fun!

Hi Guys!

This will be my last message.....I'm coming home and hope to see you on Tuesday!

I just wanted to tell you a couple of things that are unique about Amsterdam. The first thing I noticed when I got here was all of the bicycles. Almost EVERYONE rides one here and every road has a big bike lane...on both sides of the road. They park bikes all over the place.

The other thing I noticed is all of the canals. Amsterdam is a city built on very low ground and they need the canals to keep the water out of the buildings. The canals are used as streets and many people use boats to get around and to have fun. I saw people having picnic lunches on their boats or just going out for a ride. Some of them even bring their dogs.

Amsterdam is the capital city of Holland and there are a lot of windmills in Holland. Windmills have been built here for over 1000 years and were originally used to help drain water from the fields. Another thing that I noticed is that the blades of the windmill are made from canvas, a type of cloth. I thought they were made from wood.

The last thing is the wooden shoes. Many people think that the people in Holland wear wooden shoes, but that's not true anymore. The shoes were worn by the farmers working in the muddy fields because they seemed to last better than leather ones. Now wooden shoes are used more for decoration and display.

It's really a fun city and I hope you both will get to visit it sometime.

Love.....Grandma