La Fin de la Ligne

(The end of the line)

Sorry I am a little late with this we made it back home.  And have been pretty busy with all of the rentering the country, my cheese set off security alarms at the x rays both at Amsterdam and Boston, and the time zones, which has landed me with a bit of sinus/ cold. But I did wanted to finish up the trip for you so I present:

THE END OF AMSTERDAM

More time on a boat!

Because we had not had enough time on a boat between staying on one and the tour yesterday we decided to take another tour of the canals via a paddle boat.

The view from the bow.

You can really see the wind rushing through my hair.. that might be the sunglasses.

I would like to tell you I did an excellent job steering, I did not.  Though Daniel did let me occasional steer and then would take it back from me as we started to crash into a wall, a house boat, a moving boat.  There was one very memorial moment when a pair of guys sitting on the ledge had to pull their legs up as we knocked into the wall below them as a tour boat was honking a aggravated horn at us. Luckily the guys found it funny I don't think the tour boat caption did.

It really was a great way to see the city.

Afterwards we got a drink at Cafe Brecht, a really fun coffee shop that felt like a cozy coffee from home.  I am a huge fan of Parisian cafés but sometimes you just want a quirky cosy coffe shop.  Though neither of us had a coffee, Daniel had a beer and I had rhubarb juice drink, a fun choice.

We decided to enjoy the night on our house boat with some take out indian (not the same as being home) and the BBC's coverage of the Olympics.  So we were in The Netherlands, watching British coverage pulling for American, I mean I have done weirder things.  Though I did cheer when a Dutch woman won gold in the pool

Cheese!

The dutch are known for their cheese at least that is what the dutch tell me.  To fully appreciate this quality cheese we enrolled in a cheese tasting class.  We got to taste six different cheese and learned about the fine art of cheese aging and the proper way to evaluate cheese.  Apparently tasting the cheese is the last of the steps of evaluating cheese, Daniel and I just ate twice as much cheese.

Our instructor signing our cheese tasting certificates.

If you can tell there is a cheese guillotine in front of me, this seems to be the proper way to slice cheese.  This would also be where I obtained the problematic cheese, each security team let me keep it, it just apparently looked like a bomb in my bag.

I'm so proud.

It kept promising to rain, but we got lucky and it only rained at night, except our last night when we were sitting out side enjoying a nice Dutch French dinner as the storm clouds rolled in.  So I didn't get that last half of my baked potato as the rain drops started to hit, but it make not choosing dessert  easy and who doesn't love a run through the rain after a big meal?  

So we ended our fabulous European/Parisian summer.

America!

I took three plans home, Daniel took four.  We have already been to see my parents and now are visiting Daniel's parents before heading up to Connecticut.  Thank you so much for following our adventure, we really did have a wonderful time and I hope you enjoyed hearing about it.  I will probably be posting a bit more there are few stories I never got a round to telling, though every day was a story.