LOVING Amsterdam!!

May 5th I arrived at the Pax Hotel, a back-packer budget hotel, for two nights. I loved this too...old Amsterdam with plenty of steps to make skipping the stairmaster okay! AND Philip was kind enough to hoist my bags up (and down when I checked out) to the 3rd floor (2nd in Europe) with more than 50 steps (+3 US flights, but who was counting!?) You have to know that many Amsterdam  hotels-even higher priced ones-all have these steps!

Note the scooter-the better to get around Amsterdam!

Walls lined with different mirrors looking up from the front door!

Canal near the hotel, but canals are everywhere!

Owner of this flower show-like everyone I have talked with-was SO helpful and polite!!

I usually do not buy a city pass, but I decided to buy the Holland Pass, since I am here for two-plus weeks. It offers some free entrances as well as discounts on most of what Amsterdam ( and other places in Holland) has/have to offer. To date I have taken the "Hop on, Hop Off" bus, and visited the Heineken Brewery.
They also have several free walking tours; the one I took was very informative!

Central Train Station

Palace in Dam Square

"New Church" (Nieuwe Kerk) part goes back to 1400

Yellow building part of their Occupy Movement

We walked through a hallway of the Amsterdam Museum during the tour. This pictures the orphanage matrons where these two young boys are about to enter.

We also walked through the peaceful grounds of Begijnhof, a lay Catholic sisterhood, founded in 1346. The last "non-nun" died in 1971, but people still live there. There is a small chapel (below) and a hidden chapel still there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begijnhof_Chapel,_Amsterdam

"Coffeeshops" like these sell pot, and people go there to smoke.

The Heineken tour was really very hokey! It was clever in places with a wide variety of audio-visual presentations, but for the most part...not worth seeing. The 18 euro entry fee did include three glasses of beer. (One women I spoke with while drinking my beer spotted a couple over in the corner taking the abandoned glasses and drinking the remaining beer....) IF you wanted the free gift from their other store (there was one at the museum), you had to take their canal barge trip. I loved the excuse to take this twenty minute trip to see more of the city.And back!

Some of these copper stills had short videos inside explaining the process.

Fun to see the city from the Heineken boat!

Many of the homes still have these hooks like this, as they were used to hoist things.

Hope you will come back as I continue to explore this interesting city!