Boat tour of Amsterdam is something everyone can miss unless you bring enough alcohol and friends to make it interesting

We leave the Frank house and John is going to be a gentleman and

 push the stroller which means I have the map and I’m just going along thinking that the canal cruise is on the canal that we are currently on, so we go a couple of blocks past and have to come back at it, which doesn’t make anyone happy in the group, especially the professors.  We all get on the cruise and get to sit still and watch Amsterdam go by for a 75 minute cruise which means that it’s a good thing that there is a bathroom on the boat.  

John said that this was no “Paris cruise” and he’s right.  Amsterdam is spread out over so many canals, that the cruise doesn’t really do it justice.  It’s a good thing to do I guess, when you’ve never been

 here, but something we will never have to repeat I think.  We got some good pictures of landmarks and were going to have a student stay with Oscar so that we could go out to eat again, but then the weather turned to rain, it was already 7:30pm and the students that wanted to all needed rest too for various reasons, so we got Indian take out that John was in ecstasy over.  It was like we had gotten a babysitter and gone to the Red Light District right there in the hotel room.  He had a great beer, spicy Indian food and was in pure

heaven.  We’re simple souls who don’t need the more risqué parts of this town that attracts so many “interesting” people.  I like Amsterdam, but not as much as other cities and it’s because it feels disjointed.  Besides the Red Light District, everything feels like is spills out all over the place.  In NYC and Paris it feels like people stay in their neighborhoods and you know where you’re going.  Here, they’re all over the place, it hurts the brain to try to take in all the diversity because we crave conformity as human beings.  At least, I think we do.  I’ll have to do some research on that, but it feels right to this social worker.