Amsterdam

Our Amsterdam trip began when Trevor was invited to speak at the International Blender Conference (and no not the appliance, but the computer software).  We got a dog sitter (our good friend Lorna) and booked some flight tickets and then we were off.  It's only a short hour or so flight and then we had to take these rickety horrifying trains to as close to our destination as we could.  Which still happened to be a 30 minute walk from our hotel and the conference center. 

When we arrived we saw massive quantities of bikes- bikes, bikes, everywhere- the entire structure ahead is full of them...and of course beautiful picturesque city canals.  It is a very fun and bustling town.

 

After a bit of a walk with our luggage around the happening city we arrived at the American Hotel.  And yes, it was a comfort of home as to the reason I chose this specific hotel, and yes they did exceed our expectations and had a gym we were able to use every night.  Additional very kind staff that helped us with anything we needed (including plug-in adapters---oopsie).  

 

Trevor swooning over some of his Blender heroes! 

 

A poster for a great short film made in Blender.

 

 

Trevor and I at the Blender Dinner after the conference completed...we made lots of friends and had a great time.

The talk Trevor gave at the Blender conference.

Oh...and, yes, I did talk Trevor into taking a horse and carriage ride!

And we saw a hotel named after Nova (our dog) and it made us sad because we missed him!

 

And...wifey also demanded to take a late night cruise on the canals.  And it was raining, but it only made it more beautiful.   The canals are absolutely exquisite and the tour told us a little about the history of the area.

 

 Behind me was our really hilarious server.  He made our night so fun...and by the way we love the Dutch.  Why?  As they put it, they are cheap.  One of them told a joke about two Dutch men fighting over a penny is how they made copper wire.  Amsterdam is very americanized...so it has a lot of the luxuries of America with a lot of very enjoyable Dutch twists like health-care,  legal euthanasia, and of course the popular ones "some what" open beliefs on marijuana and prostitution (which are fascinating).  Also, they are truly fabulous with their language skills...they can switch from Dutch to English with such ease they almost make it seem as if it's one language all together.  It's actually really impressive and made me wish I had more foreign language skill.

 

This was a floating Chinese restaurant...it was built for a much higher seating capacity, however they have never reached it, because it will begin to sink if they do.

Anyway, these were the highlights of our trip and I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.  We will see you after our next adventure!