Today was our last day here in Amsterdam. The week has gone by as all weeks seem to go: quickly. I think all of us feel like our time here has been well-spent, I know for sure that I do. Before I get too far down the road to a teary goodbye, I will do an about-face and let you know about the fun stuff we did today. Oh, before I do that, I’ll point out that I do not know what our Internet situation is going to be in Spain, starting tomorrow. If you don’t see a posting at the usual time tomorrow it probably means that I don’t have convenient network access. Stay tuned, I’ll post something eventually.

I started off the morning with a trip back to the bike shop to drop off my rental road bike and then walked the 4km back to our temporary abode through Vondelpark and downtown Amsterdam. Not much new to report here; the park was just as nice as it was the other day.

After taking care of some pre-departure logistics for a couple hours around lunchtime, Michelle, Lisa, and I headed off to Mac Bike to rent some Amsterdam city-style bikes for a ride down the Amstel River (a similar ride to the one I did on Wednesday). After the ride: to the Puccini chocolate shop for Michelle to re-supply; some OK food at an Italian-style restaurant; and finally a trip to the Van Gogh Museum.

To start things off, here is a map of our 20km bike ride on the city bikes. Click here to see the GPS data and map on the Garmin website.

Casual bike ride route down part of the Amstel River with Michelle and Lisa.

The following pictures appear in the order they were taken today.

Heading out of town on the goofy bikes along the east bank of the Amstel River. Some nice Amsterdam residences on the left.

Stylish looking boathouse with extra adornment.

Amstel River old-school mansion.

A slightly blurry Michelle and Lisa on the Amsterdam machines.

A somewhat less blurry Michelle aboard the Amsterdam tourist special bike.

Lots of rowers out on the Amstel River tonight.

What do sheep think about?

Amstel River windmill near sunset on October 30.

Hazy sunset as seen from the Amstel River near Amsterdam.

Puccini again. Michelle seems happy to have the opportunity to re-supply.

It probably wouldn't be quite right if I didn't have a picture of one of the many drug paraphernalia shops in Amsterdam.

Tonight was Museumnacht (museum night) at the Van Gogh Museum. Since you can't take photos inside I can't really show you anything interesting. There was a DJ spinning eurobeats and chilled Heineken among other stuff. The original artwork by Van Gogh and his life story were pretty interesting as well.