This was quite the day! It unfortunately started on a low note. "Old ******", the bike Paul first got when he got here, was not where we had left him on Wednesday evening. We cannot figure out why anyone would have gone to the trouble of removing him from the fence he was locked to, but alas he is gone. So, Deb had to do the tram to get the girls to school and was a bit frazzled when she got home. But, then we headed down to the corner and their local bakery. YUM!!!!! I had a cheese sandwich on a roll with pumpkin seeds and fresh squeezed orange juice. Now, this sandwich was my mom's obsession while she was here (well, one of them), and it turns out she wasn't exaggerating. It was delicious. So, with that delicious breakfast in our tummies, we headed to rent Deb a bike. Fortunately residents can rent a bike for 3 euro a day with their tram card. America needs some decent public transport, people! Once we were both on wheels, we headed to the flower market on one of the canals. Super cool, and I found a couple of places where they sell bulbs that are legal to take to the US for only a euro more than the bags that aren't legal, so we will definitely head back there before I come home. From there we continued on to the center of town. Did some wandering and shopping on one of the pedestrian streets. Saw a little dog taking a walk and carrying its own poop bags in its mouth. Awesome! He did drop them once, so I held them up for him and he trotted over and took them back. Hilarious. This led us to Dam square, very close to Central station and the red light district. This is the really old part of town, and has one of the old royal palaces. Apparently the royal family does stay there from time to time when they are in town. After a bit of an adventure through a couple of streets of the red loght, we found ourselves a lunch of frites, explored the beer store, and headed home to drop off our stuff. Then, we were off to the grocery store and to pick up Maya. Since old ****** is gone, my bike is now the one with the kid's seat on the back, and fortunately, this is much easier than I expected. So, we were going along on the way to Elle's school, and I swerved a bit to avoid a group of girls crossing the bike path. I made a noise due to feeling wobbly, something along the lines of "uy!", and the group of girls looked up and all replied in the same way. I apparently inadvertently greeted them in Dutch. Even Deb thought I had done it on purpose. Nope! But that was funny to see their very confused looks. Since Deb had taken the kids to school by tram, Elle did not have her bike, so she got to sit side saddle on the back of Deb's bike on the way home. We made quite the crew. So, at about 7 pm, Vita, the Dixons' lovely babysitter, showed up for duty, and Deb and I headed off to the House of Bols to get the tour and tasting. Except they close at 5:30 Monday-Thursday. Oops. So, no Bols for us. So, we headed back towards the center of town and got BIG beers, and Paul met us there shortly after we arrived. Cool old place, from the 1600s, that used to be a distillery. And the beer was good. :). Then we headed over to their favorite Thai place for dinner. Really good food. And we could hear the fans watching the Eurocup game between Germany and Italy down the street in Rembrandt square. They seemed to approve of Italy winning! Deb and I were hoping for Germany only because we are going to be in Germany on the day of the finals and that would have been awesome! But oh well. :) Then we went to one of Paul's favorite places to sit and have a beer. It is near a canal and an intersection that is messed up by design to say the least. Bike lanes, sidewalk, one way car lane, tram lines, and taxis and scooters that seem to be able to go wherever they want. Good people watching. And finally, we headed to the good old Red Light District. The nighttime version. Yowza! You know, you hear about it, but until you actually see it, you just can't imagine. The best part being 99% of the people on those streets are just gawkers like us. So, we finally parked ourselves on a bridge and watched a couple of girls off to one side. There were a few almost takers, and then 2 guys stood there for probably 10 minutes deep in discussion. And then all of a sudden, wham, we had 2 takers. There was another group of guys from Switzerland standing on the same bridge doing the same watching we were, so we all gave them a hearty round of applause. But really, ugh - so weird! So, it was a pretty late night, and today we need to make sure the house is ready for Paul and the girls for our weekend away. Tonight, Deb and I get on the overnight train to Munich! So, today looks like laundry, grocery shopping, packing, and maybe some lunch. :)