Thanksgiving in Amsterdam!!

As most of you know, Joey does educational tours with a company called Explorica. He goes to Europe a lot...once he went 4 times in one year. So there was a convention coming up in Amsterdam and he didn't really want to go. Well, I did want to go...badly. So my sister, being the kind and gracious person that she is...offered to take one for the team and go with me! I know...she's amazing to make that sacrifice! So the week of Thanksgiving we headed off to freezing cold Holland! One of the first things we did is go to the Rijksmuseum and see some of the famous paintings by Rembrandt! So awesome!!!
We took a million pictures by canals because they are everywhere!!! And so pretty! And it was cold!
We missed the annual cheeseball picture that we take on Thanksgiving day but we passed this cheese shop and decided to improvise and take our own cheeseball picture!
One day, we went out of the city to the countryside and saw all sorts of beautiful scenery...windmills and animals and lots and lots of ditches and canals full of water!!!
We went to a little fishing village called Volendam. It was so fun to wander around and mingle with the locals. It's not tourist season so we got a flavor of what life is really like there. And did I mention that it was cold?!
Our tour guide, Nadia, took pity on the two Arizona girls one night. She could tell we were cold so she showed us how to fix our jackets and scarfs for maximum warmth. It was so cozy once we were bundled up right... but we could never recreate it. I guess it takes practice.

Okay, the picture below might need some explaining. We noticed these big gray things all over the place. We weren't positive what they were until we saw a man using one!! Urinals right on the street!! What? We saw some crazy things in Amsterdam!

It was so strange to be in a place where marajuana is sold on the street and in coffeeshops like it's no big deal. People walk down the street smoking joints and there are stores that sell only pot and it's paraphenalia. Weird!!