Jewish Quarter and crowds

Last night Rachel and her friend Jennifer and I went to a party on Princesgraacht that was hosted by one of their colleagues. Jennifer taught in Tokyo for three years, then in Norway for four years and now she is in Amsterdam. We took the tram to her place. She owns this great place on the top floor of one of those Amsterdam houses. She lent me one of her extra bicyles and we bikes to the party together. It was crazy trying to navigate through amazing crowds on one of those clunky dutch bikes. Anyway, eventually we had to stop and lock up the bikes because there were too many people to get by. Last night there was this live musical performance on the canal and the canals was choked with boats and the streets were full of crowds watching the free show. We stayed at the party overlooking the music until 2am. Rachel and I then had to bike home and it was not until 3am that I got to sleep. But the experience of biking so late at night was really memorable. It's just what you have to do.

Luckily, I got up in time to meet Dana at the train station. We walked along the IJ for a while looking at some of the tall ships because this weekend is the tall ship festival (Sail 05) in Amsterdam. There were some great pirate ships and navy ships to look at. We then meandered our way down to the Jewish Quarter and had really good felafel at this kosher restaurant. We then went near but not into the Portuguese Synagogue. In retrospect I'm sorry that I didn't pay for us to go in because Dana read something that said that this is one of the most interesting and historical synagogues in the world. It is surrounded by a low brick wall and you would never know it was there. We even stood dubiously by the door until somebody saw us and buzzed us inside.

The rest of the day was spent wandering around and battling crowds in the downtown. We walked through the red light district again and I almost bought a parasol for 2.5 euro in a Chinese import store. I don't think it would travel well. I left Dana at the train station and returned to Rachel's.