Cindy and Tiki have a fun day out!  I love animals and nature, so it was nice that everywhere I went in Amsterdam there seemed to be cats.  You see them sitting in a shop doorway, slinking through a restaurant, jumping over a wall...pouncing on you when you enter your hotel room!  Oh, that was Tiki!  Amsterdam has a nice, casual feel about it, it's nice that they can just let a cat wander through a restaurant or hang out in a shop amusing itself.

Joey wins the War!  Joey is a major World War II buff, he has read every book and seen every movie and has all the action figures and models and...you get the idea!  So in Europe, he absolutely must visit famous war locations and run up the same hill as the war heroes did and see the famous bridges and go to the famous places.  Dam Square was actually the scene of a terrible machine gun massacre just days after the war ended, when a Nazi shot at the crowd celebrating there, and back during the war when Holland was occupied, Nazis actually took over our hotel and ate breakfast in the same room where we had our breakfast every day!  Joey was fascinated with all the war history all around us there, but I found it all a little spooky because the maids say the hotel really is haunted from that time!

Cindy and Joey meet the Zombie Movie Consultant!  One of the funniest things that happened to us in Amsterdam happened on our last day on our way to the Van Gogh Museum.  We got on the tram that takes you there that morning but had no idea who to pay, or how, and this nice American who said he was a Zombie Movie Consultant, explained to us we'd got on the tram for people who had bought tickets before!  Maybe because we'd already done something so brazen, he thought we were up for anything, so he asked us, "Do you want to go smoke some weed?"  We pretended we're used to getting asked that and declined by saying we were going to a museum, but of course when we got off the tram, we laughed hysterically!  It isn't every day you get asked to smoke some weed by a Zombie Movie consultant.

Cindy loves Vincent!  I have this lifelong dear friend, his name is Vincent Van Gogh, and there is no way to explain how much I love him and how close I feel to him.  Maybe it's an artist thing.  His whole life story is so moving and his paintings are so amazing.  So going to the Van Gogh Museum was really overwhelming.  It was interesting seeing all his most famous, beautiful paintings, but the one I enjoyed seeing the most is his ugliest, weirdest painting, which has always fascinated me--The Potato Eaters!  It's truly hideous, ugly people sitting around eating potatoes, done before he discovered his unique style in dark, muddy colors, it's gloomy and dark and utterly unattractive.  I couldn't believe I was standing there right in front of it, I really had to pinch myself!  Worst of all because of it, I can barely remember everything else I saw!  Here is Cindy looking at a Van Gogh starry night--now you know where he got the idea for the swirls!