Cindy and Joey and Tiki at the Police Station!  Oh no, say it isn't so!  Joey lost his Blackberry in a taxi cab on the way to have dinner with our friends Uri, Hanna, and Shipi!  Joey had a big adventure chasing it all over town all the way to the airport, but when he finally caught up with the driver, he said he didn't have it!  Later that evening we ended up at the police station making a report, and the police officer at the counter read us what she had written: "It is a pity he did not think to get the driver's name!"  We look sad in the picture, but really we laughed and laughed at that, even the police lady laughed at what she wrote! They have police horses in Amsterdam that trotted up and down the street just outside our window for Tiki to watch.  Once we were walking by a horse trailer near the police station, and a police horse opened the side door and peeked out at us very mischievously and then pulled the door shut again!  I am pretty sure he winked, too.  I think the Blackberry got turned in to the lost-and-found but one of the police horses, maybe this one, decided to keep it so he could text message his horsey friends on theirs!

Cindy loves Albert Heijn!  Albert Heijn is the popular grocery store just behind the Royal Palace and Dam Square, where you can get absolutely everything that matters--Oreos, Coke, Ketchup flavored Lay's Potato Chips, pickles, instant cappuccino, ready made salads, and things to make sandwiches in the hotel room!  When I am in Europe for a long time, I miss some American food I can't easily have.  In Cologne, I was desperate for a bowl of hot chili and a tuna salad sandwich!  In Amsterdam, I wanted anything American I could find--Albert Heijn sold a lot of Oreos while I was there!

Cindy loves Apple Flaps!  When I'm in Europe I may often crave American foods I can't have, but I also fall desperately in love with lots of European delicacies I'll tragically never be able to have or duplicate once I get back home!  In Amsterdam, the delicious treats I loved the most were the Apple Flaps at the Warme Bakker, just near Albert Heijn grocery store.  When I would walk in the door, the lady behind the counter would remember me and laugh and say, "I know just what you want--Apple Flaps!"  They were beyond delicious, big triangles of flaky pastry filled with apple.  They weren't quite as big as in this picture, but the taste was this big!

Cindy and Tiki cook in the hotel room!  Fending off starvation when you are walking out in the freezing cold a lot is a full-time occupation.  Hotel menus are nice but sometimes I just want something simple and fun and familiar without all the silver trays and maitre d!  So I make a lot of cucumber and swiss cheese sandwiches, peanut butter sandwiches, frosted flakes cereal, cup-of-soup, that sort of thing, to fill in the gaps!  In Cologne I figured out how to warm up a cold McDonald's hamburger using a coffee pot!  I was kicking myself recently when I saw the movie "Benny and Joon" for the first time and saw Johnny Depp making grilled cheese sandwiches using an iron--oh, drat, why didn't I think of that?!

Cindy and Tiki do the laundry!  Staying in a hotel for a whole winter, you tend to wear a lot of clothes and it's nice to be self sufficient, especially if you don't want your pants to come back from the hotel laundry looking like shorts.  So I spend a lot of time making bubbles in sinks and then jumping up and down on wet clothes in towels to get them dry and hanging them all over the place.  Tiki helps, she does her own ironing for her different colored kitty suits.  You can see her wear lots of her different ones throughout this gallery!