My Vacation in the Rain

So much for my hopes of regular postings...

More medical problems for both my parents this summer, more work from every direction - and then I agreed to another cruise with my sister.  This one started and ended in Rotterdam, and stopped along the way in Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Norway.  Since Sue wanted to spend some time before and after the cruise in the Netherlands, and the flight over took (counting the time changes) nearly two days, we were gone almost a month.  We took out trip insurance and said daily prayers that our mother wouldn't break another hip and our father wouldn't suffer a heart attack in our absence.

In many respects it was an amazing trip.  However, the weather was not what we had hoped for.  The websites we consulted while packing assured us that the average high temp in the areas we would be visiting was 70 degrees Fahrenheit during that time of year; while we were there, the highs averaged in the low 50s, with pouring rain and high winds.  To make matters worse, my sister almost immediately came down with a bad cold; neither it nor her temper was improved by the weather.  Then we both managed to injure ourselves the day we left the ship.  Sigh.

Still, it was a memorable vacation, and we had plenty of opportunities to improve our "photography in the rain" skills.  Here are some of the pictures from the two days we spent in Amsterdam at the beginning of the trip.  Most of them are from our visit to the Rijksmuseum; we also toured the Van Gogh museum, which was fascinating but doesn't allow photos, and the gift shop at the Stedelijk Museum of modern art and design, which was otherwise closed for remodeling.

The feature that struck me most about Amsterdam was the number of bicycles.  I don't remember this many from my previous trip here in the late 80s.  I didn't know there were this many bicycles in the entire world.  Many of them had what looked like shower caps over the seats to fend off the rain.  An extraordinary number of the bicyclists we saw had passengers: children in carts attached to the front wheel, in child seats behind the main seat, perched on the handlebars, or some combination of the three; and adults in sidecars or seated astride or sidesaddle over the rear wheel.  Needless to say, we saw a lot of muscular calves in Amsterdam.

Oslo airport - chair has outlets for wifi users.

Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam

Wedding dress exhibit in the Rijksmuseum

Musical instrument exhibit in the Rijksmuseum

Model ship exhibit in the Rijksmuseum

Sitting room in a doll house in the Rijksmuseum

The huge IAMSTERDAM sign in front of the museum is part of an ad campaign for the city; to learn more about Amsterdam, check out the website: http://www.iamsterdam.com/