wine, fries, and bikes..

hello from robin! i forgot to sign my name on my last post which was very quick in an internet cafe. but where do you start talking about a family vacation - the first in seven years - especially the first intercontinental?
i am sure everyone has already talked about our madcap misadventures - i always realize that you discover so many aspects about a person when you travel with someone. family always adds a fun dynamic.
keith and i ventured to amsterdam for a few days...which was an adventure in and of itself. we paddled through the canals, vistited the rijksmuseum, ate dutch food,- which i had made him suffer through before when i make dutch pancakes, stroopwaffels, and poffejetes (sp?) at home - now he has the real stuff to compare to- and inevitably had to have milkshakes and fries to remind ourselves that we are true americans.
what i love most about amsterdam is the great architecture - narrow houses made so because the city taxed on buildings width - so everyone built narrow and deep - and the leaning because of the soft land and storing everything in the attics in earlier days. and of course all the bikes and canals of the 'motherland'. even though it was my third trip to holland and amsterdam, i still am amazed by it all.
its funny how much i try to think i know in dutch - i went into this great wine store in amsterdam and thought i had got this cheap (or realitively cheap) bottle of wine- i really didn't know as i was mezmorized by this great little place - and brought it to pay, and it was three times as much as i thought it would be. i had started talking to the guy in dutch, and was not about to admit i couldnt speak very much dutch, so i kept talking to him in dutch and tried to explain it was supposed to be less, so then i showed him, and he took several euros off the price, but not the price i thought. .. so i just paid for the expensive bottle of wine, all because i didnt want to talk in english (though of course i am sure he could have spoken english a lot better than my dutch!). so i walk out on the street with this fancy bottle of wine wrapped in a fancy box and realize i didnt even get the wine i had thought i had purchased! so now i have a bottle of wine i have no idea what it is....but success! - I never spoke in english in that wine store, not once.