Jaimee decided that it would be a great idea to rent a small boat and cruise the canals in Amsterdam. I will fully admit that I had my doubts about handling a boat with all the other boats, walls, children in the boat, and even bigger boats.
Jaimee picked up the boat, with her friend Ashley and the kids, and met me and George at the Rijksmuseum, since we came in a little later from work. The first thing we saw when they came around the bend was four very brightly orange colore life vests and a boat that could not go straight. Instead it was rotating from side to side like a drunkard or a 10 year old was driving. Possibly because a 10 year old may have been driving.
They picked us up at a dock along the side of the canal and we were on our way. I can absolutely say that the view from a boat in the canals is so much different than the view from walking on the street. Like this view. There are baby birds in one of the tires along the side of that boat. I don't think I would have ever seen that from the sidewalks.
I remember so many times walking around, seeing the boats cruising down the canals and thinking of how much fun it would be to be in the boat. And it is so much fun, until you see a bridge that is very low, and a bigger boat coming through the bridge straight at you. And then thinking how in the world are we going to get by the boat without hitting it or the boats on the side.
The kids had a blast. Every tunnel that we went though, the kids were trying to touch the ceiling. One tunnel was so low, that we all had to duck.
George turned out to be amazing also. Not because of his mad driving skills, but he is so good with the kids. He was driving the boat and Ryan wanted to drive again. He sat with her so patiently and taught her how to drive. When she has her own boat (and motorcycle), she is going to call it The Turquise Dolphin and she will be Captian Ryan.
Ryan was so confident, that as we were all singing loud to frozen songs (George has them on his phone, don't ask me why), she almost hit a boat or two.
The hardest part of the whole cruise was Charlie. He always walks around like a drunk sailor, which is not good on the boat. I think he completely stressed out every single adult as he leaned far over the edge way too many times. Maybe we should have let him fall once. He would have learned his lesson pretty quickly. And he had a life jacket on so don't judge my thoughts as evil so quickly.
One difficult part of a three hour cruise is finding a place to go to the rest room. We pulled off to the side once and let the boys pee on a tree. But that doesn't work so well if you are a girl. So Bev got to lean her backside off the side of the boat and just let it go. So much fun. Speaking of peeing, we watched a guy peeing off the back of his boat right into the water. Unfortunately, he was a lot closer to us than we would have liked and we got a view of more than we liked. And he went for a very long time.
It was an amazing time. And we promise when you come to visit us, a three hour tour of the canals of Amsterdam by Captain Ryan in the Turquoise Dolphin, will absolutely be the crowning jewel moment of your trip. Jaimee was right.
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