Amstel Zeilen

So, we have a problem: We just can't stop renting boats. Miguel (Francisco's brother), Elisa (Miguel's girlfriend) and our friend Matt are in town and when trying to decide the best way we could all spend a sunny Saturday afternoon, absolutely nothing other than, "Get on a boat and cruise the canals" would come to mind. So we did it. We grabbed some good food, music and headed back to boaty, endured the 15 second boat training course and we were off in a canal cruiser (Her name was Nina).

"I'm on a boat!" (ft. Mig and Bacon)

Francisco was again the captain, Miguel and Matt shared the very important role of "Look out for other boats we might hit" and I was in charge of navigating the canal cruiser. Like last time, Boaty gave us a laminated sheet which outlined a couple of boating instructions and also contained a map with different routes we could take (The downtown route, The out of town route, the South East route).

I first directed the captain to take the downtown route; we cruised through Jordaan and stopped in the area for some french fries with mayonnaise.

When we finished this loop, we decided we should live on the edge and go a little off the map. We took some other canals to check out the flower market, Waterloopein market and the hotel Alicia Keys was staying at. We enjoyed our own makeshift cruise so much, we kept at it and ventured through some other turning, winding canals. Their names? No idea. I just know they were not Prinsengracht or Herengracht, which were the canals we were supposed to stay on.

Anyway, all was going well until a sudden gust of wind picked up our laminated map and tossed it overboard. We tried to reverse the boat to grab it, but that map sunk faster than my waitressing career. It was a very tense couple of minutes but luckily, we did have a rough idea of where we were and got ourselves back to the Amstel River. From here, it was easy to navigate ourselves back.

Amstel, straight ahead!

Aside from being potentially "lost at sea" (or "lost in canal," I guess I should say), we all agreed it was the best way to spend a sunny Saturday afternoon.
    

Verjaardag Spelevaren

We've all had quite the Euro experience this week. Sarah and I were able to pick up some Euro fashions, visit the Google Amsterdam office and enjoy some sun while people watching on patios. On Wednesday, we threw Francisco a Euro themed raclette birthday party and luckily, our friend Kristen was in the city for business and able to join us. We grilled our own dinners while eating cheese from Reypeneaur and listened to "very, cool, very modern" music selections. For his birthday, Francisco got an Ajax soccer jersey, a personalized Heineken bottle, a cheese guillotine and, his personal favourite, a t-shirt from The Spotted Ox Hostel.

Today, our Euro adventures continued. We packed a lunch, rented a boat at Boaty and spent the afternoon motoring through Amsterdam's canals. We arrived early as we needed to attend boat training...If only we knew the training would only last approximately 15 seconds. I believe our instructions were, "Watch out for other boats." When we asked a couple more questions, our instructor just told us to remember that our boat, a solar powered 4 person craft with a speed of 3KM an hour, was at the bottom of the food chain in boat priority. With that, we were left with a laminated instruction sheet and we were off.

Here, Francisco is photographed driving our boat

As you can clearly see in the photograph above, Francisco was our captain and Matt (The gif creator) was his trustworthy and very busy skip. As we ventured through the canals, we noticed that most boats contained all males or all females.

Kate Winslets

Leonardo DiCaprios

We also noticed that most boats were filled with people dancing. As the afternoon progressed, we fond ourselves out in the wider canals, which were much colder with the wind. It was here that we were absolutely forced to start a boat dance party and the music that successfully got us moving was Daft Punk's album Random Access Memories and, of course, Robin Thicke's single Blurred Lines. We learned that boating is much more fun when you're dancing.

Matt said it was a pleasure to serve as skip and Francisco mentioned that his only regret was not wearing a suit as captain. All in all, our boating experience was a gigantic success, considering we saw a boat filled with 50 year old men in pink wigs (which left from our dock on a sister vessel minutes before us) towed back 40 minutes into their trip.