Amsterdam

I zipped up to Amsterdam for an extremely secular Easter weekend with my friend Eric. Now, I had never been there before, while Eric had, but only for a day, so we hit all the big sights.

When I bought the tickets, at the end of December, I thought: Easter! Sunshine, flowers blooming, it will be springlike, gorgeous, there will be tulips and windmills and people in wooden shoes. Fabulous! Somehow I manged to forget that Easter is a month earlier this year.... and the weather was just TERRIBLE! When we arrived it was pouring rain and 2 degrees (Celsius). The next day they predicted hailstorms, but in fact we got caught in a blizzard instead, as we were leaving the Anne Frank house. Then on Saturday, wind gusts. Then more snowstorms. Gee, I have never had a white Easter before!

I was apparently enamored of canal photos.

Fleeting sunshine. Later, the clouds rolled in.The next day, dark and cloudy.And the first of several snowstorms.Here is Eric in the main square, the Dam. Standing in the crowd in the background were some people dressed as Star Wars characters, for some mysterious reason.Eric and me in a cafe. He promises this shot will be his Christmas card.