Amsterdam - Family

We napped a lot in Amsterdam.  This trip has been exhausting.  We arrived on a Wednesday night - they had school or work for the next two days.  Have I mentioned that their flat is up three flights of skinny, steep steps?  My goal was to only go up and down once a day.  Thursday we went out to dinner to meet some friends of theirs who were contemplating selling their home and traveling full time.  We had an interesting conversation.  Also had a typical Amsterdam restaurant experience.  It took 1 1/2 hours to get our starters.  Some excuse about the food expediter couldn't find our table and took the food back to the kitchen - canceling our entire dinner.  Or the kitchen was so small that's why it took so long. 

The girls love to dance.  Lia used my phone to time their dances.

Give me your serious look, Natasha!  She's a giggly girl - so that didn't last long.

One of their favorite games - but you can only play it once a week.  Helping Grandpa fill his vitamin dailies.

The girls had both been to the Stedelijk Museum on field trips and wanted to take us.  This is not my favorite kind of art.  A lot of it just seems weird.  There was one large case filled with supplies from a hospital.  Or this smash-up of musical instruments.

Someones take on religion?

I thought this was pretty cool - dramatic for the camera.

 Making my own art.  Daughter standing on words.

This was the actual sculpture.  Below my take on it.

I couldn't figure out what the meaning of this pig and angels meant.

Upstairs was a display on movement and light.  Lia was interested by the big box.  There doesn't appear to be any support.

 Maybe there was a little fear here also.

 Then we have to have "the pose".

Interesting chair.

Lights!

 On Sunday we went out to brunch and then walked around to take photos.  Rob took the girls to the park to play.

Both girls are into scooting.

 Alexis had to meet a work college from elsewhere for a bike ride.  She took her Mama bike.  Note the two seats for the girls.  Alexis has her hand on the adult seat.  There is a child seat behind and in front of her.

The girls entering the playground.  Lia with another "pose".

A few shots of Amsterdam.

So many big picture windows in Amsterdam.  Just crying out for reflection shots.

And back at the playground before returning back to the apartment.

6-5 Pergamum - last day in Turkey

This is our second longest travel day to the ancient site of Pergamum perched on a hilltop just above the modern town of Bergama.  The entrance looks like most all of the sites.  Souvenirs, drinks and snacks before the ticket office.

 Then you walk up the hill to the site.  Library ruins below.

 This is a replica of what was here.  The original statue is in some famous museum somewhere in the world.

 A group of school children were touring the site as well.  We could often hear them off in the distance shouting out numbers or other answers to questions in Turkish.

Temple of Trajan.

 City walls in the background.

 Theatre from 3rd century BC.  Capacity of about 10,000.

 Tunnel to go through to get from the area of the Temple of Trajan to the theatre.

 Theatre in the lower left.  Ruins of  Temple of Trajan in background.

 Young men running down the steep steps while we huddled in the doorway looking down.

 View from near the library ruins overlooking Bergama.

 The base of what was the Altar of Zeus.  The original was moved to Berlin's Pergamum Museum in the 1870's.

 As we drove down the hill, our guides stopped at a spot so we could take a picture of the temple below.  It honors some Egyptian goddess.

 We stopped for coffee in Bergama - across the street from a Roman bath house.

 Our last stop of the day was at the Asklepieion.  This was a healing center.  The layout looked very much like a modern hospital.  The great physician Galen was born here in AD 129. 

 The medical symbol of two entwined snakes was already in use then.

 We had beautiful clouds all day.