Sisters, Sisters!

Erika's back from South Africa for a few weeks- just in time for a visit from Kirsten and Josh. Amsterdam has been struggling to break into spring weather, and the day everyone arrived was the nicest day of the year. Unfortunately, the next day, when we took Kirst and Josh out on the boat, the weather changed again, and we sat under the clouds all day. Still, any day on the boat is a good day. 

On Sunday, we headed into The Hague and toured the Madurodam, which is, in a sense, the smallest town in the Netherlands. Curiously billed as a war memorial/amusement park/exhibition, the Madurodam is a model town filled with 1/25 scale models of many of the most famous buildings in the Netherlands. 

In addition to the buildings, the model has over 60,000 'villagers' and over 4500 vehicles, including cars, trucks, boats, trains, and airplanes. 

Several of the vehicles move around on magnetized tracks, and there is a working lock system where two motorized ships move back and forth through the locks. 

The whole place really begs the question, "Why?," but it was still an interesting sight. All the trees in the village are real plants, and the canals are stocked with fish. We were hoping some of the 'giant' birds would attack the villagers, but they didn't cooperate.  

Afterwards, we walked through a little bit of The Hague and checked out a small museum which is famous for a 360º panorama painting of the Dutch coastline. When we got home, the girls made an amazing dinner of Eggplant Timbale:

That beautiful thing is stuffed with pasta, meat, cheese and other goodness. It was delicious! 

The rest of this week will be spent exploring Amsterdam and a possible trip to the Keukenhof Gardens to see the tulips in bloom.