town up north. It was a great day, except it was raining almost the whole day. (well we are in the Netherlands) We took a bus to Amsterdam Centraal station, which the hub for bus, train, ferry, metro and tram (very busy place, and always under construction). Our first place that we went to was the information center for the new metro line that they are building from North Amsterdam to South Amsterdam. That they are building under the city. They are using tunnel boring machines to dig the tunnels under the streets of Amsterdam. There will be more pictures of that later. This is a picture of what Amsterdam Centraal Station will look like when it is done.
So they like to use bikes if you didn't know that already. This area is called a Bike Apartment you can see that there are two floors. 
This is the channel that goes around Amsterdam centraal station. Because the station is actually an island that the Dutch made when they started their public train system. The building is a Pannekoek House, where they serve Dutch pancakes.
This is Amsterdam's, I guess you might say, slogan. It is right in front of the Dutch stock exchange. Which is along where the Amstel river used to flow until they but a dam in the river.
This street is where the Amstel river used to flow. It is very much a tourist road now. There are a lot of shops and snack places along the way. I don't know if you can see it in the picture but there is a KFC down the street, and that is where Matt and I had lunch.
This is the Oudekerk, or the old church. Ironically enough the church is right in the Red Light District, so it was interesting getting to the church. Matt and I hope to go there tomorrow and go inside.
Next we went to where the church moved to during a period when the church wasn't suppose to be seen. This picture shows the "Our Lord in the Attic" museum. A church that looks like a house on the outside.I'm not sure what this is but it had pretty drawings on it.
The next pictures are just some of the stairs that are in the church. They were very steep. And if you remember Matt's staircase in his house in Easttown, these stairs are steeper than those.
This is what the church likes in the sanctuary. Sadly though the entire museum was under renovation. So the picture to the right is what the front usually looks like. And the picture below is what the back of the church looks like today. The very ornate thing in the back is the organ but all the pipes have been removed.
The pictures below are from the kitchen in the church. The two guys on the left are our profs for this course. The tall one is Prof Hoeksema, and the the one to the right is Prof Aay.
Next we walked around the city a bit. This is one of the many canals that channel the water out of the city. It looks a lot like Venice.
And this is all of the stuff that they pull out of the water in the canals.The next batch of pictures is from the newest church St. Nicholas church that was built in the 19th century.
This is the dam square where the dam for the Amstel originally was. And this is a war monument in that square. The square has the a lot of shops around, including a store that is pretty much the Dutch Macy's.
We stopped in one of the stores and it had a very large collection of Delfe Blue (I think that is how you spell it). I really want to get some but it is super expense and I don't know how I would pack it.The next group of pictures are from one of the
underground metro stations for the new metro line that they are constructing under the streets. The swimming pools of water are to keep the water pressure from the ground below from breaking through the floor. They are currently laying 3 meters of concrete on top of the floor which will be the floor to the station. At this station there will be two metro lines, one for each direction, and a 300 car garage above it. It is really big.
Great pictures. If you can climb the bell tower on Friday.
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