Amsterdam - last vacation day

Arrived and off the ship by 0745.  Picked up by Gassan Diamond Center for tour.  Amazing customer service.  Saw how they cut and polish diamonds, display of brilliance and Gassan 121 cuts ( for the first time, I could really see the difference in number of facets!  The prices were breathtaking :).  Two watch purchases for very good prices and after coffee, picked up by their car service and dropped at our hotel!

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Classifying Diamonds

Cutting and Polishing

We felt like coming home - checked in by our friend Michael again, keys to the lounge to wait for our room to be ready.  We have leafy chatted with 3 people who were on our cruise!   So good to have free Internet again.

We walked along the Singel Canal to a Cafe with a large outdoor patio for lunch. It was our marker for where to turn to get to thecAnne Frank house and the Jordaan area pre- cruise.
We walked for 2 1/2.hours in the Jordaan after lunch ( hamburger for Art with those wonderful Amsterdam Fries and my new favorite sandwich wonderful whole grain bread with goat cheese, toasted walnuts, pear and honey.  Dark Dutch beer for apart and French Rose for me ( very dry not like American version).  We love  the quiet residential  neighborhood with small canals, local shops and attention to dodging bicycles!

After wine and snacks in the lounge we decided that we really didn't want dinner, so off we went to finally walk through the Red Light district.  Quite remarkable...huge crowds ( including families with children) and tours in every language.  After a few wrong turns, we followed one of the tours down a narrow street and, Voila, we were in the midst of red curtained windows, red lights on some buildings and signs saying " no photos " in most windows.  I did take a bunch of photos of ' interesting signs and names of restaurants and bars ' .  Looked like Times Square before they cleaned it up with the addition of Canibis.

Off we went to find the frozen yogurt place, again took a wrong turn and lengthened our walk.  Getting around Amsterdam (named for a Dam on the Amstel River) is confusing.  Many of the roads curve in more than o e direction since they run where canals were before being filled in.  Goof our yogurt dinner, returned to the hotel lounge for coffee and tea, and are turning in early to prepare for our flight tomorrow.  We have a 9:20 shuttle booked since we have to clear customs and get the tax refund for our watches ( sometimes it's good to be an international guest), then check- in.  Delta has informed us that KLM is managing the flight and KLM won't let us check- in online.  I just sent a message asking them why they sent me an earlier message telling me that online check- in was now available! Such is the joy of air travel.