The Adventures of Lorie and Brian Groth

She throws herself a party, of course! This is how our friend, Pita, celebrated her 50th; she rented out part of this building in the heart of Amsterdam’s most popular, Vondelpark. It was filled with her friends, representing about 13 different nationalities.

I used to strap a kayak to the roof of my car, and now I use those same straps to attach 10kg bags of dogfood to my bicycle.

The bike does feel a little wobbly with that much weight over the front tire, but otherwise rides nice.

Of course, since it is a UNESCO World Heritage site, even a cloudy day is beautiful.

Tonight we rented a very nice covered and heated boat from 1910, now electric, and saw the Light Festival on the canals of Amsterdam. More info about that is at:

https://amsterdamlightfestival.com/en

A few photos from my phone, which never look great at night:

It’s a bit too flat to be overly impressive, but still nice.

A nice clear day turned into a thick fog, so we had foggy fireworks and foggy bridges to go along with a crowded party scene (all of Amsterdam) and our nervous poodles. However, we did enjoy the oliebollen with powdered sugar.

The weather report said we would have 9 inches of fresh Utah powder at Alta today, and we were not disappointed.

I was able to get out of work early enough to take a walk on the beach, which looks NW over the Arabian Gulf, which is part of the Arabian Sea. Thankfully, the rain had stopped for the day (rain is rare here) and it was a comfortable 75F.

It’s about 77F tonight so it’s perfect for a stroll along the marina waterfront, which is lined with restaurants at the base of skyscrapers and nice yachts. I’m having dinner on an outside terrace at a Lebanese restaurant, where almost everyone is smoking from a hookah pipe, except me. It’s a non-alcoholic place (probably because it is outdoors) so I’m having some very refreshing sparkling water with my falafel and hummus dinner.

One of the more interesting buildings is the one pictured that twists 90 degrees from the base to the top.

Today, we parted ways with our 2012 Volvo XC60R. It was a great car that we almost never used here in Amsterdam. Now, we are looking at bicycle options that can carry the dogs, as Busby demonstrates here.