Aurora declares the apartment too cold.

The swans in the canals look quite majestic, at least until they come up begging for scraps.

Why can't you have your houseboat and your nicely-trimmed lawn, too?

Nudity just isn't the big deal that it is in the prudish USA. This mural commemorates the life of Jacob van Lennep, a 19th-century poet and politician.

The sunset over the back garden of our building.

Aurora in her favorite spot.

The Netherlands is not entirely bereft of big trees. Some of them are close to 800 years old, as are some of the buildings. This one is in a little park between the Rijksmuseum and the Leidseplein.

The view from the front window of our first Amsterdam apartment.

The same view, after a bit of snow!

Luckily, Eric didn't really want enough blankets to cover him entirely. He's more than happy to let the cats have all but the smallest one.

A fairly accurate representation of navigation in Amsterdam.

Patchouli decided that he's Daddy's cat.

However, if Daddy's lap is not handy, Daddy's computer makes a nice warm cat bed. Unfortunately, Patchouli is not the best typist.

He has a charming habit of reaching out one paw to rest it on you. It's not very helpful when you're trying to type, though.

We finally decided to get him his own computer. Our sales pitch, that his computer is better because it is softer, seemed to work.

Photos are not allowed in the Van Gogh museum. However, they don't have signs up telling you this, so I snapped a few photos before they told me. This one is Van Gogh's painting of a glass of absinthe, with approximately the amount of water you need to rehydrate after drinking that much absinthe.

Van Gogh's impression of the back gardens of Belgium.

While we think of Van Gogh's works as being very much outside for his time, his early work is clearly in the impressionist niche. It still carries his tendency towards bold colors and thick globs of paint, but is certainly in a much more traditional vein than Starry Nights.

He even painted a few still lifes... almost. There is something dynamic in his work, even in his most pastoral attempts.

I didn't get a good shot of this before they asked me to stop, but this does convey the part that I wanted to capture: the very three-dimensional effect of seeing his original paintings. The paint stands out nearly a centimeter from the canvas in some places.