Good-bye Westerpark, hello bikes.

Our lovely experience with our landlord continued, when he didn't show up to check us out. The next day he emailed Allan where are you? Allan said we moved out yesterday and you weren't there. The landlord didn't believe Allan, so Allan had him call Jackie (Morningstar’s office manager) that had arranged the move. Jackie sent him a copy of the previous email she'd sent with the date and time that he'd agreed to. We're happy to be through with him.

Before we leave Westerpark, here are a few shots from around our apartment. Next door was a doctor’s office that I went to in order to renew my prescriptions before we got a doctor. It was scary. I felt like I was in the doctor’s office from an old TV show like Gunsmoke.

This is the front door to the Doctors office

This is some kind of
 message on the front door

This is the sign stating that
this is indeed a Doctors office

No kidding this is really what it looked like. 
When I searched on the Internet under
 old doctor exam screens, I couldn't find anything,
 but when I went to vintage, I found this picture.

This is what the exam table really looked like.
Seriously, I am not exaggerating.

Ok, this one actually is an exaggeration.
They did have a phone sitting on the desk.

This is the public garbage can.
You pull up on the silver
handle on the bottom...

...and it reveals an empty cylinder.
You put your garbage bag inside and
pull the handle down and your bag falls into
a large receptacle under the metal slab.

 They were laying fiber optic cables around our 
Westerpark apartment, so Allan had to take a picture 
as he covers the phone and cable TV companies 
in the Netherlands and other European countries.

One negative of moving was we won't be
 able to take advantage of the faster broadband
speeds offered by the fiber.

This is a public restroom,
 but it will cost you like 1 euro.

This is your free potty.
Trust me it looks better from a distance.
The first time I saw this, I thought "WHAT?"
Sure enough it was what I thought it was.
There is at least one other style, but we didn't take a picture of it. It is kind of
like walking into a metal seashell. We'll get a picture sometime.

I'm not sure, but I think she was advertising a book.
(She's replicating the cover of the white book at the bottom of
the picture.) She was having a great time at it and it
appeared to be successful as there were a lot of people stopping
 to check her out.

Some people enjoying a beautiful
sunny day at a street market.

Since moving into Diemen, life has become much quieter. 

Like this big fellow. 

He is our neighbor. 
He is very friendly. 
He eats like a champ.

This beautiful lane is right outside our front door.

Check out that thatched roof.
This is looking out our second floor window.

Allan at first took the bus from just around the corner 
to the Bijlmer Arena in about 20 minutes. 

The Saturday after we moved we walked to 
two bike stores in Diemen to check out used bikes.
 The first one had several people that were very nice 
and let us take a couple of bikes out for a test drive. 

We then walked to the other and a fat man just
sat behind a desk and didn't say boo. We walked 
out and looked at some of the others stores in the
strip mall. One lady approached us about voting in the upcoming EU elections and she was shocked we'd
 walked so far. She asked why we were there and we
 told her we were looking at bikes and had decided
 to buy them at the other store. She said despite
 living near there she always went to the other
store because their service was so good and this one 
wasn't. We walked back to the other store and bought our bikes. (Since then we’ve been back with some bike problems and the service has been excellent.)

Now Allan can ride straight to work in less than 
25 minutes. Church is about 15 minutes away at my slower pace, part of the issue is the excitement of riding with my dress blowing in the breeze and trying to remain modest. 

(Since then, we’ve found a shorter way and gotten in better shape and it now takes about 10 minutes.)

 At church I was called in to see the Bishop and 
he said they had been planning to reorganize 
the Primary for several months. They had actually 
picked out a woman and he had his executive
secretary make an appointment with her
to meet with him. However, when he got 
home that night, he just didn't feel good about it. 

He prayed about it and called his executive secretary
and told him to cancel the appointment. He had already called the Primary President as the new Relief Society President and told the Relief Society President 
she was going to be released. We then moved 
in and he met with us the second Sunday we were there.
 He went home after that and felt Paula should be
 called. He prayed about it and talked with his 
councilors and they called me the 
third Sunday we were here. The Primary President 
was out of the country and when she returned 
they sustained all the changes
the 5^th Sunday we were here. 

Aren't they the best? These are my cute primary kids.
A couple of more kids have since moved in.

"The Family is Eternal."

Allan has been called to teach the High Priests once per month, but at least they speak English.

Church is really interesting here. 
There are Sunday School classes in Dutch, English and Spanish. Sacrament Meeting is translated into 
English and Spanish through headsets and if the speaker speaks in English or Spanish, a member of the Bishopric translates into Dutch from a microphone on the stand. 
The songs are sung at the same time in all three languages. There are people from all over the world, Indonesia, the Philippines, the U.S., Latin America, Ghana, Uganda and probably others we haven't learned yet. 

There are always visitors and after Sacrament Meeting 
they are invited to introduce themselves. 
The second Sunday we were here, a couple was here
 from Beaver, Utah that knew Allan's first missionary companion and the next week Spencer Kirk and his family were here. He was shocked when Allan called out his name and said hi. He figured no one would know him here. 
Besides going to high school with Allan, he was our son-in-law, Russell Hoole's mission president. It's a small world.

On Wednesday's they have an outdoor market at 
the Diemen village center with fresh food that is fun
to go to. The man at the bakery is a hoot. He's quite the salesman. He would have made my dad proud.

This guy is totally energized and
is the reason we were originally attracted
 to this bakery.

This guy took some warming up,
but is now pretty lively too.

From a distance, the bakery looks great
and smells even better.

This is the nut and dried fruit stand at the
 Diemen market on Wednesday.

Saturday, we went back downtown Amsterdam
 looking for some stuff at some of the bigger stores. 
Tourist season appears to be in full swing. It was packed.
All the noise and the smells made me glad we chose 
the quiet village life. Also, neither Allan nor I wanted
 to learn to ride a bike over here downtown where the bike paths are packed. Even on the relatively quiet paths
around here, Allan has almost been in a couple of wrecks. 
We haven't witnessed a wreck yet, but we've heard
 some and come along right after another one.

The bikes have all kinds of seats and contraptions to 
haul kids around. I asked the bike man about the
 danger and no protection and he said
 “We've all been riding all our lives and
have all crashed and broken bones.”

Here are some pictures of bikes we've seen.

This is a family on there bike.
They live in our Ward

 

Notice the child seats on both the front and back of this bike.

Different bike and different angle, but again a child seat in the front and the back.

We even have are own bike street lights. However, the locals often ignore them.

These are "Shark Teeth."

 This is very important to a biker. After diving around for a while I learned that I needed to yeild to the drivers. I was wondering why somebody yelled at me for no apparent reason. So beware of the shark teeth. If they are pointing at you, Please yield to the oncoming traffic. 

Dad with our bikes

This is a Bakfiet. It will run you over
EUR 1500. 

Check out this big bike parking garage.

More bike parking

This is my bike. I just returned home from a trip
 to the Praxis Store,
which is similar to "Home Depot".

We have not spotted this one yet
 but we are looking for it.

We thought it was high "TIME" that we got 
Spencer and Alie a bike of their own.

This is my bike with the basket on the front and Allan's with the black bags on the back.

Oh, the other day I was out on my bike when 
I saw a young Mom with her new born cradled in her arm well riding her bike down the street. 
Wow. I hope they were safe.

 It never ceases to amaze me what I see here.
We have seen lots of other interesting ones, but haven't gotten photographs of them. We will add more as we succeed in getting more like people riding in the rain holding their umbrella.