I usually hang out with my kids on Tuesday afternoons -- giving Marci some "time off" from her job as full-time mother and embracing the opportunity for some fun "Daddy time."  The past two Tuesday afternoons have been spent exploring the Zeeburg region, in the easternmost part of Amsterdam.  I pick Elliot and Olivia up from school, and then we set out for adventure, equipped with just a few snacks, a bakfiets (the mini-van of bicycles), and a Canon 350D camera.

It's been a lot of fun -- hanging out with the kids, exploring new places in this very old city, and exercising some atrophied photographic muscle in capturing our adventures.

Yesterday, we hung out along the Ertshaven, an area of newer, more avant-garde architecture and a lot of water.  The skies were gray and the temperatures were cool, but it was truly beautiful to explore the area's bridges, docks, and public spaces.  Most of the time, it felt like we had the neighborhood completely to ourselves.  The silence and the mists were heavy on us, like a heavy velvet curtain, but we had a lot of fun.

We watched the boats navigating through the harbor.  We let our voices echo from the top of the tall, serpentine "Dragon Bridge."  We tried to convince the coots to eat little twigs and leaves that we threw from the dock in their direction.  We ran and jumped and climbed and sung.  And we took lots of pictures.

Last Tuesday, we did some similar adventuring along the banks of the Rijn Kanaal:  climbing up underneath the A10 Highway overpass, skipping stones out over the water, getting the passing barges to honk their heavy horns at us... And yes, taking lots of pictures.

In case you're interested, more photos can be found in the Amsterdam Pictures section of the website.