I walked around the neighborhood a bit and saw some interesting things. One thing I noticed is that many buildings in Amsterdam have an extension of a roof beam. These have short lines and hooks or pulleys attached. Since many of the houses are narrow and have very tight stairways, the best way to move in & out is often through a large front window.

Looking down Johannes Verhulststraat, the beams and hooks were nicely silhouetted against the sky.

I had just left the Rijksmuseum and saw that there was a skating rink right there. Neat. The National Gallery of Art in Washington has an ice rink next to it too. (It wasn't cold enough for a natural rink and there was a chiller for the ice.) As I walked over I saw this young woman pushing a young kid around on a chair. The kid was thrilled. Woo hoo! That would never be allowed in Washington. Hmmm. This is different.

I wanted to show the woman skating so I waited for her to come back the other way.

(Notice the sign on the shipping container. "Schouten Container Services. Sales & Rentals." A domestic company, yet the sign on its product is in English.)

After I got the shot I looked around and saw that this was a very informal set up. There were kids slapping around hockey pucks. There were folks just skating around. There were adults not wearing skates carefully guiding little kids wearing skates. There were dogs on the ice! This was a great scene.

I'm going to show a few photos of it all, but first the ice sheet reminded me of these winterscapes I had just seen in the Rijksmuseum.