SAIL Amsterdam

I headed into the city this Sunday to catch SAIL. This is when hundreds of old, old sail boats from all over the world, like this Russian one:





descend on Amsterdam. It only happens every 5 years and I was lucky enough to be here already for it. There are SO many boats, I don't know how they avoid hitting each other:



Of course, with this many boats comes a lot of people:



So I didn't last at SAIL long. But I did enjoy wandering around the city. Stopped by a flower market:



.

Since living here I've also learned why many of the houses lean:


It's not because they're old and built on water (though they are). But it's intentional so that when the hook at the top is used with a pulley to haul things up, said big heavy things won't bump against the house on the way up. Genius.