Brussels & Amsterdam

Hello!
I am currently in Amsterdam, staying with my cousin Liz & Frans. Their apartment has the most beautiful view of the (dammed up) sea.
I arrived on Friday after an epic journey from London to Brussels, and then from Brussels on here. I was able to leave the train station for about three hours to see Brussels, and saw precisely what I needed: chocolates, espresso and the most picturesque market plaza you will ever see. (There are pictures for this post, but I have not uploaded them yet for fear of overloading Frans & Liz's computer.) I also got to practice my impeccably shoddy French.
A favorite exchange of mine: I attempted to ask for soy milk at a cafe, and not knowing the word for "soy" in French, essentially asked for 'the milk not of the cow but the milk of vegetables.' Unsurprisingly, he did not know what I was talking about.
Other observations from Brussels: one of the metro stops is called Hotel de Monnaies, which just reminded me of Count de Monay from Mel Brooks' "History of the World Part I." the Brussels metro system is simultaneously incredibly organized and incredibly easy for freeloading.
From Brussels I continued, as I said before, to Amsterdam via train. The one sad thing about taking the train everywhere is that I do not have passport stamps from Belgium or the Netherlands! That upset me a bit.

I've spent two full days in Amsterdam so far. The first day I got quite lost in the touristy-Centraal district, which overlaps with the Red Light District. I must say, the Red Light District did not really shock me at all--it's really just a more explicit Bourbon Street. And not much more explicit at that. (I've certainly seen more nudity on Bourbon.)
I asked a man for directions yesterday, and he drew me a map based on following canals and crossing bridges. However, as everything in Amsterdam is canals and bridges, the map only servevd to confuse me more. Eventually I made it to the Rijksmuseum, the central museum of Dutch art and history. There was a Hendrick Avercamp painting there of a winter scene, and its description noted that among the painting's many figures, there was one peeing in the background. That painting had a cluster of almost ten people trying to find the urinator.

Today I visited the Auschwitz memorial, which is very catching in its brevity, and visited the Hortus Botanicus Amsterdam, one of the oldest botanical gardens in the world--it was established in 1638 as a medicinal herb garden! It was beautiful and I must have taken 100 pictures--several of which you will see once I can upload photos. I saw a cycad that was potted over 300 years ago, and a number of butterflies very close up (just you WAIT for the pictures!).
Then I rented a bike and, in trying to find the Rembrant House, wound up quite a bit away at Museumplein, and instead just biked around Vondelpark (their Central Park) for a while. I spent probably three or four hours on the bike today, which was really nice despite the heavy winds.

When I can upload pictures, I will.