On the afternoon of June 16 we met up with our Trafalgar tour group, which would be taking us to Germany, Switzerland, and France. We took a short bus ride to downtown and Vince, our tour guide, took those who wanted to go on a walking tour of the red light district. Zack and I stayed behind and wandered over to McDonald's for a drink and a snack. About 630 we met up with the group and boarded to bus to journey to our canal dinner cruise.
We boarded the boat and had a nice traditional dinner of corn soup, rice, beef, pork, and tofu in different sauces, and vegetables. The pork was in a yummy peanut sauce. I didn't care for the others. Josh had half the corn soup and rice. Poor guy is not a sauce person.
Throughout the evening we traveled the canals past houseboats and rows and rows of apartments. The architecture is quite ornate here. Unfortunately, many of the buildings have begun to list to one side. Years ago when they were built, the land was too soft to support the weight of buildings, as it still is today. The solution was to dig deep holes and set up wooden support beams, often up to 140 metres deep. The problem is that after hundreds of years, these wooden beams are beginning give way to rot. Today's builders use concrete support beams.
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