Amsterdam - Trip to Netherlands, Belgium & France

Our first thing this next morning was at 10:15 a.m. so we had time to sleep in a bit and take our time getting there which ended up being a perfect idea. We took full advantage of that and grabbed a quick coffee and breakfast on the walk over to the Anne Frank house. We felt rested and already adjusted to the time zone. Although we were cracking up about me possibly eating the paper on my coconut pastry (looked like paper, didn't taste like paper!) so maybe we were still a bit tired and easily amused.

Anne Frank house was amazing. Amazing. I learned so much, and also realized that I maybe am confusing another story with Anne’s because I did not remember that they had an entire hidden home. I was definitely remembering a story about someone in a closet, and I honestly could not remember if Anne Frank lived throughout the war either. So, it was a refresher for me on her incredible story which I definitely will not forget again after seeing her home. I highly highly recommend.

After this I saw there was a chocolate shop nearby where you could create your own chocolate bar for 10 euro. Laney LOVES chocolate, so I thought this would be perfect to fill in our time until our next thing at 1:00. On the map it looked really close.

It was not really close. It wasn’t terribly far (I think Google maps puts it at a 15 minute walk) which seems way closer than it was. I don’t know why. I remember reading so much about how walkable Amsterdam is and how close everything is, and I don’t DISagree, but I don’t agree either. If that even makes sense. I don’t know if it’s because you are navigating crowds, bikes**, cars, trams, etc etc, or what. But even though it probably only was truly 15 minutes to walk there, it felt a lot longer. And then when we got there, there was a line to enter, and then another line once inside to make the chocolate bars. We looked at our watches in line and realized – we had to go. UGH. Laney was so disappointed, but our 1:00 thing we absolutely could not be late for.

**The bike thing - I 100% thought I'd be riding a bike around the Amsterdam canals. It seemed so picturesque and perfect in my head. We found out pretty quickly though that riding a bike in Amsterdam is not a leisurely thing. It is the way locals get around, and they do not take very kindly to those trying to navigate and sightsee and be in their way. (I say that, but I don't think I saw a single person angry or annoyed the entire 3 days in Amsterdam.) After our little 10 minute bike ride outside of town near the tulip fields, I knew 1000% that Laney would not be able to hang in Amsterdam bike traffic. She must be British because the child always walks and bikes on the wrong side of the road. And they don't even drive on the opposite side here so I don't know why she always does that. "Laney over here! Laney watch out! Laney! Laney! Laney!" So, I delayed any biking excursions until we got to a smaller city. 

At 1:00 I scheduled family photos. John and the girls just wore what they were going to wear for pictures but I of course did not. Which was an error on my part. So not only did we need to book it back across the city for our pictures, I also needed to stop by the hotel to change really quickly. On top of that, I watched the weather for weeks leading up to this trip. I remember seeing 70 degrees on one random day, but otherwise it stayed between 40 and 60 degrees everyday. So of course this one day where I need to race across the city it is 70 degrees and sunny.

John decided to take the girls and head straight to the spot we were to meet – 60 Brouwersgracht - so they could sit for a few before our pictures. I did some speed walking / light jogging and got back to the hotel in time to change and get back with about 10 minutes to spare. My face was red and I was sweating – perfect way to look before family photos, right? But, I think the area the photographer suggested was so beautiful that no one is going to even look at my red face. That’s what I hope anyway.

After photos, we headed to a market to try and find some lunch and shop a little. It was nearby and had so many stalls. Fruits, vegetables, tulips and other flowers, jewelry, fresh meats, and so many other things. I loved it! We bought a stroopwaffle from one stand – can confirm, those are delicious. And then all 4 of us had some steak wrap sandwich thing at another stall and wow. Still drooling thinking about it.

From there we had tickets to do a swing / overlook thing on top of a 22-story tower. The swing goes out over the edge of the building and has an amazing view of the city. Two people go at a time so we paired up - John/Laney & Me/Charley. John and Laney went first and they had their hands up (Laney after John’s encouragement) and were leaning out, taking in the views and the thrill of it all. Charley and I went next and we did not have the same experience. We could NOT let go and also I could not imagine even leaving forward one inch. My back stayed glued to the back of the swing. It was just one little bar across our laps holding us in! That's it! It was thrilling, but the view was awesome. It was also awesome to get back onto the building.

After that, John and Laney went back to the chocolate store to pick up our candy bars that were now ready, and Charley and I took the ferry and then bus back to the hotel to rest a bit. John showed up shortly afterwards with groceries for dinner. What did he pick up? Pizza from the grocery store. Lol. Second night in Amsterdam and second night for pizza. We just didn’t have it in us to get ready and go out to eat.

John and I did go out to a local bar for a bit to have a couple of beers and people watch, but the girls were perfectly content to get on wifi and enjoy some screen time. The people watching was fantastic. So so many bikes, tiny cars, and mopeds. It was fascinating just watching a way of life so different from our own. We literally cannot get to anything on a bike, at least not very safely, except maybe a neighbor’s home. These people here go everywhere on a bike! And bring home all of the things via bike. We also tried Bitterballen at this pub. We weren't really sure what they were, but the bartender recommended so we went for it. Turns out it was deep fried beef stew. Flavor wise they were good, but if you are imagining a crunchy exterior on a ball of snot, then yes, that's what it was like from a texture-perspective.

Finally to bed – a later night this night. But after almost 20,000 steps – we slept great.

We slept in the next morning. I had a couple of ideas for what we wanted to do this day, but didn’t book anything. But honestly neither one sounded like YES – let’s do that. So we opted for neither. We had a slow morning and finally figured out where we wanted to go for breakfast. And by breakfast I mean lunch because it was noon.

Another reason it took us so long to leave the hotel was because Laney wasn’t feeling great. Her stomach hurt the night before, and she woke up with some of the same symptoms. We went back and forth on Charley and I going to do something while Laney stayed back with John, or just begging Laney to push through so we could all go. Finally after encouraging her to just go, she agreed. Instead of walking everywhere today, we bought a 24 hour transit pass so we could minimize how much walking Laney would need to do and hopefully that would help her feel better sooner, too.

First stop was Foodhallen, an old converted train station that now houses around 40 different restaurants of all cuisines. It reminded me a lot of Optimist Hall in Charlotte. It was crowded, but it is nice for everyone to be able to choose what type of food we wanted. Everything we had was great! It was a good choice. Laney started with dessert and went with this Nutella & brownie crepe. It was a miracle, she felt better already. 

From there we made it over to Vondelpark, a gigantic park in the middle of Amsterdam. Laney had the great idea to look for geocache during a couple of free hours on day 2, so I thought we could do the same here. We were able to find a few geocache and add to our international geocache resume before we left and made our way to the museum area. We aren’t really museum people, but a couple of Amsterdam’s museums are pretty high on the must-do lists so we decided to just go visit the area since we assumed it would be catered to tourists. We found a huge grassy area next to the Van Gogh museum and in front of the Rijskrakt Museum so we grabbed a beverage from a cart and sat in the grass a while. Laney cartwheeled all over the place. She obviously was feeling way better – yay! We probably spent 45 minutes here just sitting around. It was awesome. We truly don’t do enough of that. Just sitting, talking, laughing, no where to go or be. Seems like that is way more common in Europe than anywhere in the U.S.

We left there and visited one other “must-do” on any typical Amsterdam Things-To-Do list and that was Dam Square & the Royal Palace. I tried to at least read a little bit about each place to the girls and John so we knew what we were looking at. Charley spotted a H&M nearby so we stopped in there and she picked out a couple of tees. (Have to find things the teen likes too!) Then we grabbed a treat (chocolate waffle for Charley, Chocolate Iced Donut for Laney, coffee and macarons for me) and sat on the steps of the Royal Palace and enjoyed them. Laney is OBSESSED with the pigeons everywhere so she enjoyed watching all of those in the square. She also lost a tooth while sitting on those steps!

We saw a rental boat go by our hotel room (our room overlooks a canal) the prior day and realized we could reserve a boat of our own for really not much money ($100 for 2 hours) and see the canals ourselves. So we made a reservation for this evening at 6:00 p.m. There are so many canal tours in Amsterdam. I do like learning something on a vacation like this, but I also really like not being in a big tour group. So in this instance I was happy to Google things that looked interesting to us as we saw it and be happy that I wasn’t packed into one of the many giant canal boats that passed us. It was such a nice way to see Amsterdam on our final night in the city.

We made it back to the hotel and again – needed to figure out dinner. The girls were done and ready to stay in, so John and I found an Argentinean place (nearby and went out to dinner. We brought back some food for the girls, and called it a night.

Off to Antwerp, Belgium tomorrow.

Transportation Day(s) - Trip to Netherlands, Belgium & France

Today marks day 1 (and 2) of our Spring Break trip to the Netherlands, Belgium and France. All 31 hours of these first two days seem to have been spent on some sort of transportation, with some other things sprinkled in.

Car

to

Plane

to

Airport Tram

to

Plane

to

Subway

to

Tram

to

Bus

to

Bike

to

Tiny Electric Cars

to

Bike

to

Bus

to

Subway

to

Bus.

In 31 hours' time. WHEW. We are spent. 

But our first day in the Netherlands was fantastic, even if we may have had a combined 8 hours of sleep last night between the 4 of us. (And yes, we each had testy moments due to the sleep situation, but that didn't make the day any less fantastic.)

When I found these flight deals, I had zero plans. I just saw them, booked them and then filled in the blanks. When I realized our trip to the Netherlands was right during tulip season, I was thrilled. THRILLED! What a bucket list type of thing to do.

And so I scheduled that to be the very first thing we did. Partly because I needed to keep us moving so we could adjust to these time zones easier, but partly because I was so excited that I wanted to see the flowers ASAP.

This is the girls' first big international trip. We did a cruise a few years back, and a couple of national parks last year. But now that they are 9 and 13, I was ready to try a big trip. I loved the cruise, I love camping, I love Disney trips. I love all the kinds of vacations apparently. But my very very favorite is a big trip like this. It's also a big expense so they cannot happen as often, but that just makes you appreciate them all the more. 

We landed at 7:10 a.m after flying overnight. John and Laney both had window seats, and they also both slept the most. Coincidence? Most definitely not. We tried the wrap around neck pillows with the velcro that Facebook spammed me with for months leading up to the trip and they were better than those u-shaped ones, but it wasn't magic by any means. I'd probably not repurchase and instead just book four window seats. I'd rather not sit together and all have a wall to sleep against honestly.

We did have a moment of actual panic though. We had a layover in Chicago on the way over. Two different airlines and I didn't book both flights together, so checking in for one didn't check me in for the other. So when I checked on our next flight during the layover, I saw a weird error message about the girls not able to be checked in because their passport numbers did not match a list of visas approved by the Netherlands, or something along those lines. I definitely didn't do anything extra other than make sure their passports were still valid, so I started to google. I started seeing stuff like "yes, some countries do require children to also need a visa in addition to a passport" and "up to 60 days to get approval" and on and on. I was panicking. HOW did I miss that in my planning? 

We had to then go get our luggage (we had to gate-check due to space limitations, otherwise we did carry-on only) and then book it to the KLM (Dutch airline) desk to figure out what went wrong. John could see how flustered I was, so he told me he would handle it. Mentally I was already making the next plan. This Dutch airline is affiliated with Air France so we'd just scrap Amsterdam, fly to France first, etc etc. Turns out all my worrying was for nothing and the error message meant nothing. "You're all set! Enjoy your flight." 

So that first/second day once we landed I had planned two Tulip-y things that were next to each other, but away from Amsterdam. 

Keukenhof gardens is a huge garden where they carefully arrange the flowers (not all tulips - hyacinths, daffodils, any plenty more) into such picturesque areas. The whole park is 80 (!!!) acres. I think we explored maybe a quarter of that, if that. If we weren't exhausted already due to just flying in, there was also a 30-45 minute bus ride to get there and about 1.5 bajillion people because this is prime tulip time. It was Disney, but with flowers. So we did a loop of the most popular areas and then John and Charley found a spot in the grass to rest for a few while Laney and I did more exploring and flower-gazing. Laney took so many pictures to show my mom. 

From there, we made our way over to a place called Renzy which was just a 10 minute bike ride away. Here we rented teeny electric cars and drove around the actual working tulip fields. The cars were so fun, and the fields were honestly unbelievable. I don't know if John was as into the flowers as me, but driving around the tiny cars amongst regular pedestrian, bike and even actual car traffic was pretty crazy and exciting. At times it felt like we should be on the Amazing Race. (By the way, I'd absolutely suck at that game. But I would probably be good for their ratings. I get a bit flustered when I need to make quick decisions. Lol)

The line to get back on the bus and go back to Amsterdam was SO LONG. We were probably 4 busloads of people back in the line, but once the seats on the buses were filled, they announced to everyone that there was standing room only left if anyone was interested, and we jumped on that. Either stand in this line for another 30 minutes, or stand in a bus aisle for that long, but at least we were moving. It ended up being an entire hour on the bus (tulip traffic) but it beat standing in a queue line. 

Eventually, we made it back to Amsterdam and headed straight to our hotel. We knew we were going to need to figure out something for dinner but our feet and bodies were telling us rest > food so hotel first. I tried Door Dash, it didn’t seem to exist in Holland. So then John offered to walk to a place we saw nearby and grab takeout for us. We were STARVING so we were so excited when he returned only 10 minutes later. Finally, fooooood. Not so fast though - that place was closed for the evening. We continued to wither away.

Finally we realized that Uber Eats was a thing in Amsterdam and found a pizza place nearby that could deliver pizza quickly. With full bellies and exhausted bodies, we were out. We fell asleep around 9 and slept 11 hours, ready to start our next day.