Amsterdam
Monday, July 30, 2018
We left France today and made our way to Amsterdam. We stopped in Antwerp to try some Belgian waffles from Belgium. They were yeast waffles from The Smallest Waffle Shop in the World and were really delicious. The kids had two each!
We had time to drop our stuff off at the house we were staying and rushed to Amersterdam, trying to figure out the park and ride in Dutch/English and make our way to the Anne Frank house. We did it in time for our 5pm tour! We felt very lucky. The audio tour of the home was excellent. They've done a great job explaining what happened and Anne's effect on people today. There's no audio tour for the few tiny rooms where the people actually lived, but it was the most fascinating part to see. I cannot fathom 2 years in such a confined space!! And then for her to end up being taking and murdered. So sobering!
Our accomdations: This is the most compact home we've ever stayed in! Three doubles, two of which are bunk beds. It has a private toilet and shower and kitchen, amazingly. They also fit a table and two benches inside that tiny box. There's a hammock outside the kids love playing on. It's right by a canal. I guess most people take their boats out from here and visit places all over Holland by canal. It was fine, minus the many mosquito bites the kids got at nighttime, despite the doors and windows being closed.
Tuesday
Made it to Amersterdam for our 10:30 bike tour. Brianna rode on the back of Dan's bike and Spencer on the back of my bike. Allison and Talmage were up for the challenge of riding among some very serious bikers. We learned cool information about how they built their houses and why. For example, they build narrow homes because they were charged taxes on the width of their house, but not the height! They also made the houses more narrow on the bottom to keep the rain off the bottom levels and to help avoid furniture banging into the lower windows when hoisting furniture up from the hook on the top of the house (too narrow to bring furniture up the stairs).
After the bike tour, we stopped at one of the many pancake and waffle houses. It was really cool to watch the guy flip the Dutch pancakes and crepes!
There are so many things to see in Amsterdam. My friend told me it's like the Las Vegas of the Netherlands. We saw lots of groups of guys and lots of girlfriends together, but not many couples.
Spencer had a massive melt down on the street.
We visited the oldest building in Amsterdam which was a big, beautiful church. It was turned into an art gallery. The inside has red paper over all the windows so it's very red and eerie inside. The art, it turns out, is the absence of art. (I could've done that!!) We still had to pay 20E for Dan and I to see the "art" museum.
We returned to our car by 5pm since we had 24 hour tickets.
We returned to our tiny home, I enjoyed food shopping with Spencer, we did dinner, FHE (since we didn't on Monday) and bed. We leave in the morning.
We left France today and made our way to Amsterdam. We stopped in Antwerp to try some Belgian waffles from Belgium. They were yeast waffles from The Smallest Waffle Shop in the World and were really delicious. The kids had two each!
We had time to drop our stuff off at the house we were staying and rushed to Amersterdam, trying to figure out the park and ride in Dutch/English and make our way to the Anne Frank house. We did it in time for our 5pm tour! We felt very lucky. The audio tour of the home was excellent. They've done a great job explaining what happened and Anne's effect on people today. There's no audio tour for the few tiny rooms where the people actually lived, but it was the most fascinating part to see. I cannot fathom 2 years in such a confined space!! And then for her to end up being taking and murdered. So sobering!
 |
| A favorite past time of all our kids! |
We made it back to our little house and Allison was able to call her friend, Carly, from California and 3rd grade. She had to talk to her in the cafe nearby because we couldn't get our internet to work, Allison loved talking to her friend.
Our accomdations: This is the most compact home we've ever stayed in! Three doubles, two of which are bunk beds. It has a private toilet and shower and kitchen, amazingly. They also fit a table and two benches inside that tiny box. There's a hammock outside the kids love playing on. It's right by a canal. I guess most people take their boats out from here and visit places all over Holland by canal. It was fine, minus the many mosquito bites the kids got at nighttime, despite the doors and windows being closed.
Tuesday
Made it to Amersterdam for our 10:30 bike tour. Brianna rode on the back of Dan's bike and Spencer on the back of my bike. Allison and Talmage were up for the challenge of riding among some very serious bikers. We learned cool information about how they built their houses and why. For example, they build narrow homes because they were charged taxes on the width of their house, but not the height! They also made the houses more narrow on the bottom to keep the rain off the bottom levels and to help avoid furniture banging into the lower windows when hoisting furniture up from the hook on the top of the house (too narrow to bring furniture up the stairs).
 |
| Rijkmuseum - we got to ride our bikes through the arch! |
After the bike tour, we stopped at one of the many pancake and waffle houses. It was really cool to watch the guy flip the Dutch pancakes and crepes!
There are so many things to see in Amsterdam. My friend told me it's like the Las Vegas of the Netherlands. We saw lots of groups of guys and lots of girlfriends together, but not many couples.
 |
| A big group of Arab guys took turns taking pictures with the girls. |
We visited the oldest building in Amsterdam which was a big, beautiful church. It was turned into an art gallery. The inside has red paper over all the windows so it's very red and eerie inside. The art, it turns out, is the absence of art. (I could've done that!!) We still had to pay 20E for Dan and I to see the "art" museum.
We returned to our car by 5pm since we had 24 hour tickets.
We returned to our tiny home, I enjoyed food shopping with Spencer, we did dinner, FHE (since we didn't on Monday) and bed. We leave in the morning.
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