Amsterdam, Netherlands - Part 2

Because we were in Amsterdam for Christmas, I needed to break this visit into two posts because I just had far too many pictures for one post.

Good morning, Natalie!  Merry Christmas!

Yep, we spent Christmas in Amsterdam.  We considered staying in our house for one last Christmas, but honestly... our beautiful Auerbach house isn't much without our things.  It wouldn't have felt right without a Christmas tree that had all of our ornaments on it.  It wouldn't have felt right without pots and pans to make a big Christmas dinner.  It wouldn't have felt right without our TV to watch It's a Wonderful Life.  So we might as well travel, right?  We tried to set the mood with little battery powered "candles" and the yule log on the iPad!  Also, we didn't get a picture of it, but before the movers packed our stuff on December 20, I made a sour cream coffee cake that we ate for breakfast - we HAD to keep THAT tradition!  It's our favorite!

Ahh, it's feeling toasty in this hostel room.

He's been here!  Santa has been here!

First things first... let's dig into these stockings!

Contemplating what this gift might be.

We spent nearly four and a half years in Grafenwoehr and they always had a stand in the PX that made these wood carvings and we always liked them, but never got one.  So I got one for Todd for Christmas!  They have so many different types, but we absolutely wanted one that had the Graf Tower on it.  The best experience of our lives.

Poor Grant.  Just about everything I ordered for him got shipped to Massachusetts for him to open when we move back there in January.  So he just opened a lot of weird boxes with pictures of things inside.

His big gift from Nana - you can see he is excited!!!!

HOLY COW I GOT A PS4!

Natalie literally CRIED when she opened Nana's gift.  She finally got an iPod Touch.

Post Christmas destruction.  And that's pretty much how she's been since she got that thing.

We finally rolled out of the hotel later in the morning, but we weren't in a hurry.  The hotel is literally just off screen to the left.  And this is the train station that took us into the city.  Steps away!

The Christmas sun peeked out as we walked from the main train station to a place where I knew they'd be having mass in English.

Oooo but wait, THAT building is pretty!

So we got to the church - De Krijtberg, and mass was WELL underway.  And not in English.  It was in Latin.  What?  What happened?  I even showed Todd what I saw on the internet!  It read, "Mass in English, 12 PM."  But what they really meant was that midnight mass was in English.  BIG FAIL.

But this was really the true meaning of the day, whether you made it to church or not.  We managed to see about half of the mass.  We get an A for effort, right?  We tried!

This was one of the prettiest churches I've ever been in.  The color was so vibrant. A secret church was built here in 1654 - back when Catholic's were banned from practice in the Protestant Netherlands. But when that ban was lifted, construction started on this Catholic church in 1881.

After mass, we took the kids to the Ice Village for a little lunch and some ice skating!  Time for some hot dogs and some home made Dutch pea soup!

And of course, some hot mulled wine!  Complete with oranges and cinnamon sticks!

  

You know the drill... I can't skate because of my hip.  So, twist my arm, I'll sit down at the bar and have a Dutch beverage!  I'm glad I did, because the skies opened up and it absolutely POURED for about 5 minutes.  Todd and the kids were thankfully still getting their skates on, so they didn't really have a problem with it.  A little old lady came up to me as it was raining and started talking to me - she was so cute.  She spoke very good English!  She was very fascinated by the fact that we lived in Germany.  I love meeting people in my travels!

Meanwhile on the rink....



Natalie declared that somewhere between Cologne and Amsterdam, she had completely forgotten how to skate, so she and Grant both used chairs.  Aren't those chairs pretty?

Push me around, small child!

I was surprised so many people were at the rink on Christmas Day!

Grant spotted me up on the small Skinny Bridge and waved at me!  He was easy to spot with his yellow hat.

Hello down there, Natalie!  This side of the rink, as you can see, is where people were working on their hockey skills.



Todd and Grant took a little selfie on the ice, but I particularly liked whatever was going on with the kid behind them. An ice dancer in the making, perhaps? Plié!

Finally, Natalie felt confident enough to ice skate without the chair!

Grant also finally decided he could skate without the chair.  But Daddy is right behind him, just in case.

Phew, skating is hard work!  What time is it?  It's HAPPY HOUR TIME!

Yup.  Here we go.  "Do you have WiFi here?"



We got a BEAUTIFUL Christmas sunset at the Ice Village!  Just stunning!

We made our way back across the city to Amsterdam Centraal because Natalie needed a case for her iPod, so we went back to the FAME Megastore to get her that.  We had a nice post-sunset photo op with the Basilica of St. Nicholas.

And this is across the canal (street?) from the Basilica - Amsterdam Centraal.  Look at all of those bikes over there!

We found a great little dinner place called Piccolo Mondo.  But Grant cannot figure out how to smile for a camera.  Or even look at the camera for that matter.

There we go.  Merry Christmas, buddy.

Walking back to Amsterdam Centraal, we saw the boats sailing to and past the visitor's center.  Still plenty of people wanting to take Christmas boat rides around the Amsterdam canals.

One more panorama of Amsterdam.  Every time I leave a place, I think... is this the last time I will ever go here?

The train station was empty as we took the commuter rail back to the hostel.

 
Riding the train back to the hotel.  Not many people riding late on Christmas day.

Amsterdam wanted to leave us with something cute... and Grant and I spotted this ladybug on the side walk at the Amsterdam Sloterdijk train station next to our hotel.  Thank goodness for lights!

Until next time, Amsterdam!

Amsterdam, Netherlands - Part 1

The next stop on our last big European adventure was Amsterdam!  I had been here before (last year, with Jen and Kristin) and once when I was a teenager.  Todd had been here too, back when he backpacked around Europe in college.  But of course, we had to go back to take the kids.

And of course, because Amsterdam is AMSTERDAM... I had to break this into two posts!

After the drive up from Cologne, we checked into our hotel and went out to the city.  We stayed at the Meninger Amsterdam City West (which is of course, west of the city) because Amsterdam is incredibly expensive.  The place we stayed was great though, because it was literally steps away from the commuter rail, which took us directly to Amsterdam Centraal in 12 minutes with zero stops in between.

We got into the city fairly late, so we went to get sandwiches at a little cafe... and of course, Grant didn't want anything, and we didn't know if he could have it anyway because of his peanut allergy, so he ate a croissant before we moved on to McDonald's for some French fries.  THEN we finally boarded our boat that was taking us on a tour of the Amsterdam Light Festival! As you can see, we didn't have great weather, which meant murky windows and blurry photos.

We tried to get a FEW good pictures though. This one was called, "Neighborhood" and it was by Sergey Kim.

Ok I just couldn't pick one photo from the two above, so I included them both.  I liked this because if you live on a houseboat, which many people in Amsterdam do... you just don't have a convenient washer and dryer situation.  Line drying is a way of life all across Amsterdam!

This work of art "protested" climate change and shows us how cities will be underwater at some point if we keep going at the pace we are now.  It was called "Atlantis" and was done by Utskottet.

Kaboom!  I liked this one a lot.  It's called "Nothing Holding Us" by Ben Zamora.  The Amsterdam Light Festival website says this about it: "With his installation Nothing Holding Us, Ben Zamora shows us that nothing should hold us back. Not even the disruptive shock of a totally life-changing experience, which he has depicted with dozens of light tubes in the form of an explosion that seems to be frozen in time. The painful shock of losing a loved one, or the excitement and joy you feel when a new person comes into your life – your life will never be the same again and that offers room for perspective and development."  I lost somebody I loved and was surprised at the shock I felt, despite knowing it was coming.

This was like a nightclub.  The lights would flash and I could manage a few pictures... but ironically, this one was called "Feel Like the Kardashians"by Laila Azra.  Natalie LOVED it.  My bank account, unfortunately, does NOT feel like the Kardashians.

Every year, hundreds of artists submit their proposals to a committee who then picks about 30 in all.  They don't necessarily have to go into the water, but this butterfly display was wave-activated.  This was called Butterfly Effect (obvi) and was by Masamichi Shimada.  As the waves would hit the butterflies, they would flap their wings and their colors would change.

Alicia Eggert (an American) did this one - which is super sciencey... "All the Light You See is From the Past."  Which is true when you're talking about stars!

Nacht Tekening by Krijn de Koning was pretty cool.  Normally the bridges are illuminated by these light bulbs, but if you look closely, the light bulbs do not follow the contours of this bridge, known as the Skinny Bridge.  It's kind of a hot mess!

This was a rather unexpected work of art called, "Hiding in the Wolf's Lair" by the Republic of Amsterdam Radio and Nomad Tinker House.  This work was on the edge of the Amsterdam Zoo. Here you see three free-roaming wolves outside of (and on) a house where people are gathered in the attic, much like Anne Frank and others did during World War II.

In reality, war resistance fighters had left a series of poems in the roof tiles of these storage buildings.  The wolves would never win.

Natalie went BONKERS for this one.  All in Korean and done by the art studio EON SLD ("Be Warm"), this one is titled, "Remind Euljiro Freedom."

These signs show what a typical Korean street might look like in Euljiro, which is one of the oldest communities in Seoul.  The signs are typical from various years dating back to the 1950s.

"Surface Tension" was a work by Tom Biddulph and Barbara Ryan reflecting a car that was overtaken by flood waters. (What?  Natalie and I were loving this art festival!)  Floodplain nerds, unite!

I only included this picture of the NEMO Science Museum because the water looked SUPER COOL.  

What was really going on at the NEMO Science Museum was Gabriel Lester's work titled, "Nobody."  You can't see it here (and we didn't get a clear photo of it) but it was all projected from a box sitting out in the water in front of the museum. Inside of this glass box is a robot programmed to dance continuously, with lights projected on it so it will display on the museum.

When you need a hotel in Amsterdam, but you've just GOT to get your "coffee shop" on.

I remember taking this picture when I was there last year with Jen and Kristin.  I like this building a lot.  Rooflines, windows, and whatever those martini-glass/X designs are in between!

You know how we roll.  Sometimes, we just love a good Irish pub.  We found one not far from where the boat dropped us off after our tour called Molly Malone's.  And although it was Christmas Adam, the place was pretty crowded but we scored a table in the back.

Thank GOODNESS they are a holy bunch here.

Molly Malone's was really hopping two days before Christmas!

Alas, we had to get these kiddos back to the hotel and in bed.  On the way back to Amsterdam Centraal, we spotted some ubiquitous bicycles parked against some pretty windows.

This is where a lot of the boat tours go out of, and it was all lit up for the holidays.  Notice the roof lines of all of the buildings behind the harbor.

The buildings near our hotel were all lit up for Christmas.  This just really made me so happy.



Inside of our hostel, there was a kitchen, and many people were in there whipping up some Christmas Adam dinners.  I love being in hostels - people of all nationalities just seems to be so happy to be there.

We woke up on the morning of Christmas Eve to see this:  gray skies.  And for the record, this was about 9 am.  Sunrise is at 8:49 am here on Christmas Eve.  Sunset is at 4:30 pm.

Natalie knew that there was a record store that sold K-Pop albums just to the east of Amsterdam Centraal so we told her we would go there first thing in the morning.  On the way there, we passed by the Sea Palace Chinese restaurant, a 3 story floating restaurant!

We finally made it to FAME Megastore and Natalie found a bunch of stuff she was excited about.  Meanwhile, we found the Golden Years of Dutch Pop Music box sets!

After we finally drug Natalie OUT of the Fame Megastore, we finally got to stroll around the streets of Amsterdam.  Lots of bikes.  Lots of beer.  Lots of weed.

It's Amsterdam. This seems about right.

Our second destination was Dam Square, the heart of downtown Amsterdam.  Here are ALL of the Baileys in front of the Royal Palace Amsterdam.  ONE DAY, I am coming here and VISITING this palace.  My obsession with European royal families runs deep.

Dam Square is always bustling with people, especially those doing some last minute Christmas shopping.  My friend Jen can attest that there are also ALWAYS pigeons here.

Todd and our babies in front of the pretty, giant Christmas tree in Dam Square.  (Natalie - if you want KPop merch, then you have to carry it all day!)

Me, Natalie and Todd with our feet on the cobblestone of Dam Square.

The Royal Palace is King Wilhelm-Alexander's official reception palace.  It was originally a city hall that had it's groundbreaking in October of 1648, but was converted to a royal palace in the very early 1800s when Napoleon's brother Louis I was sent to rule as the King of Holland in 1806.  The royal family regained power in 1813, but this building wasn't converted to royal property until 1936.

AMS is a VERY busy airport and those planes often fly RIGHT over the city.

So. Many. Pigeons.  Amsterdam is to pigeons as Venice is to pigeons.

I just love the crooked buildings you find all over Amsterdam.  There's so much subsidence that many buildings had to be bolted together in order to prevent further tilt, or even collapse.  The ones that have the most problem with this are the ones built before 1925, when stricter building codes were implemented.

Bicycles and Christmas trees and damp streets in Amsterdam.

For our grand Christmas Eve lunch, we went to Haesje Claes Restaurant.  I just loved the ambiance of this restaurant.

I had the Stamppotten - a mashed potato dish (mine with onions and carrots) with big old meatball and various other pork meats.  It was OUTSTANDING.  And it was on my scratch off food map!



Going to the bathroom at the restaurant, you can see some examples of traditional Dutch dress.  You never know what you'll find in weird corners (or basement hallways) all throughout Europe!



After lunch, we decided to head down to the Christmas market at the Rijksmuseum.  Walking south, we passed this guy who was playing Christmas tunes on a trumpet while boating around the canals.

He was very good and put a smile on everyone's face, and he was fishing for some tips (see what I did there?) so we put a few Euro in his wooden shoe!

Goodbye, friend!  Merry Christmas!

Pretty canals of Amsterdam - you can see the tourist boats were still running, even on Christmas Eve!

So we happened upon this place that sold entirely foreign junk foods.  This was the American section.  We might have bought some maple Oreos ha ha.  Nothing in there was cheap - I think we paid 10 Euro for the Oreos.  There was even a whole section dedicated to Hostess products!



Dutch rooflines are my thing.



Fat cats of AMS.

I love, love, love this car!

Marc Chagall, on the other hand...  You can actually buy some of his original stuff here.  Not the famous stuff, of course, but some of his lesser known stuff.

Just a pretty street and canal as people shop for last minute Christmas gifts.

Smurf invasion!  You can find these all over various cities in Europe. So funny.



We finally made it down to the Rijksmuseum to visit the Ice Village to check out the market.



It wasn't too crowded when we got there, but we decided to hold off on skating today in favor of skating on Christmas Day.

There are lots of little stalls selling all kinds of goodies. It's obviously not as big as something like Nuremberg, but it's a really cute little Christmas market!  It's actually only the fifth year they've done this market, but it feels like it's been here forever.

Gotta stay warm somehow, right?  Time for the first glühwein of the day!

The kids got some hot chocolate and we went up on top of the replica of Amsterdam's Skinny Bridge that sits over the ice to check out the skaters.

It was starting to get a little more crowded!  You get a nice view of the Rijksmuseum from the miniature Skinny Bridge.

On the opposite side of the Rijksmuseum, they have a MASSIVE Christmas tree.  The Concertgebouw (Concert Hall) is the building way in the background (that kind of looks like it belongs on an American university campus) that was built in the late 1800s.

We had fun strolling around the Ice Village but alas, we had to hit up a happy hour because we were really cold hanging out outside.  

We wanted to head closer into the city to the Anne Frank house because that was our ultimate evening destination.  I liked the boat on the left here with all of it's greenery on top.  As the day got darker, you could see the pretty lights in the trees were more obvious.

I don't wish he was beer.  I'm glad he is who he is and I'm glad he will drink beer WITH me!

We stopped in at De Biertuin Prinsengracht for a happy hour.  It was wicked empty.

Except for these crazies.  We enjoyed our happy hour while following Santa on NORAD!  I think the kids kind of think I'm crazy, but I'm going to do this every year for the rest of their lives.  Mostly because I still get excited watching it, thinking about when I was a kid!

Meanwhile Natalie opened up her Monsta X album that she had bought earlier in the day (finally!) and she got a Minhyuk card!  Her dad seems very confused!

We still had some time to spare before our late Anne Frank ticket time.  So we strolled along the Prinsengracht where we could see the Westerkerk.  Work was started on this Dutch Protestant church in 1620 (hmmm, Pilgrims anyone?) and it's probably best known for being the spot where Rembrandt is buried, although they aren't exactly sure where his grave is.  It's also frequently mentioned in Anne Frank's diary as they could see the bell tower from the attic and could hear the familiar chimes of the bells calling people to church.  Also, in 1966, Princess Beatrix (later Queen Beatrix) married her husband Claus here.

I'll just leave this here and see if you can spot it.  The Dutch know what's up!

Christmas Eve in Amsterdam, and no, this isn't monochrome.

Europe's window displays are really funny.  You just have to slow your pace and look at all of them, because sometimes you get some real gems like this one.

Or this one. I almost bought my friend Sara a few things here, except they were already closed.

Crossing the courtyard of the Westerkerk, we spotted a cute statue of Anne Frank, who we were on our way to see (after a brief dinner stop.)

Grant: "Mommy, it's Christmas Eve, can I just have this crepe that is 3 times the size of my head?"  Sure why not.

Natalie: "Daddy, let me show you how to demolish a crepe."  Meanwhile, Todd and I had the best sandwiches I've had since the last time I was in Amsterdam.  I'm not even a sandwich person... and I've had the best sandwiches of my life here in Amsterdam!

You can take a quick and cheap tour of the Anne Frank house, but those were all sold out by the time we tried to get tickets (long before our trip.)  Instead, they offered us a guided tour which included a pre-tour discussion.  You can't take pictures in the actual Anne Frank house, but you can take them in the room where you learn the history of the house. Then they let you loose and you can tour the home on your own.  Grant and Natalie know all about Schultüte - which is a cone of treats that all children get when they start school in the first grade.  Inside, they might get crayons, pencils, books and maybe some sweets.  The picture was of Anne's first day of school in Amsterdam, where they gave her a Schultüte that she proudly displays here.  Other children got more horrific versions of the Schultüte.

Gunter Deming is a well known sculpture artist who has been installing these "stumbling blocks" in front of the homes or businesses of those who were deported and/or murdered by the Nazis during World War II.  I've seen many of his works over the years, but these are four that almost everyone would recognize.  "Here lived" the Frank family, with their birth year, the year they went into hiding, their deportation date, and the date they died - but only if they died at the hands of the Nazis.  Otto Frank, of course, lived and didn't pass away until 1980.

I hate that you can't take pictures inside of the Anne Frank house.  I feel like I can't properly tell a story without pictures.  Natalie, who has read the book before said, "It didn't look how I thought it would look when I read the book.  It was sad."  Grant said, "It was historical!" (Oh Grant....)

It was a long day, so the kids were excited to finally head back to the hotel.  Or they were all jacked up after crepes and with the promise of Christmas morning.



HE'S ON HIS WAY!  SANTA IS ON HIS WAY!



Part of me thinks this is the saddest Christmas Eve picture EVER.  Two cute kiddos spending their last Christmas in Europe sleeping in a bunk bed in a hostel in Amsterdam.  And then I thought that might be the biggest LBP ever. And this will definitely go down as one of our most memorable Christmas's of all time.  I think there will be many Christmas Eve's in the future when I think back to this one and wish I could just relive it all over again.



But don't worry... we still tried to keep the traditions.  We didn't have our usual 3-D book of the "Night Before Christmas" so we found it online, and Daddy ready it to them while we snuggled in bed, awaiting Santa's arrival. 

Stay tuned for part two of our adventures in Amsterdam!