We switched to a much slower :( train in Brussells. Only 2.5 more hours for a total of 5 hours from London to Amsterdam.
Nat catching a ride through the train station.
Our first morning we hit a market. My maiden name is Snell and in Dutch and German 'snel' means fast. This sign is advertising meaning 'fast bicycle repairs'...I think!
The city is beautiful. Canals everywhere. It was much smaller and therefore easier to navigate and travel through. Most everyone spoke English and were very friendly.
EVERYONE rides bikes! There are separate bike lanes and massive amounts of bike racks. I guess this is what I'd be driving with little ones, I so can't wait to have my van back!!
Amsterdam is known for many things :) and one of those is it's flowers. This is part of the Flower Market. They sold lots of live flowers, but mostly bulbs and seeds for every type of flower imaginable. This ceiling is dried flowers.
The girls tried on the wooden shoes and bought tiny ones as souviners.
The most thoughtful dad bought 2 of his ladies roses.
Picturesque canal...
Picturesque street....but wait....what's that grey thing....in the middle of the street?
Of course....where else would you put a urinal?!
Here's a typical street. The center lane is for cars and then the two outer lanes are for bikes. Sometimes there is a tram lane running down the center of the car lane. When you cross the street you have to look both left and right a bunch! (Kinda funny- in London the Tube tracks are electrified and we've talked to the girls a lot about never falling onto or touching the tracks. After walking around Amsterdam for a day Valla commented how hard it was to not touch the tracks here. The tracks aren't electrified in Amsterdam, poor thing was terrified of electrocuting herself!)
Waiting outside the Anne Frank house....such enthusiasm.
No photos were allowed inside, but you can imagine how sad it was. The part that really got to me was seeing the spot on the wall where Anne and her sister's heights were measured and marked. We do that with our kids... they were a family just like us.... I can't imagine.
One of the main reasons we chose Amsterdam was to see the beautiful tulips. We traveled out of the city to the Keukenhof Gardens. It's an amazing walk through garden with all types of flowers and vegetation. Unfortunately a lot of the flowers weren't quite showing their stuff yet. Still a beautiful and great day, but no fields of bloomed tulips, instead lots of green buds and dirt. If you visit, go in late April!
Here's a big music box thing that was playing classical music then all of the sudden broke out with....Not exactly a "Rainbow of Colors" yet!
Can you hear me holding my breath as N leaps across these by herself??!
The indoor greenhouse had LOTS of blooms...
Zip line fun!
Yummy warm waffles with whipped cream and chocolate.
We shopped at the local grocery store near our hotel. It was similar to US stores, but of course had some unusual items. Carrot balls anyone?!
Chocolate sprinkles were BIG here. At our hotel breakfast buffet, they had the usual small packets of jam but along side those were boxes of chocolate sprinkles. Apparently you put them on bread. We of course just dumped them in our hands and ate them.
Not Cool Ranch...but Cool American!
Bag of pancakes...
Amsterdam Natalieisms-- We were talking about the Dutch language and N asked, "How do you say 'baby' in Amsterdam speakish?"
- We're walking around the formal gardens in Holland and deciding whether to make a stop at the bathroom because we're not sure when we'll find the next one. She points to the formal pond and says, "We can always pee in the lake."
- We were eating breakfast in the nicer hotel breakfast room which was fairly full. N announces pretty loudly, "If you smell something stinky... it's me...I farted."
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