Day 6: Delft

Being still tired from our trip, Amanda's writing has been noticeably more sloppy than usual. You will also notice that my writing will have incorrect grammar and spellings, but that is more normal.

It is the sixth day of our trip, and Amanda attended her ISBI conference downtown all day. We are about a mile and half away from the convention center, so we tried to minimize the amount of trips back and forth. The plan was for us to meet her at the conference center at lunch (meaning lunch for Seth) and we meet again at the end of the day. We took breakfast together downstairs and off Amanda left for the conference in the morning.

Originally I planned that I would take the kids down to the park by Euromast, find some local fritter for all of us to eat for lunch, and meet up Amanda at the conference center. However, immediately after our breakfast, Seth decided it was his fuss/nap time, and went on to take a 2 and half hour nap in the bedroom upstairs. I'd hoped that he would wake up after 45min to an hour, but Andrew ended up watching many of his favorite cartoon shows like Dora, Thomas the tank engine, The claymation car show, Wanderpets and Ni-hao (or whatever it's called with a Chinese girl, and a tiger and a monkey and a koala). By the time he woke up we only had 40 min to meet up with Amanda.

Amanda said it's about 20 min walk but I'm sure it's quite a bit longer with a stroller in a bumpy sandy road. I am so tired of the sand. Our meeting (sand and I) didn't go so hot as you recall that Andrew busted his lip and nose from it our first day in Amsterdam. As you know, Netherlands as we know now were mostly under the ocean, soils are non-existent unless it was intentionally prepared. If you pay close attention, there are sands everywhere. This is especially evident when there is a construction around and there are sand piles and spills everywhere.

Anyway, we got to the convention center and met up with Amanda. We couldn't find any convenient kid-friendly place to eat, so we grabbed some junk chinese food and ate at the park. Amanda went back to the conference, while Andrew wanted to stay in a park and play. There was a small animal farm attached to this park (in a middle of the city) so Andrew and Seth both had a blast.





I wanted to leave sooner than later because we had a trip planned to Delft, but Andrew would (and to some extent Seth also) have nothing with it. We ended up staying there until shortly after 3 and I was supposed to meet Amanda at 6 again. So swiftly we strolled to the Central station, bought tickets to Delft for that day, to Den Haag for Saturday and to Schipol airport for Sunday (which we later returned for a refund). Rotterdam station is a pain because there are no elevators. So I am not sure what they do for those that are wheelchair bound. I suppose, to Dutch in Rotterdam, if one cannot ride a bike then s/he shouldn't be outside to begin with. This is evident with how the city is structured throughout.

Delft is famous for Delftwares and that's what I mostly wanted to see. Andrew quickly fell asleep shortly after we left the park (conveniently) and Seth on the train. I walked about a mile or so to the Royal Delft Porcelain Factory, where I was too late to be admitted for the tour, but since I figured going in there with kids were going to be problematic anyway, I did not mind. We ended up surveying the Delftware souvenir shop, which was all I wanted to do anyway. We bought some souvenirs for ourselves, our neighbor downstairs who watched our cat as well as to Kiyo and Hiroko who brought toys for Andrew ans Seth to Amsterdam (we will ship it one day). Some Delftwares were in the price range of tens of thousands of Euros.



We strolled back through downtown, walked by a market that had just closed half hour before, and rode a train back to Rotterdam to meet up with Amanda. Delft was a really nice town. If I ever went back to Netherlands for a conference, I would stay in either Delft or Den Haag.



After meeting with Amanda we again walked back to our hotel. We sat down at Turkish Pizza place to order an Italian pizza for dinner. There are tones of Turkish and Chinese/Indonesian restaurants there but other than those and pubs, we didn't really see many other places to eat. Dutch eat junk foods.

Day 5: Haarlem & Rotterdam

After a lot of confusion what time it was (and yes, we did this entire trip without a time keeping device of any kind), we ended up leaving the apartment much earlier than expected, and figured we had plenty of time to stop in Haarlem on the way to Rotterdam. After a short train ride, we had a bit of anxiety trying to shove all our luggage into a small locker and hope that our credit card would work for payment and that we would be able to later retrieve the luggage. And we were off.

Of course, as is everything in Europe on our vacation, the train station was having a massive amount of construction, but we finally found our way down to the center of town. I had basically one place I wanted to stop - Corrie Ten Boom's house - but the English-speaking tour wasn't for a good hour. So, we wandered to the main square. It would have been quite picturesque ... if there hadn't been a huge fair being set up taking over the entire square. We munched on some food and read the guidebook and decided to tour the church.

The church was quite old and interesting, but the best part was the organ which someone played sporadically the entire time we were there. The bathroom was also a highlight - and free. Andrew and Seth were not terribly excited about the church, but I figured we would have time to stop off and get a few chicken nuggets at the McDonald we spied on the way in (bribe for Andrew) and feed Seth so they would both be well behaved for an hour-long tour in a very small house.









Alas, we had a grand 5 minutes to rush to the tour. The little house was packed with a good 25 people at least in the tiny Ten Boom living room. Andrew was a bit antsy, but Seth was practically hysterical, at which point there were 50 eyes on me and no where to go. The tour was very nice. The tour guide told us about Corrie Ten Boom and her family; I especially liked how it was unabashedly Christian and discussed often how God would be there for us no matter how bad the circumstances. Seeing the hiding place itself was very interesting, too. Andrew and Katsu even tried hiding inside. I would highly recommend the book, The Hiding Place, for those who haven't read it.







We rewarded (bribed?) Andrew at McDonalds afterwards, Seth happily ate and fell asleep, and after getting sandwiches at our favorite grocery store, we took the train to Rotterdam.

By this time, I had to get to my conference NOW and there just wasn't time for me to go to our new hotel, 20 minute walk away, and check-in and come back. I couldn't quite remember what the name of the conference center was, but luckily, I found it on the map, I checked in and fed Seth, kept one of the large rolling bags, and sent Katsu off on his way with the rest of the bags and both kids with plans to meet up at 6 when I was done.

I am not sure exactly how Katsu made it there by himself. Probably 30 minute walk for him. There is a huge construction right by the hotel and sand everywhere and huge holes just next to the sidewalk. We stayed at a family-run hotel. They were nice, but impossible to get a hold of and around at random times. They served a nice breakfast every day and gave the kids toys to play with. They even let us do our laundry there, too. But they didn't really get everything sometimes and were not helpful in the least when it came to us being stranded in Europe. But at least they were cheap and we were able to stay there for a whole week until we finally flew out.

Our room was up four flights of small steep stairs. Somehow Katsu managed most of the luggage and the kids up. After a rest, they went walking around Delftshaven - the area around our hotel and the only historical region of Rotterdam as everything else was destroyed during bombing in WWII. They say the original church the Pilgrims sailed from, though I don't think we got any pictures of it.

Overall, the kids really enjoyed being with Katsu. Andrew found every playground around and loved playing at them. They got to watch TV and even see the Dutch version of Sesame Street - Andrew did not think it was the same.

Day 4: Keukenhof

We said our goodbyes to Kiyo, Hiroko, and baby and headed off to the train station. One train ride to the airport and then a bus from the airport - should be simple enough. Ha. We actually wanted to get a bus from Haarlem but the ticket window said that wasn't possible (I still don't believe it). Then, at the airport, we couldn't figure out how to buy a train ticket. No where did it explain it, there was no where any where near the bus station and when Katsu finally found them, at that point, we had already missed a bus or two and had to wait a good 30 minutes for the next one. Just as it pulled up, a whole group of old ladies came and cut in the front of the line and pushed everyone away. We did finally get on the bus. The boys were tolerable ... and then we finally made it to Keukenhof, a good 2 hours after we arrived at the Amsterdam train station.

Keukenhof is the world's largest garden. Seven million flowers are planted there each year - tulips are the big one, but all kinds of flowers. When we finally arrived, I was a little disappointed because all of the near beds had no tulips blooming yet. It was a wet/cold spring in Europe and the tulips were coming up later, much later than St Louis for sure. But it was beautiful. The flowers were very beautiful. The fields of flowers leading up to Keukenhof were beautiful. Andrew had fun at the playground and at the petting zoo (except a turkey seemed to think that our stroller was a competing turkey and kept attacking it). We had lots of yummy snacks like ice cream and waffles. So delicious.

And here are way too many lovely and gorgeous photos. It's a ton, but I can't resist.

Day 3: More Amsterdam

We had originally planned on all going to Keukenhof, but Kiyo and co passed on that (probably a good idea as you'll see in Day 4). So, we decided to go explore Amsterdam further. We walked back down to the Museum area. Seth and I went to go see the Rijksmuseum Van Gogh, while everyone else went to the Albert Cuypmarket. Seth was pretty fussy. We saw about half the museum together before I tried to feed him on the floor of the handicapped bathroom (great times!) and then we saw the second half. Luckily, the museum wasn't too big, so I got to see it adequately. I always think Starry Night or the pictures of sunflowers when I think Van Gogh, but I liked some of his earlier works of peasants. He reminded me a lot of Picasso in that he was so skilled in painting in many styles, but had such a unique beautiful style of his own painting - and to think he only painted for 10 years!

The market was a little disappointing for the others. Mostly clothes, but they did get some food - some herring for Katsu and Katsu brought home some chocolate bark with cranberries for me. They ran into a pretty famous chocolate seller who also sells chocolate genitalia - luckily, they didn't bring any of that back for me. Good thing the kids are too young to notice most things!

We met up in the park by the museum and Andrew played in the playground and on the large I Amsterdam sign. Then, we split up - Kiyo & co going back home the same way we came and our family going home via the other side of the city, so we can see more of the city (we just couldn't stand the idea of walking back along the canal for the 4th time!).







On the way back, we saw Rembrandtplein, Rembrandt's house, the flower market (not really floating on a canal, so not that interesting ... plus, with no patio and no yard, we have no where to really plant flowers), the original Heineken factory, and then through the old city center. I went into Our Lord of the Attic museum. Basically, it used to be illegal to be Catholic, but you could make a church in your attic and they pretty much would ignore that. So, this was a full little church up in the attic of a couple canal houses. I thought it was fascinating. They are in the middle of restoring it, so there wasn't a lot to see, but I still thought it was really cool. Seth was not too interested. Andrew and Katsu got fried chicken while I was in the museum.






We just hung out for the rest of the evening, grabbing ice cream and having fun. Andrew even played in a bounce house thing at the park that evening - not sure why it was there, but it was still fun.