First Full Day in Amsterdam

#Rick #Amsterday

First full day yesterday and we would have been hard pressed to have had a better day. Everyone was bursting with energy and excited about everything we were doing. If only a handful of days are as good as today, we will have had a successful trip.

First off, the apartment. While we knew the location wasn't ideal (too close to Center, close to tourist areas), it is really helping to make it clear we are somewhere different. We are in a four story, two bedroom house. We enter the house directly from the street. The first floor is only the entrance. The stairwells are the traditional narrow and steep Dutch stairwells, with a tight and terrifying 90 degree turn at the top. The second floor is the kitchen and a large living room that overlooks the street with a big wall of windows. The third floor is a large bathroom and a locked area. The fourth floor is two bedrooms nestled into the attic. It feels old and classic, and everyone is quite happy with it.

We were nervous when we arrived that the city was too busy for biking with the kids, but we showed yesterday that if we keep to the major bike routes the kids will be fine. Our only plan for the day was to walk down to Vondelpark and bike around for a while. The breakfast we stopped for on the way to the park had a few highlights:

1. We ate on a converted canal boat

2. Graham was almost hit by a bike for the first time. We talked this up as his real "welcome to Amsterdam" moment, which he really appreciated. It helped when we saw a couple of other tourists actually get hit by bikes, at slow speeds, later in the day

3. The Dutch pancakes the kids at were the size of medium pizzas

4. Delicious espresso

We picked up bikes near the entrance to Vondelpark and did a lap with stops to smell the roses and play at a playground. By that point we got adventurous and decided to ride over to the Zoo and Microbia (a Microbe Zoo?) which are in the same place quite close to our AirBNB. The ride took about 15min, and the kids did amazing. No issues with figuring out the strange traffic patterns or bike-only streetlights. The ride through Museum Plein was spectacular.

We didn't know what to expect from Microbia, as they bill it as the only Microbe Museum in the world, but it is a well-organized and thoughtful introduction to microbes, bacteria and viruses with lots of interactive exhibits to keep the kids happy. Emilie was maybe the most engaged. Turns out her love of cleanliness and an interest in bacteria are deeply intertwined.

The Zoo massively exceeded expectations. We were told it was "kind of small" and maybe that is true when compared to other national museums, but it was beautifully designed, felt innovative in their enclosure design, and it helped that the animals were very active on a Sunday afternoon. The kids will probably upload hundreds of photos if we ever give them time to sit and do it. The highlight was definitely witnessing a fight between an Ibex (a small mountain goat) and a bird (maybe a cormorant). We got to spend dinner making up stories about why the Cormorant was angry as to attempt to face down an Ibex. It was decided that the Cormorant felt deeply wronged, and their family was likely wronged or even killed by an Ibex sometime in their history.

We biked back to park to drop the bikes, and aside the time when I lead the family into an intersection and almost got them run over, the ride home was even smoother than the ride to the zoo.

We had a delicious dinner canal-side in the 9-streets area and missed staying on the west size of the city but realized the walk back to the apartment is only 10min, so I should probably stop complaining about our location. Everyone agrees that the Dutch fries are amazing, while the kids are still out on fries with mayonnaise. They are getting better about trying the mayonnaise though, and it gives us a chance to re-enforce the need to try new things. The food took a while to get served, but it seems like the way the restaurant attempted to deal with the situation was the quadruple the number of mussels they served me. I don't think I've ever eaten so may.

By the time dinner wrapped up the gelato stores were closed as they shut down at 8pm on Sunday. We were out exploring for almost 12hrs, and with jet lag, it was pretty much straight to bed.

It's currently 2:30am and the melatonin I took when starting to write feels like its kicking in, so I'm going to try to go back to bed. I seem to be the only one with jet lag issues, which is great as at minimum I can power through the days with excessive amounts of espresso.

Will try to add photos later. Too tired to troubleshoot technical problems.