(Written August 3)
Our neighbor, Colette, came about noon on May 22 to take us to the airport. We were not quite ready, but we were really close. We were good on our end, but apparently we made Colette a little late for an appointment, so we had a very crazy ride to the airport!
(Written on May 23)
We met Leta at the Salt Lake Airport, and we all flew to Amsterdam—overnight! We were super excited to finally be going.
Gabe looked at Brian and said, “Dad, is this actually happening?!” and then showing his mind blown by the fact that we were finally doing it.
The dinner served on the flight was good, and everything went according to plan until nobody slept well. Like everyone slept even worse than anticipated. Maybe in 1/2 hour increments at best. Probably the max sleep received was 3 hours. Maybe.
We arrived exhausted [at 10 a.m. Amsterdam time on May 23], but once we made it through customs, got our bags, and made it on the train to Amsterdam Central Station, the excitement breathed new life into us.
We figured out how to leave the giant station and find a place to lock up our luggage for the day.
(Devri, Michael, Rachel, and Gabe accidentally rode first class when we paid for a 2nd class ticket on our train from the airport to the city. Oops.)
We wandered around, first going to find the giant clogs and Dam Square,
then heading to Oude Kerk, the oldest building in Amsterdam, 
and then we accidentally wandered into the Red Light district, and ended up eating lunch there because people were losing their minds! We found a delicious place that made fresh stroop waffles, got a Nutella crepe, bubble waffles, and mini Dutch Pancakes. To counter the sweet, we also got some loaded fries (with Doner chicken) and a Doner Wrap. We all shared everything so we could try everything, and the sweet stuff was divine! The fresh strawberries really made them extra amazing.
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| Leta and Devri across the street getting doner fries while Brian and the kids got the sweet stuff. |
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| It was really good. Rachel's face proves it. |
After lunch, we wandered toward the Anne Frank House.
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| The alley ways were small and beautiful, so we tried to capture some of them. |
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| Lick it! |
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| We loved Michael and Rachel just hanging out all the time and chatting. |
We were early, and it was cold. We sat on a bench outside trying to figure out what we wanted to do as we were 2 hours early and super tired. We were next to one of the canals, and the wind was really brisk. Nearby was a Tulip Museum. It was inexpensive to go inside, was a short walk, and would get us out of the weather. Initially, Michael said, “No, I don’t want to do that” until I emphasized “it will be warmer in there.” He ended up taking full advantage of the many benches and chairs to take little cat naps that refreshed his spirits (and ours). Brian had to practically shake him awake when we were leaving since he wasn’t responding at all and was truly out cold.
[The Tulip Museum] was one of my favorite [parts] of the day, and we learned a lot of interesting things about tulips, like how at one point in Holland, a tulip bulb was worth more than a townhouse. Then the market crashed, and a lot of artists poked fun at all the people who had been so obsessed with tulips during the Tulipmania, as they called it. Eventually, the market corrected. Holland is the biggest tulip bulb producer in the world. Oh, and tulips aren’t actually native to Holland-they were discovered in the Himalayas. We learned some tips for growing our own tulips, and we managed to leave Amsterdam without any tulip bulbs (or other souvenirs besides our memories).
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| Did we mention we were tired? |
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| Exhibit A: Michael out cold. |
After taking our time in the Tulip Museum, we headed back to the Anne Frank House. It was so incredible being in the building. We’d watched “A Small Light” leading up to our visit, Rachel and Gabe checked out library books about Anne Frank, and Rachel did her big biographical report for school on Anne Frank. We got to stand in the offices of those who helped hide them, see the bookcase that hid the secret annex, go through the secret annex, and then get to look at Anne Frank’s actual diary and some of her notebooks. It was amazing, heart wrenching, and hopeful all at the same time. They gave us audio guides for the tour, and you could pick to have the story told (as if) by Anne, or through the broader world lens. Rachel, Gabe, and Mom picked the Anne Lens, and the rest of us picked the world lens. I wish I could have heard both. Rachel and I were the last of our group to finish, and we took our time with it. I had tears fill my eyes multiple times. 6 million sweet, precious souls were mindlessly lost because of Hitler’s hatred of Jews. It is horrible. What a difficult 2 years those eight people had hiding out, and what a terrible and tragic ending!
After the Anne Frank house, we wandered back to the Central Station, stopping to get burgers on the way (Side note—it is crazy how many fry places there are in Amsterdam. And pizza, and Doner type foods, but especially fries. I learned that fries might have actually been invented in Belgium, so I suppose it makes sense.)
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| You may wonder why Brian is making this face. But if you look carefully at the building behind them, you might see it's a little tipsy. This was one of the worst ones we saw. |
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| Brian single handedly saving us all from certain doom. |
When we were a block away from the locker pickup, a bird pooped and hit mom and I (YUCK!), but I decided to take it as a sign that we will now have good luck on this trip. (Brian's note: we did. Thank you bird. Thank you Devri and Leta for your sacrifice.)
It was a little funky, but we were all just so happy to be going to bed after our exhausting day!
We asked these questions on the train from Amsterdam to Belgium:
Best foodBrian: airline breakfast (says apologetically) and the Dutch mini pancakes/strawberriesLeta: loaded fries at lunch and hazelnut crepeDevri: Dutch mini pancakesRachel: Stroop waffles and bubble waffleMichael: Airplane foodGabe: hazelnut crepeFavorite/bestBrian: Anne Frank HouseDevri: Anne Frank House and seeing all the amazing architectureLeta: Anne Frank and the architecture—it was just beautiful. I liked Amsterdam.Michael: Anne Frank House (honorable mention to the Tulip Museum for having benches he could nap on)Rachel: Anne Frank House and finally getting off that plane!Gabe: Nutella Crepe, Anne Frank House was secondWorstBrian: Right before the Tulip Museum when it was really cold and everyone was so tiredDevri: Right before we went through customs when my tiredness took over and all the weed and cigarette smoke everywhere.Leta: Lack of sleep, not being able to pronounce falafel.Michael: When we were just sitting on the bench in the coldRachel: That I was still on that plane in the morningGabe: “You guys making me walk everywhere and wouldn’t let me do any screens all day” (He said at the end of the day after getting bad sleep on the overnight flight)
Post trip observations about Amsterdam:
The cigarette and weed (marijuana) smoke was everywhere, despite signs saying it was forbidden to smoke weed. We learned pretty quickly to watch out for all the bicyclists--we almost got hit by them multiple times! It's incredibly easy to walk into the Red Light District--we did it twice during our short day there! The canals are beautiful, but they make the city colder. I would love to visit again when I'm well rested and see some of the other museums. The kids, on the other hand, weren't really impressed, but we think that's because we walked and walked after getting no sleep. We did plan this on purpose; we needed to adjust to the new time zone as quickly as possible so we could enjoy all the things we were seeing in the coming weeks, but this made our day in Amsterdam really tough. The kids also hated the smell (who doesn't!), and if we go back, we want to visit the mills outside of Amsterdam, do a canal cruise, and find some more interactive activities.
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