My mom’s birthday today, and while I won’t announce her age, it is a very round number.

Friday morning we started off with a tiny snack at home for breakfast and then headed to a pancake house for the real good stuff to start our day. We went to a little place called Sara’s Pancake House which was recommended by the guide book, but as I look around at reviews it got slammed online. For most of our meal only one person was working the restaurant, cooking, taking orders and everything. She was brisk and a bit gruff but we got our food and it was very good. I’ve been trying to make these kinds of pancakes at home (they’re not the small puffy ones but more like crepes, but not quite crepes) if anyone’s got a good authentic recipe.

After breakfast we meandered our way over to the houseboat museum. Amsterdam has around 3000 houseboats, all of them attached up for electricity, some of them can move, some are stationary. They require huge maintenance costs but you are right in the middle of things for sure! We considered renting one and then decided that Celia might walk off the edge as we got in and out too easily and just didn’t need that kind of stress. On our way over, we spied this little boat though!

We then went into the houseboat museum, which is just a houseboat with some information, taking turns with Josie as Celia had fallen asleep. It was interesting to get a peek inside, but quick. It’s a small space, I’m not really sure of the appeal.

After the houseboat museum we tried to buy stamps for our many postcards. We could not find a post office to save our life so we went with our normal mode of helpless tourist, and just asked other people randomly on the street. We were told about stores up there and around the corner, but couldn’t find them, and every store we went into asking for stamps just said ‘no’ and looked at us like we were annoying for not buying something they sold.

After the houseboat we went back to centraal station and caught a bus out to NEMO, the kids science museum of Amsterdam. I think it was raining and so we have no pictures but the outside is interesting, it looks like a ship. And if you’re willing to walk up many flights of stairs it has an amazing roof deck that you can go to for free and see the city. We went inside and explored the place all over. Lots of things to touch and explore, although since it was a science museum it was a bit over Josie’s head and definitely over Celia’s. They enjoyed getting to touch things and move things around a lot. We also watched a short performance (in Dutch) that was one huge domino knockdown, except using lots of things other than dominoes. So that translated well even without any english. It was crazy busy though so we had to keep track of the girls as they whizzed around.

I think the favorite part was a pretend ball packing factory. It had stations with computers that gave a list of balls that needed to be sent down a chute in a particular order and it gave you a scale and size measuring devices. Balls just dropped down randomly for you to find the right one. Celia loved picking up the balls and shoving them in the chute, haphazardly. Josie sort got the idea sometimes, but mostly just liked moving them around and exploring too. Josie also worked with some other kids to raise an elevator by pushing a turnstyle around and around and around and around some more. The one big kid in the elevator with Josie and another boy had to do most of the work! It was all Josie could do to keep walking around in that circle sometimes. I think the museum is really well done and would be fantastic for kids more like 8-12, those who can read and start to understand some more of the science.

After the NEMO we went back to Leidseplein after walking to Centraal Station and grabbed a nice Thai dinner off the main square. The kids were doing really well at eating in restaurants at this point and trying new foods. After dinner we went back to the main square and while we were just looking around some guys set up a big square of rope and started a whole big breakdancing routine. With our hands firmly on our wallets, we watched some very talented guys do spins, dances and gymnastics to music. They were great and we gladly gave them some money at the end. After dinner though our days are pretty much over so with that great entertainment to end our day on, we went home and put the girls to bed.

Sorry Mio, sitting in the box doesn’t teach you how to read, you have to play the game.

My favorites from yesterday. I actually tried to use it indoors, while in the same room.

Our apartment was near Vondel Park, quite on purpose, which is the largest green space in Amsterdam I believe. It is a beautiful place with multiple playgrounds, lovely lakes, some tulips and lots of cyclists, walkers, and children. We went first thing in the morning to give the girls some nice time to run around, explore and for me to take some pictures. It happened to be a holiday I believe and so a lot of locals were actually out at the park with their kids once we had been there a while. The first playground we came to had another fun big circular swing the girls liked as well as other swings that had seats for three across a straight bar. One thing I noticed about their play structures is that they accommodated different numbers of children well, from the see-saw that could fit 6 or more, or just work with two to the igloo’s of difference sizes and group swings.

I also loved how their play structures made it difficult to get to the higher parts of the structure. I think it frustrated Josie at times,  but it kept Celia safely closer to the ground. Although now a few months later I wonder what she would be able to climb and get in trouble currently. We played (with plastic cups and spoons we kept in the bag for such emergencies) in the sand and in the structures before we decided to walk on and see more of the park. They had glorious open spaces of greenery, bridges, flowers and water. I had non-cooperative children and only managed a few shots in the gorgeous locations. They were done before I even started sadly.

Notice how Jordi is wearing a fleece winter hat, and Josie and I don’t have our coats zipped? It really wasn’t THAT cold, maybe in the 50’s. Here I go chopping our feet off again in pictures.

Eventually I tricked the girls into sitting still by pointing out this cool tree stump, chair thing.

And finally I got nothing but glares when I tried to get them to sit on the bridge over the water. They stared at the dogs walking past and anything but to avoid looking at my camera while I had them nicely framed by the trees and such.

Speaking of trees, we asked random people walking around and they said we had to go to the playground that was IN the trees and so we followed the trail around to find it. It was this awesome climbing structure plus climbing ropes across multiple trees way up about 30 feet in the air. Once Josie figured out how to get up there she was thrilled and walked all the way to the end and back. I saw other parents up there in these enclosed spaces with their toddlers and kept me and my toddler firmly on the ground.

I took Celia instead into some dark areas to try to get a good silhouette.

We went home for lunch and nap. Then in the afternoon we decided to finish our walking tour from Central Station through Dam Square to Leidseplein. We really enjoy the Rick Steeves books for their detailed walking tours so we could start and stop as we pleased as well as learn something and notice the details on the trip.

One of the things you’ll notice in Amsterdam are the hooks at the top of all the buildings, these are so they can pull furniture and goods up to the top with a pulley instead of trying to bring it up narrow inside staircases. Taxes were levied on houses by how wide they were, so most of the houses were very narrow and tall, only the rich had wide houses.

On our way through the city we stopped at Dam Square. And I still have a teenager sense of humor as I had to keep myself from laughing every time I said to my family, dam square. There they had lots of people dressed up in silly, famous or scary costumes such as an angel, the easter bunny, darth vader and batman. Josie opted for the silver angel.

This walk represents the ‘parents time’ of the day, meaning the kids were along for the stroll and we just tried to enjoy ourselves and learn something as we went. We likely stopped for ice cream or french fries on the way, as the kids always wanted food. We went through main tourist areas and shopping as well as into the flower market where we tried to buy some bulbs to bring home, but apparently it was the wrong season for that. We bought some more fresh flowers for our apartment though which were gorgeous purple tulips.

From there, we’re not sure what we did but I’m sure it involved more eating.

Wednesday was our first full day in Amsterdam. First thing in the morning I headed out to try to find a bakery to get some food at, but the one right near us was closed so I walked down the road a little until I smelled something yummy and then followed my nose to a french bakery and picked up some yummy morning treats. After that we headed out to the Van Gogh museum at museumplein. When we got there we were pleasantly surprised to see the Iamsterdam sign that you see in the commercials. Other tourists were standing around in the way though making any particularly fantastic photographs untenable.

That’s Jordi, Josie and Celia in front of the letter ‘S’. We had a hot chocolate from a little shop and a snack while outside.

Before heading into the museum though we took advantage of a tip we got from our guidebook. We went to the gift shop and let Josie pick out three postcards with artwork on them. One of the one she picked was this one:

We didn’t want to interrupt her interpretation of art, so we just went with it, but really? Once I got Celia to fall asleep finally on my back, we went inside the museum (with our tickets already purchased) and got Josie a kids audio guide. So between the postcards and looking for the butterflies that signified that the audio guide had some info, Josie was pretty well engaged. We enjoyed looking around the museum and seeing the change in his work and hearing the stories of the troubled man. Celia woke up and that ended our trip around the museum pretty quickly. We headed down to the cafe for lunch and managed to find some tasty treats. I did manage to offend the chef apparently though by asking for plain pasta for the kids, they went and did something entirely different from what was offered rather than just supply some pasta without the tomato sauce! Understanding the view points of different cultures can be tough sometimes.

After lunch and the museum we headed back outside to the plaza and went to the small play area for kids. They had a cool climbing structure that was just a bunch of telephone poles stacked up on top of one another, culminating with a slide from the top down to the ground. Neither one of our kids could really climb up it, instead climbing up the slide and then sliding back down. I thought it was pretty cool, the other kids seemed to manage but it was still a good challenge. They also had a big circular swing that the girls loved.

After playing around for a while and Jordi having another snack we decided to get some genuine french fries on the street and walked ourselves over to Leidseplein, the main square of Amsterdam, following our guidebook along the way. We got some yummy waffles covered in chocolate, belgian style this time. Then further down the street we found a shop that sells pretty much only french fries. We got some, I made them pose for a picture before eating the mayonnaise covered joy and we enjoyed them next to the canals.

And now the problem with writing about our trip more than two months later, I don’t have vivid details anymore. I believe we then caught a tram back to our neighborhood and then got some Indonesian takeout for dinner which was yummy and highly recommended by our upstairs neighbor.

Clearly we are the world’s worst parents as I took this picture directly after driving my children to another state to go to an amusement park, take them on rides, feed them ice cream and have the nerve to ask for one picture in front of the pretty flowers. Celia is actually frowning, I don’t think I’ve ever caught this expression before. This was the best photo of the set, she scowled for all of them.

Today I got a new lens for my camera, 85mm. I think it will have a short learning curve and my models weren’t terribly cooperative today, but I’m excited to have a new focal length to try out (for the non-photography people, this lens is much more zoomed in than my other one so I can stalk my prey, I mean subjects, better from afar). I’m happy to not have to get so close to them to get more close-up photos, I think it’s more comfortable, except when they run towards me and I can’t take any pictures at all anymore that close!

Hmm looks like I should practice composing my images with the subject on the left side sometimes.