Wandering Rascals: April 2014

So many bikes!

Over the years we’ve made a fair number of Dutch friends… we seem to always like the Dutchies who enter our lives, so we were particularly excited to travel to Holland last weekend. We arrived in Amsterdam late at night (after driving through Parisian traffic which I hope to never to again), and were immediately shocked at the number of bicycles parked everywhere. We’ve heard that Amsterdam is very biker-friendly, but we really weren’t prepared to see hundreds of bikes lining the streets everywhere we went.

With Michael and Libby

On Saturday we met up with our friends from the States, Michael and Libby, who were in Europe on vacation. This was a fun little rendez-vous since it was our wedding 5 years ago to the weekend that started their tradition of an annual international trip! We went to the Van Gogh museum, which we loved, our favorite paintings we hadn’t seen before were:

De Aardappeleters, 1885

Skull with Burning Cigarette, 1885-1886

After the museum we walked around the canals, and eventually made our way back to Michael and Libby’s hotel where we drank Libby’s favorite cocktail (and maybe my new favorite as well), the French 75.

Lilah loved these two!

French 75's - aren't they pretty!

This gin, lemon, sugar, and champagne delight was just what we needed before eating some amazing Thai food (probably the best we’ve had since Thailand), and walking through the Red Light District. I am happy to report that Lilah slept the whole way through the red light district, as I felt like a pretty bad mom bringing my 7-month-old to see prostitutes and sex shops. The red light district was packed with tourists, and is pretty much exactly what we expected: girls in lingerie standing in lit up red-lined doors along several blocks. Behind the girls you can see into a small room with a bed. I had a hard time just staring at these girls, I wanted to open a few of the doors and talk to the girls to learn their stories, or to save them or something. On our walk back from the red light district we encountered the Stille Omgang, a catholic silent procession for self-reflection and forgiveness for one’s sins... two very different worlds.

Red Light District

Another bachelor party! This time a priest and monks in the red light district.

On Sunday we met up with our friend Aniko, who we met while we were all living in Riverside. We hadn’t seen her for about 3 years, so it was a treat to spend the day with her and her daughter Merel.

With Aniko and Merel

Aniko showed us around Amsterdam, we went to lunch at a great café where Chris ordered some kind of raw beef sandwich (he claims it was delicious), we walked around the Nine Streets, all through the canals, and were going to see the Anne Frank House, but it was closed because Obama was in Amsterdam that day and was going there. There was a big nuclear energy convention starting the following week, so many presidents were in Amsterdam – we even saw a protest against the Chinese President.