Monday, August 11th, we woke up and we headed off for Holland...Amsterdam in particular. We were only about a 2 hour drive away, and since we were so close Kevin and I felt like we should definitely go and see it.
We stayed at a place called Hotel Sander it cost €72 + €27 for city tax. Split between the 2 couples it was not bad at all-it was a quad room. We got into Amsterdam around 1pm. We checked into our hotel, had a glass of wine, and headed off to get some lunch.
Stefanie and Rob at lunch.
Kevin and I had sandwiches. One with chicken, bacon, lettuce, tomato. One with roast beef, red onion, spicy sauce, and melted cheese- it was the best! And we had a Heineken with lunch.
After lunch we walked through a park and up to tulip island. Holland is known for tulips- which is my favorite flower!
We walked through the park to a bicycle rental shop and rented 4 bikes. The bikes were too big for me so I had to get a children's bike...it was just the right size for me! :) here's a picture of my bike next to Kevin's bike.
We biked through the city, which was a great way to see everything. The city was beautiful! Amsterdam is the city of bikes, and it was actually really scary because people just flew around you and the streets are so small.
Central station:
We wanted to go into the Anne Frank house but the line was extremely long and we had seen pictures online so we didn't feel it was worth waiting half the day for it.
The only other thing we wanted to do but didn't have time for was a tour of the canals.
It eventually started to rain really hard so we stopped into a pub and had a few drinks. Kevin and I had gluevine which is red wine, with cloves, cinnamon, and brandy. It is served warm and it's so good...my dad makes it at Christmas. It smells like Christmas in a cup.
This is how Rob writes USA :)
Next we stopped and had Nutella crepes which were delicious!!
Then we headed back to our hotel room on our bikes and it started to POUR rain on us. So we stopped under a doorway for shelter until the rain stopped...this happened about 5-6 different times. It was such a relief to get back to our hotel.
We checked out this morning (Tuesday, August 12th), returned our bikes, had bagels with chive and onion cream cheese and coffee, and headed back to Belgium.
We got to see our friend Bill who we were supposed to spend some time with here but he fell off a ladder and broke his femur last week :( he's stuck at home for 8 weeks while he heals. It was great to see him! His wife Hilda served us coffee and Belgian pie. It was custard, cherries, whip cream, white chocolate shavings in a think pie crust. It was delicious!
Bill's house- which is beautiful inside and out! There back yard was paradise...with hydrangeas growing everywhere :)
Then we went to go see Bill's daughter Hannah June and her boyfriend Koen (pronounced coon). She cooked a typical Belgian dinner for us, it's called Stoofvlees (stow-flays). It's like beef stroganoff. It was delicious! She served it with frites (fries) and salad.
Now we are relaxing after our amazing dinner and in about an hour we are going to watch Koen and Rob's football game (soccer).
Tomorrow we leave for Beauvais airport. It's in Paris, and we stay in a hotel for the evening to wait for our morning flight to Dublin. From Dublin we fly straight to Orlando.
These 3 weeks have been AMAZING!! To say the least. 3 weeks was the perfect amount of time to stay - while we have loved every minute of our trip there is no place like home. We miss our puppies A LOT! And our family too of course!
Oh and before I forget to mention if you ever travel to Belgium or Holland practically no where accepts credit cards. Cash only. These have been the only places like that!
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