Americans in Amsterdam, soon to return to America

We'll be leaving Amsterdam in less than 24 hours. Sad. What a wonderful first family trip to Europe. We got kind of lucky in randomly picking Amsterdam (based on flight prices, pretty much). Because of the bicycling here, the boys got to ride around (like kings!) and got a great view of the city and taste of local life, without the inevitable fatigue that comes with small children walking around for hours on end.

Anne Frank House tour yesterday morning. It was very moving, and hard to believe what people went through and endured.

Melly's

Waffle shop right next to Melly's. The waffles were so good.

Keukenhof tulip fields, or more like a park. Rick Steves rated Keukenhof as a can't-miss but in my opinion it's missable. haha. It was really touristy and it's hard to get to - you have to take a train to the airport, and then walk around to the bus stop and then buy tickets for a bus and wait in a big line for the bus, and then ride a 40 minutes to the park. I expected tulip fields past what we could see, and instead it was kind of like a horticulture park. I wanted fields of tulips! Anyway, there was a nice park for the kids to play, and a petting zoo, and some more Dutch pancakes so it wasn't too bad. We encountered a huge amount of traffic on the ride home in what coincidentally was the world's hottest bus. I felt bad for people who were standing the entire ride home. 

Studying these scavenger maps at Keukenhof

Very excited about cotton candy. This was the first time in my memory that I said each kid could have their own cotton candy and Dae said he thought one was enough for them to share. He's coming around...

The ham known as Olin has been monopolizing our otherwise picturesque photos

Squeezed amongst Asian tourists.

Another pic opp monopolized

Zip line at Keukenhof

We had a hard time finding bike parking at Centraal Station, and I got a "warning ticket" the first day we parked! I didn't realize I was double parked. It was an orange sticker they place on your handlebars telling you they're going to tow your bike away if you don't move it. haha.

Olin didn't pop any balloons but they gave him a great elephant stuffed animal anyway.

Our house is the white one in the middle. The turquoise jacket you can just see is Dae in front.

My new (secondhand) front rack! The nice shop owner gave it to me for free. 

FEBO, round 2

Chinese and Kornese, in Amsterdam, eating Chinese take out. It was popular, and delicious.

Outside our apartment. I'm wearing my new lace shirt from a shop on Haarlemmerstraat. It's a little risqué but ok for Europe. ha!