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Monday 7 October 2013

Celebrations in Amsterdam

Our friends Anna and Malcolm had let us know that they were going to Amsterdam for work and invited us to rendezvous with them.  We decided to take them up on the offer and timed it so that we were there for Hannah and my birthdays.  We had booked an apartment in a lovely area on the tram line and managed to find our way from the airport to the apartment via a train and trams no problem.  We had only decided to take hand luggage to save us having to pay to put bags in the hold and KLM is very generous in that you can have a cabin bag plus a handbag as your carry on.  It was a bit of a juggle with three kids and several small bags but we managed to get all the bags and the kids to the apartment which was a bit of a feat!  We arrived on Wednesday night and decided just to make dinner.  James went off in his hunter gatherer mode and came back empty handed.  So I gave it a go and decided on such a busy street there must be a supermarket and yes found it!  I got a few supplies and got some frozen chips, sausages and veges for tea.  James cooked them up and discovered the sausages were vegetarian - after living in France for a year it seemed such a foreign concept that there could possibly be vegetarian sausages!!  The French do not cater well for vegetarians.  The worst part though was that to make up for the lack of meat they had put wheat in the sausages - so just chips and veges for everyone but me!!

The next day was Hannah's birthday.  Hannah and I had opened most of our presents back home in Toulouse on Tuesday but we had taken a couple of wee gifts to Holland with us.

Opening presents in Toulouse

A coffee cup from Jasper



A very loud annoying toy called Furby!!

A scarf from Nana

After breakfast we decided to jump on the tram and head to the train station to get our travel cards.  Amsterdam is a lovely city but the first thing we learnt was that you had to be very aware when crossing streets due to trams, cars and bikes - bikes, bikes everywhere.
On the tram

Catching our local tram.

Passing the flower market on the tram
Not a car park but a bike park!!!



Best lolly shop!!

Cheese, cheese and more cheese


Dam Square - minus thousands of people, buskers and pigeons!!


One of the many canals in Amsterdam.

 We walked through Dam square crossing many canals and having many near misses with bicycles to Anne Frank's house.  There was a bit of a queue but we waited our turn and went in.  It was all very well done and a very interesting experience.  The kids all coped quite well and we had lots of questions about why they had to hide and what happened to them.  Such a hard thing to explain...

 We had done a bit of research into gluten free eating in Amsterdam and discovered that a few of the pancake houses did GF Dutch pancakes - delicious and cheap!

We had booked a cruise on a canal boat so left the cafe and headed for our boat.  It was great to see the city from the water!
NEMO science museum
A pirate ship


A view of Amsterdam from the Canal


Two pretty princesses.

Bikes chained to a bridge - it is like this all over Amsterdam.

Dutch houses






We had arranged to meet Anna, Malcolm, Zack and Tobi at Vondelpark after the cruise.  Penelope and I thought we could squeeze in an hour or so of shopping and then catch up with them at the park a bit later.  We had a lovely time wandering the nine streets area where we saw lots of funky little shops including one which had a bench made out of colourful old books.  Penelope managed to spend some of her holiday money on a makeup brush set and a party hat fasinator!  She bought it in a very cool shop which was owned by two very trendy guys wearing pink t-shirts and tight zebra print pants.  One of them gave Penelope four free postcards so she decided that he was pretty nice really.

We managed to meet up with the others and the kids had a run around the park, played on the swings and kicked the ball around.  A colleague of Malcolm's was also over for the conference and it was great to meet him and his partner and his daughter Ellen - aged 11 (also with coeliac disease).




 The host of our apartment had recommended the Hard rock cafe for dinner so we decided that as there was a big group of us then it would be a good place for birthday tea.  It ended up being perfect as the kids had a table to themselves with a tv screen playing music videos.  We also ended up with a fantastic waiter who managed to cater with our complicated group of coeliacs, three different bills, children's meals plus a birthday girl!  Day one of Amsterdam complete.

Everyone singing happy birthday to Hannah

Blowing out the candle on her sundae.




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