Home again, home again...

We left our German/English family after breakfast and took a cab to Heathrow. I cruised the duty free while Bob read. 

The flight was uneventful -- I watched Grand Budapest Hotel and Cuban Fire; I also finished a book written by an undercover ATF agent. We arrived back at the house by 5:30.

Sunday at Kew

We all slept in, even the children! We had a late breakfast and decided to walk to the Kew Gardens area. When we arrived, there were food and craft stalls in the town. Mark had a chocolate banana crepe -- I was quite proud that I helped him navigate eating it without getting a single bit of food on his clothing! We walked to the green, where the children played for a bit. I loved one of the signs in the town.

Yes, that Wimbledon, which was actually happening at that time.

Steffi had left her Kew Gardens membership card at home, but a staff member was able to look her up, and so we walked through Kew Gardens on our way back to the house.

 

We sat outside for a while when we got back to the house, but then big drops of rain began to fall. As a result of the storm, Mark spotted a rainbow out of his window.

If you look closely, you can see that it's a double rainbow. Pretty cool.

We dined on Indian food leftovers, olives, anchovies, and sandwiches along with some delicious rose champagne. I finalized the majority of my packing. Bed before 10:00pm.

Saturday with another former exchange student

Today we awoke at 9:00ish -- the guest futon is always so comfortable! We had rolls, croissants, meats, cheese, and jam for our leisurely breakfast. Today was scheduled to be a rainy day, so we played games with the children and caught up with the family. Both families have requested that we not post pictures of the children, so I plan on boring all of my friends and family with the many photos we took of the children! Here is a view of the house and garden.

We also watched another soccer game: Argentina v. Belgium. A babysitter came in the evening, and we walked into town to have dinner at a tapas restaurant. The food was excellent, and Axel was thrilled to see that the Costa Rica-Netherlands game was on two screens near our table.  It was actually a lot of fun because most of the wait staff was rooting for Costa Rica. It was an exciting game.  

Here are some of the many dishes we all sampled -- delightful! 

The only glitch in the evening came when we got our bill. Bob commented that it seemed a bit high, but Axel and I were willing to just pay, so we did. But then Steffi looked more closely at the itemized bill and saw at least two dishes that we hadn't ordered. We were actually over-charged by £40 -- someone had mistakenly added some dishes from another table to our bill. They were very apologetic, but if Bob and Steffi hadn't raised the issue....

We had a leisurely walk back -- bed after midnight.

On to London

We awoke at 6:30, had our final Amsterdam breakfast at 7:00, and got on the tram to Centraal Station at 7:45. So far, so good. And then it all fell apart. Once inside the station, an announcer said something about Schipol, the airport. Then an employee told us that we needed to go to a different platform than what we'd been told the day before, take train one stop, and look for buses to take us the rest of the way. When we arrived at the next station, their employee  knew nothing about any buses. Turns out the problem was that a truck had gone off the highway and landed on the train tracks. Anyway, we were directed to the cab stand -- no cabs anywhere at that moment. However, word must have spread and cabs showed up quickly. We shared a cab with a Dutch woman on her way to Barcelona and split the fare by thirds. When we started to get out a tip, she told us not tip him because he went way out of the way. So no tip!

We got to the airport in plenty of time and decided to have coffee when we got to our gate. It was kind of unusual that we hadn't gone through the scanners yet. The gate seemed to be the place where that would occur. Silly us: we forgot that we couldn't take liquids through the gate, so we got coffee just as the gate opened. It was so hot that I burned my mouth, and we ended up having to throw it away to get into the line. Stupid. Then British Air had everyone put their carry ons in a measuring bins, and we then had to check our bags. Grrrr. 

The actual flight was uneventful, but the line once we got off the plane at Heathrow was sooo long. After waiting almost an hour to get our passports stamped and picking up our bags (which were actually on the carousel when we finally got there), it was time for the hour ride to our London-based exchange student's office via the London Underground. It was hot and crowded, but at least we had seats. Axel's office was quite elegant. We took a water break and chatted with him for a bit. We left our bags there and headed for lunch and the British Museum. 

Opting for pub food, we sat outside and surveyed the business area of London.

Iconic London bus.

On to the Rosetta Stone, the former Elgin Marbles (now Parthenon friezes), and an Anglo Saxon exhibit.

 We only stayed for about an hour because of the crowds and heat. 

The last leg of our journey involved Bob's carrying our suitcases up and down multiple sets of steps through underground and then on the National railroad to Axel's home. What a lucky woman I am. We got there in time to see Germany win in the quarter finals. We chatted with Steffi and played with children until Axel got home, and then we had Indian take-away for our late dinner.  Bed by 11:30ish -- Bob stayed up later than I.

Last full day

We had another good breakfast and then did a dry run for the next day's trip to the airport via tram and train. We took the tram to the Centraal Station and then looked for a way to buy train tickets for the next day. What a hot mess. A new ticketing system had been mostly implemented -- we waited in line to discover that we could only buy tickets for that day, but we could use machines to buy those tickets. However, the machines only took chip and pin cards or coins -- I had neither. We went to the tourist information booth and got exact change and finally got 2 train tickets for the next day.

Back on the tram to the Van Gogh Museum, where I discovered that my pre-paid tickets were for July 1, not July 3. I thought it was open ended and good for one year. Wrong. So...we bought another 2 tickets; I'll fight with the online people when I get home. 

First, we checked out the "diamond" factory across the street, a thinly veiled showroom. Whatever. Bob also posed by the "I am Amsterdam" sign.

We arrived at the Van Gogh and had a beer to calm my frazzled nerves before going into the museum proper.

The museum was quite well-planned with lots of interesting things related to dating and validating various Van Gogh works of  art. Bob had read about some of the techniques already. We spent about 2 hours there.

I took one picture at the end, not noticing all the signs about not taking pictures...

Next we turned again to Trip Advisor for lunch opportunities. Another hot mess. The place was not where the trip advisor map said it was, and we asked directions from someone in Louis Vuitton, who poo-pooed the accuracy of trip advisor and google maps. Along the way Bob posed for some silly pictures.

We did find the place, but it was another bar with snacks -- not what we had in mind at all. So we shared a beer and had a cheese platter while the locals chatted with the server....

We went back to the hotel and I checked out the mall across the street -- not anything I would buy, so we stopped at the hotel briefly and then had Kaffee and kuchen across the street from our hotel.

We then walked through Dam Square on our way to the Red Light District.  No one was working at 6:30, but there were lots of high folks strolling the streets. We had expensive beer along the canal while watching the guy next to us smoke a joint like it was a cigarette. And then there was the guy who smoked a electronic cigarette followed by a real one -- why?? Party boats passed by, too -- a very different atmosphere than in the museum section of town.

We still hadn't managed to have Dutch food, but we found a place right off Dam Square for some sort of Dutch food. Here's chicken and chorizo.

Bob had a Thai/Dutch salad.

We finished off the evening with a final visit to Biercafe Gollem. We also found the street with the awesome art work.

We had a lovely visit with Cyril the bartender, Phil from the UK, and Paul from the Netherlands. Bob also had a chat with Adam, who was from Vancouver BC and had edited a book about pop up cities. Cyril recommended that we try Petrus beer (98 rating in a beer magazine), and it was delicious. A fun ending to the evening.  

I don't want to forget to say that I LOVE that there are so many places in Amsterdam that have free wifi.

Relaxing around town

We slept in after the previous evening's lateness. We didn't leave for the day until almost noon. Our first visit was to the church right around the corner, the New Church. This is the place where Dutch royalty gets married.

More pics

And more

And, of course, a selfie.

 As we arrived, an organ concert was  beginning, so we stuck around to listen. 

We'd talked for two nights with Paul and Phil, folks who frequented Cafe Gollem, and Paul had strongly urged us to take a boat ride to tour the canals. We checked the Rick Steves book and headed through Dam Square toward the place he recommended. Along the way we stopped at a cheese shop, but a tourist group came in as we were looking around, so we decided to wait until later.

It was a beautiful day for a boat ride. We bought some Heineken for the ride and settled in for an hour tour.

Our tour took us on a journey through the many canals. This is where we got on.

Next came a famous bridge modeled after a French bridge.

Another bridge

And another view

Seven bridges in a row

Another selfie

More views of the tops of the houses

And more...

Here is what the older style homes look like - property was taxed on the width of the frontage, which is why the houses are so narrow.

This is the smallest house in Amsterdam -- the width of one window and door.

More rooftops - so many different types.

After our ride we bought some cheese and stopped back at the hotel to decide our next adventure.

The Jordaan district was next. We thought that we'd walk around and then have lunch somewhere. This area is quite gay-friendly. This is a pink point specifically for gay-themed info.

This plaque was on the nearest bridge.

We spent quite a while trying to find a specific restaurant, but when we finally got there, it was closed, so we found a small place on a canal and had wine and brootjes (Dutch sandwiches). On our way back to the hotel, we checked out a Belgian place that offered tasting menus paired with beers. We made a reservation for 7:30.

The meal was huge! We shared beer and each course, and by the end we just had to go home and go to bed.

The first two beers.

Accompanied by 3 appetizers.

Next came the three beers for our main courses.

And the main courses.

Actually, there was a fourth dish with the entrees.

Then came the dessert beers. I especially liked the Barbar honey beer.

And dessert - 3 of them.

We had been contemplatingvisiting Cafe Gollem, but we just had to go back to the hotel and to bed... 

Busy day in Amsterdam

We pretty much hit the ground running. After a decent continental breakfast, we headed to the museum area for our 11:00 reservation at the Rijksmuseum, which has been completely renovated since the last time I visited in 2005. It's a beautiful space, and the really interesting addition until September is a number of large post-its throughout museum commenting on the purpose of art in the 21st century. The comments were tied to specific pieces -- art as therapy, not something to impress your neighbors.

Here's Bob next to a favorite...

This museum has 4 floors, 3 of which have rooms full of art -- according to a friend we met, it was way more packed with art before the renovation. Here are some of our favorites. 

Apparently, the Dutch enjoy their alcohol.

This is the Dutch equivalent of the fake binocular flask popular at college football games, but this is a "book" flask.

And of course there's Rembrandt's famous Night Watch.

This painting was one of the last major works we viewed. Now it was time for a late lunch. I checked Trip Advisor and found a seafood place not too far from the museum. We arrived at The Seafood Bar at about 2:30. We had successfully gone from carb meals every two hours to two meals per day!

The menu was large and varied.

I chose oysters and we shared grilled calamari. We both had a Neptune platter for lunch: smoked eel, Dutch shrimp, crab salad, and two kinds of smoked salmon with a tasty dipping sauce. Everything tasted fresh and delicious!

We then trudged back to the hotel for a nap before our concert.

We both napped!! Then we got on the tram and bought 48-hour passes. We got off the tram too soon but were still 2/3 of the way to the Concertgebouw. Because I misread the starting time (you should plan to ARRIVE at 7:30 but the concert didn't start until 8:00, we had plenty of time to enjoy some cappuccino before show time. 

The concert was quite good. The conductor was very energetic and fun to watch, and the Dutch twins (Arthur and Lucas Jussen) were talented and so cute!  Apparently the Europeans also give lots of standing ovations, only in Europe the musicians always play encores. So we were treated to two encores from both the twins and the Bamberg orchestra.

The venue is beautiful.

Here's a shot of the audience area.

We took the tram to the stop nearest to our new favorite beer place, watching the US lose to Belgium and chatting with the two gentlemen we'd met the night before. The English guy recommended trying Rochefort beer, and he was " spot on." Here I am enjoying said beer.

We finally got into bed at 1:00am.