Amsterdam - part 1

We just came back from a terrific trip to Amsterdam. We picked Amsterdam because we wanted to see Merel and Dennis and their new baby Thomas before moving home and because we could get their without flying, which is just a pain in the butt and very expensive with 2 kids, even within Europe. Don't let those RyanAir ads fool you -- flying from Sweden to anywhere is pricey! Plus, we thought it would be cool to take the overnight ferry (with our car) from Gothenburg to Kiel, and drive through Germany to the Netherlands.

So on Friday we picked the kids up from school and headed over to the Stena Line Germany port to get on the ferry. I have never been on a ship bigger than the ferry to Alcatraz, so I thought it was pretty cool to see our little cabin (little being the operative word) and explore the boat, which was packed with 600 cars and 1700 people. As far as I can tell people basically eat and drink the whole time, which is OK for an overnight trip, but sheesh, sort of gross. The kids loved the Curious George play area that had Curious George (Nicke Nyfiken in Swedish) cartoons playing 24/7. Amazing how even cartoons in foreign languages are like kiddie-crack. They were less excited by the waiting around that is sometimes required when getting off the ferry after a night at sea: The next morning we drove off the ferry at Kiel and made our way to Amsterdam. It took forever because of traffic jams and a barf incident (thanks for the memories, Julian!), and we got into town after about 9 hours on the road.

Happily, our rental apartment that we found on VRBO was situated perfectly on the Prinsengracht, bordering the Jordaan neighborhood, and was actually big enough for 3 adults and 2 kids (my Mom would be joining us shortly). You just never know from the pictures how big it actually is (our place in Barcelona would NOT have worked for 5 people though it said it would have). I have learned my lesson to always ask for square footage from now on. Anyway, it's hard to see from the 2nd picture below, but the house was on 4 mini levels, with 1 room on each level i.e. lots of stairs for the kids to throw things down and teeter on making me really nervous and yelling "safe side! safe side!" way too many times. Merel and Dennis came over our first night and we met Thomas and ate pizza and it was a perfect welcome evening. Slightly surreal to see them in Amsterdam (OK, they're Dutch, I know, but they just went together with Gothenburg in my mind, and that takes some adjusting).

Anyhoo, my Mom flew in the next morning and Adrian picked her up at the airport and she was a trooper and stayed up all day battling jet lag. Good Grandma! We went for a canal boat trip and I think the kids MIGHT have looked out the window once. Julian mostly played with "Spot" the horse and "Lasso Man" and Ava mostly talked.
We also had drinks and poffertjes (little fat pancakes with butter and powdered sugar) at this adorable cafe called 't Smalle a couple blocks from our apartment that I loved, especially because you have to climb up some ladder-like stairs to get upstairs where it's super cozy. Amsterdam IS super cozy in general if you ask me:My shot of the outside doesn't do it justice: