Amsterdam: Highlights (21 - 27 September)

Hooray. I had a birthday! My friend Jill took me to hear Elizabeth Gilbert give a talk in Utrecht. Gilbert’s message was mostly motivational speech, laser focused at the women in her audience – which was about 99% of us. Her directive had three parts: Set priorities, create boundaries, and let go of anxiety.

I celebrated 42 with a feeling like I have been able to do just that. I am so thankful for the opportunities that have allowed our family to make this journey. I’m so glad that every time there was a reason to delay it, shelve it, or avoid it all together, we pushed through and made it here.

I can’t help but feel like this is an extremely special time. Not just to be living in Amsterdam and all the new experiences that come with it, but, also for the long and deep breath that I’ve taken since arriving here, something that comes with the simplicity of our routines and having many fewer responsibilities.

Hello 42! Also, I think I look a little bit like Alison Roman in this photo and I’m digging it.

Of course, there was a lot of birthday fun! Sarah was here on Saturday morning and joined us for birthday pancakes. And, Jill knew about a Tiki Bar lurking on the canals of Utrecht where we shared a celebratory gigantic fruity cocktail.

Eli executed a big outing with the kids to Muiderslot castle on Saturday afternoon. This is a perfectly preserved castle from the Middle Ages that is now a national museum. It was originally built as a toll booth to manage trade at the point where the river once met the Zuiderzee.

I use the term “executed” above because Eli and the kids set out to ride to the castle by bike, but ended up coming home by train after having a big bike tire blow-out about ten miles away near the town of Muiden. At the time of writing this, some of our bikes are still there and we’ll need to mount an operation to retrieve them sometime later this week.

On Sunday, Eli ran the Dam to Damloop, a 10 mile race from Amsterdam to Zaandam and back again. He averaged a pace that was faster than 7 minutes per mile. This makes me super proud and super jealous. Who runs that fast?

The kids and I joined Jill, Laurens and Benny (the dog) for a day trip to Zaanse Schans. This is a super touristy, open air museum, with Dutch homes and seven mindmills set up to operate as they did in the 17th and 18th centuries. Think small scale Williamsburg.

Ben and Laurens were accidentally matching and it stole my heart.

It is totally adorable and there are photo opportunities everywhere you look. The kids had a good time stopping in to learn about the weavers and coopers and bakers and clog makers. The stops were also broken up by pancakes and ice cream and appeltaart. Because we have museum cards, most of the attractions were free. Had I actually paid each owner-operator for the quick look in their house, I may not have found the whole thing quite so charming.

Here, the kids are learning the critical skill of barrel making (which was actually very interesting).

It was a beautiful afternoon – again, maybe one of our last sunny summer-like days we’ll have here in Amsterdam, and it was easy to linger and enjoy.

Our Wednesday after school outing took us to the Amsterdamse Bos with our friends Andie, Cohen and Eva. The Bos is an enormous public space, three times the size of Central Park, that was constructed in the 1930’s in the neighboring Amsterdam suburb of Amstelveen. Like most things in Holland, the space is best explored by bicycle. And, fortunately, cloudy skies did not give way to rain all afternoon and an on-site bike rental gave us all the freedom we needed.

Not perfectly captured from a moving bike. The skies were grey, but it was so green.

We set out first to the adorable Boerderij Meerzicht for pancakes. Like so many family friendly spots in Europe, the casual restaurant features a playground, petting zoo, and game stations. I love (and have become very accustomed to) shooing kids away from the table until food arrives and sending them off again as soon as they are finished. I am sure when we are back in the US I will lament that no Evanston restaurants come with zip lines.

After lunch, we continued on to the goat farm Geitenboerderij Riddammerhoeve. This is a small organic goat cheese farm located right in the center of the Bos. I remembered this place as a highlight from 2008 and was just as taken with it this time.

You buy baby bottles of goat milk in the shop and then feed the goats in their pens. You can also brush them, pet them, or as Ben discovered, just let them nibble on your sweater.

Everyone was having such a good time we stayed here for a long time. Eventually, we rode back to where we started to return the bikes and head home.

There is much more to do in the Bos and I have a feeling we may very well go back again next week.

Finally, a shout out to all the moms out there killing it (and specifically, this time, to Andie and me). One of the bikes we rented was a bakfiets that was not fancy and extra hard to pedal with 120+ pounds of kids and backpacks thrown into it. (The other was a tandem, so we really had our work cut out for us!) We easily could have turned around when the going got tough and called the whole adventure off. But, instead, we took turns and persevered and all of us had a really fun day.

Like most things on this trip, there is always a risk that what we set out to do will be a total fail, and that risk is exacerbated with kids. Something is closed. Something is boring. Something is gross. Something is farther than you thought it would be.

It would be easier to only do small things. It would be easier to only attempt the more ambitious things with Eli as co-pilot. But, I think that would mean that we would miss out on so much. Our Bos adventure was an affirmation that with a little bit of course correction, a little will power, and a good sense of humor, we pulled off what I think will be remembered as one of our favorite afternoons in Amsterdam.

Honorable mention this week: Eli and I did, in fact, return to Muiden on Friday to retrieve the bakfiets and Norah’s bike. While riding back, we hit a sheep jam. One guy couldn’t be bothered to move out of the way, while another guy was very interested in coming home with us.