Amsterdam Adventures

We missed out on the four day President's weekend due to Aaron being on call but that's okay because he got the following Friday off and we were able to take advantage of this three day weekend just as much as if we would have had four days. We had our next trip narrowed down to Dublin, Belgium or Amsterdam and finally decided to give Amsterdam a go. We booked airline tickets through Ryanair again and to get the best deal we flew out Friday morning at 0655 and returned to London at 2000 on Sunday evening. In order to catch our flight on Friday morning, we did some serious rising and shining around 0330. We flew from Stansted into Eindhoven which was about a 1h45min bus ride to Amsterdam. We had planned on booking bus tickets through a company called Terravision, which is the same company we went through when in Rome. The only available bus time was 0900 which was when our flight was expected to arrive, so we held off on booking tickets online and figured we would just get them at the airport. When we came through arrivals there was no Terravision booth to be found. Super glad we didn't spend money on a non-existent bus company. We found a different company that had a bus leaving at 1000 so we were able to grab something to eat before catching the bus, it was mid-morning but we had been up for hours and were starved. The airport restaurants menu was completely in Dutch and we thought we might be in trouble when the clerk automatically started speaking to us in Dutch but she quickly switched over to English, probably as soon as she saw the petrified look on my face.
The bus ride was mostly highways, but I did catch one glimpse of a windmill. We arrived at Central Station right before noon and decided to head to the recommended Pancake Bakery for lunch. Before reading our guidebooks and researching places to eat, I had no idea how popular pancakes would be here. It seemed like many of the cafes were advertising pancakes so that made me happy! The Pancake Bakery was amazing. Beyond amazing. I decided to order a banana and nutella pancake and Aaron got an omelet (to balance between sweet and savory and also substantial nutrition vs a sugar coma). The pancake was ginormous. It resembled a crepe more than the fluffy stacks of pancakes we are used to in the States. It was delicious in every way imaginable and Aaron's omelet was just as tasty.

After lunch, we were refueled and ready to hit some of the sights. While waiting for the bus at the airport, we bought "I Amsterdam" cards which are definitely something to be looked into if ever traveling there for a short 2-3 day trip. We choose the 48-hr card which was a perfect for our travel itinerary. The I Amsterdam card includes free entrance to over 30 museums, a free canal cruise, free public transport, free entrance to 5+ attractions and discounts at select places. Our goal was to break even on the cost of the card and all of the attractions (obviously) but we ended up getting the value and much more when we sat down and calculated the cost of all of the places we went. We would have had to buy transport tickets as our hotel was on the outskirts of town so it was a plus just to have the free, unlimited public transport.
Our first stop was The Tulip Museum, but we were bummed to discover it was under renovation expected to be done next week which didn't help us at the time! So we explored the gift shop and headed to Woonboomuseum, aka The Houseboat Museum. Houseboats line the canals of Amsterdam, it was truly amazing to be introduced to their way of life on the water. I actually looked into staying on a houseboat vs a hotel while in Amsterdam but couldn't find any to fit our budget. I'm sure it would be quite the experience!

 Inside the houseboat, to the left and right are the beds where the family of four slept!

 Standing on top of the houseboat.

Next, we went to the Amsterdam Museum which was a great introduction to Amsterdam and the Netherlands. The museum was interactive and had English translation stations every spot you went to. We ended our afternoon at Bloemenmarkt which is the city's floating flower market. It was amazing! Lots of flowers, souvenirs and quirky little shops. We stopped at Old Amsterdam's cheese shop to take in some samples - yum!

We attempted to take public transport for the first time and hopped on a tram to head to the hotel. We ended up going one stop too far, but we arrived at the hotel despite this. We stayed at Westcord Fashion Hotel which was near the Westcord Fashion Center. The hotel had plastic fashion models all over the place, slightly creepy but understandable decor. We ventured back out for dinner and went to bed entirely too early but we were exhausted and both slept great!
On Saturday, we woke up to rainy weather but decided to proceed with our plan to visit the zoo in the morning before our 1pm tickets to the Anne Frank museum/house. It doesn't matter where you are, the zoo never gets old. It was fun trying to translate all of the animal signs into what animal we thought they were.

We stopped for a quick lunch in the Prisengracht area near the Anne Frank Huis. Our e-tickets allowed us to skip the line and go right in which was great because by then, the rain had cleared and the line was quite long. We found out during our 30 minute introduction that due to fire regulations only 200 people can be in the building at a time so that explained the line. The tour that we booked provided us with a 30 minute intro with an educator that usually gives school tours during the week. She brought to life the big picture of the time period with the second world war and also broke down the details of the small picture of Anne and her beginnings in Germany and what brought her and her family to Amsterdam and then finally into hiding in the very building we were about to take a tour of. It was an unforgettable experience. Aaron did not read the book but he enjoyed the tour and museum just as much as I did. In one entry, Anne says, "I want to go on living even after my death!" Thanks to the Anne Frank Foundation, her wish has come true! Approximately 1 million visitors each year make their way through the bookcase that concealed their hiding place.

Trying some traditional Dutch apple pie!

After Anne Frank Huis, we decided to take advantage of the weather and go on our free canal cruise. It was about an hour long and such a wonderful way to both rest our feet and see the city from a different perspective. Who knew there were so many canals! The architecture of the canal front is astounding. After the cruise, we returned to Bloemenmarkt to buy some cheese to take home which we were both pretty excited about. We ate dinner at Burger Bar, a recommended Trip Advisor eat. It was yummy, but nothing beats Five Guys - which we miss, so much.

Bikes are everywhere in Amsterdam. It was truly astounding to see the many different ways one can travel on a bike. We considered DC to be a pretty bike friendly city but if there is a bike friendly city it is Amsterdam for sure. They have entire lanes throughout the city dedicated to their travel method. At one point, I saw a family of four on a bike. Some bikes had little ledges on the back where another grown adult could ride side saddle like. Central Station had a parking garage, just for bikes. We learned on our canal cruise that the parking garage housed 2,500 bikes but that didn't compare to the 9,500 parked near the Central Station area due to there not being enough room in the parking garage.

On Sunday, we had e-tickets to the Van Gogh museum at 11am. Our I Amsterdam cards were due to expire at 215pm and we needed to catch the bus back to the airport around 315pm. So we caught a mid-morning breakfast at The Pancake Corner, a place we had spotted while riding the tram back and forth. Once seated, we realized "The Pancake Corner" was just another name for a greasy sports bar. They did have pancakes though and Aaron decided to go big with the "Dutch pancake". It was a pancake with vanilla ice cream, cherries, whipped cream and cherry sauce. Talk about sugar overload, for sure. It was delicious though and worth the carb overload. I ordered eggs and toast to balance things out.

The Van Gogh museum was pretty great. We were able to skip the line with our pre-booked tickets (which cost nothing extra to do) and take our time wandering through the world's largest van Gogh collection. It was pretty great to trace van Gogh's style through his short time as an artist. The famous Vase with Sunflowers is currently in Paris, so we had to settle for seeing a fake on the wall.

 We had some time to kill after leaving the museum so we went to see a windmill on the outskirts of town and after that we checked out the Bijbelsmuseum - Biblical Museum.

We wandered for a little bit after that and bought some delicious fries or frites in a paper cone drizzled with cheese. While waiting for Aaron to get the fries, I couldn't help but notice the smell of pot (brought back so many RA on duty memories, thank you East Halls) permeating the air. I finally realized there was a coffee shop right across the street. The possession and purchase of small amounts of marijuana is allowed in Amsterdam and usually happens in these coffee shops. When talking to people about going to Amsterdam, most had something to say about this marijuana reputation and also the Red Light District which we didn't even come close to being near. We caught the bus back to the airport around 315pm and arrived to Eindhoven around 5pm. We did some serious time travel at 8pm when we left the Netherlands and arrived in London at 8pm. My backpack was searched at Eindhoven, apparently the cheese we bought set off some sort of alarm. We had no issues coming through the border this time around, as I obsessively checked to make sure my visa was packed several times throughout the trip. We had a really great time in Amsterdam, it went beyond our expectations of a short, weekend trip and would definitely recommend it to anyone as a place to visit!

Living in England Part 1 of ?

This is an entry for those of you that are wondering how life differs from what we were accustomed to in the States. I'm sure the longer we live here, the more things we'll have to share with you. 

1. Cars .. this is a topic that will probably be returned to. When we went car shopping we discovered that our options were limited due to the fact that most cars in England are stick shift. Aaron has no problem with stick shift, his first car - the beloved red 'Stang was stick shift. We can casually mention that I am unable to drive stick. Or we can bring up the memories I have of Judd's determination to teach it me one afternoon in the Woodward Elementary school parking lot. I remember running into a trash can (that's it, I swear) and him giving up on me. I could probably do it if I absolutely had to and there were no cars ahead of me, behind me and I wasn't on any type of incline. At all. But there are no such guarantees. So we found a Ford Fusion (they call them Mondeo's over here) that is automatic and wonderful. Until the one time it didn't start and I had to call our landlord because I was supposed to be picking Aaron up from work. We got all the way to base and our landlord didn't have any identification on him so we couldn't go through the main gate and he said, that's okay - you can just drive my car to get him, I'll wait here. That's when my inability to drive stick was exposed. So we should probably work on that on that. 

This was in Windsor. The gear shift box completely stopped working. USAA, roadside assistance and a tow were not on the agenda for the day. We'll have to go back to see Windsor Castle another time. 

2. Tax, taxes: We'll start with the TV tax. You have to pay a tax to watch TV over here! Our American TV is downstairs and doesn't have the ability to connect with British TV frequencies so we aren't even able to watch TV on it. But the house we are renting came with a TV upstairs that does receive British TV channels, so we had to pay the TV tax. We were warned that there are vans that patrol the streets and wait to see if you are emitting any sort of TV watching signal and then they check to see if you have paid the tax and if you haven't you get a hefty fine. It sounds silly to think of someone getting paid to do that but we didn't know how true it could be and we definitely weren't going to risk finding out. UK TV license = £145.50 ($232.80) And then there is road tax. We just recently paid this gem. Over here, you pay to have your vehicle inspected once a year and then you also pay a road tax. There is a little circular disc that goes in the left lower hand corner of your windshield with a month and year on it. Road tax =£294.30 ($470.88). Oh, and then there's sales tax called VAT. It's like 20% tax added to your purchase. Have I mentioned that it is expense to live here? 

3. Let's talk more about driving and the roads. First of all, it's weird to drive on the other side of the road. It's also weird to drive on the other side of the car in general. Aaron and I have both gone to the wrong sides of the car time and time again. We have both adjusted fairly well though. England has this thing with roundabouts. I used to think of a roundabout or traffic circle, as the one at Lycoming Mall or the street that runs parallel to Wegman's, Starbucks, Panera. Yea, no. Here in England, they are hard core about their traffic circles. Some have traffic lights but most do not. They will have two (if not more) lanes of traffic and multiple points of exit. It's all about which exit you are taking. It determines what lane you need to be in and what lane you need to get in. The first time I had to drive a traffic circle by myself, I missed my exit and just kept following it around until I was able to exit, the second time around. I probably looked ridiculous, but I have memories of intentionally going around the traffic circle at the mall more than once just to go in circles - so I was clearly practicing for England way back when.

These pictures from the driving manual we received to take our driving exams.

4. English houses: They are very small. The British like to "live on top of each other" as one of the realtors lovingly put it one time when we were touring potential rentals. You will see miles and miles of farm land that in the States would be dotted with houses. Here, houses are all clumped together in certain areas. It's odd to see a single home on a plot of land but very common to see development like areas of house upon house upon house often in the same style. Our kitchen is quite different from an American kitchen. Our cupboards house more than just pantry space. One cupboard has a freezer, one has a mini-refrigerator (but full-size to the British). Another has a dishwasher and yet another cupboard contains our washing machine.The washing machine is literally right next to the sink. The house we rent didn't come with a dryer so we borrowed one from base. There really wasn't any room for it in the house without putting it next to say, the dining room table - so we put it out in the garage (aka storage space, I have yet to see someone actually park there car in the garage - ours is way too small to put a car in). Which is fine except that every time I do a load of laundry, I have to take it out to the garage to dry. It's almost always raining whenever that time comes too. Our dryer is a condenser dryer. It has a compartment below the dryer that collects water. So after every load, if not in the middle of every load - you have to take the container out and empty the water. It's super annoying and since the dryer is out in the garage, I have no way of knowing if it has stopped running due to the condenser filling up. So is life, it goes on and I've gotten more exercise out of the daily task of laundry. : ) 

We love the town that we live in! 

5. English language barrier: So we are so incredibly lucky to be in a country that speaks that same language as us. For the most part. Some things said have definitely left us with our eyebrows raised. Like remember above how I was talking about our landlord taking me to base to pick up Aaron when the car wouldn't start? Well, our landlord called the gate guard a "little sausage" for not allowing him to go through the gate without identification. Aaron and I had a hard time containing the laughter on that one. I know Aaron has already told some people the story of when we went to look at a rental property and the landlord kept telling us to give him a tinkle. He wanted us to call him, give him a ring. The other day at work Aaron overheard a British civilian talking about car troubles and how he simply lifted up the bonnet to check things out. Yea, he was referring to the hood of the car. Clothes pins are called pegs. And if you want to sleep in, you are having a bit of a lay in. Cookies are called biscuits. British people are very friendly and helpful so it's been a definite change of pace from our DC lifestyle.

Biscuits!

Traditional English breakfast (not a huge fan of the baked bean portion). 

Enjoying England so far! : )