Holland: Part 3, Castricum, Alkmaar

Then we drove 30 minutes from Zaanse Schans to Castricum, where our next Airbnb was located.  If you ever go to Amsterdam, definitely drive out of the city!  I was impressed that we got to see so much in just a day.  But of course, our kids wake up about 6am, so we always get an early start.

We arrived at our next Airbnb rental in the late afternoon and just hung out there for the rest of the day.  It was so fun!  These people built there house on an old chicken farm and renovated the old barn behind their new house into a rental.  They also had a trampoline, chickens, and a pond full of koi fish.  She let Maddie feed the fish and the chickens each day.  We all enjoyed the trampoline.  It was a beautiful setting.  And lucky for us (no sarcasm there), their internet didn't quite reach the rental, so it was actually very relaxing and felt like a real vacation.

Holland: Part 2, Amsterdam, Volendam, Zaanse Schans

While we were in Amsterdam, we also did a typical canal tour in one of those glass top boats.  It was about an hour long with some interesting facts and a great way to get a different view of the city while staying warm and dry.  We left near the Anne Frank House and ended up right by the train station so we could hop on our bus back to the rental.  We enjoyed some typical stroopwafels which may have saved us our sanity while we floated around trying to keep them occupied.

Holland: Part 1, Amsterdam

I am finally getting around to writing about our trip to Holland near the end of August.

We had such a nice time.  We were mostly disconnected from social media for the week (thanks to bad connection at both of our airbnb places), which ended up being quite nice.  I think it feels much more like a vacation when you are forced to disconnect.

We drove there (about 9 hours) and it wasn't as bad as I had anticipated.  We spent the first half of the week in Amsterdam.  We stayed in Amsterdam Noord (north) and took the bus into the center each of the three days that we were there.

As usual, we (I) had to adjust our expectations for the trip on how much we would see, how many cool restaurants we could check out, and what sights we could experience.  Usually, it's about one or two things a day, generally not museums, mainly just staying outside and "experiencing" the place by walking around.

It wasn't nice weather when we were in Amsterdam for those first 3 days-rainy, cool (50s/60s), and overcast when it wasn't raining.  The second half of the week was beautiful.

[Get ready for LOTS of pictures!]

The first day, we got there in the evening, so we got take away pizza down the street from our rental and went to bed early.

This was the front of our Airbnb rental in Amsterdam Noord.  It was a historical area and all the homes looked the same-little townhomes with a small fence backyard with little side alley ways, clay roof, and very steep stairs.  It was small but functional and cute.

We went shopping for his first pair of real shoes while there.  Here he is looking all big boy-ish in his new Adidas.

The second day, we took the bus into the city and rented bikes at the main train station.  We rode bikes around the city from about 10am-3pm.  It was exciting, fun, scary, and tense all at the same time.  Motor bikes and mopeds share the bike lanes.  Plus, not knowing all the one ways or rules of the road for bikers was difficult.  I think I may have enjoyed it more than Bryce.  He was tense the entire day and concluded that you "take in" more of the city when you're not on a bike.  Both kids were incredible in the bikes, switching seats, singing songs, eating snacks, and BOTH fell asleep sitting up (with bobbing helmet heads!) in the bikes.  We quickly stopped at a park and sat next to a fountain each holding a kid while they slept for about an hour.  We ate a late lunch at an American style BBQ place called Graceland.  You know, very Dutch (not).