Amsterdam

Ahhh Amsterdam. We were so looking forward to visiting this city, but it was a bit different than we anticipated. Nothing horrible, just not as beautiful (Weren't there supposed be tulips everywhere we looked?) nor kid-friendly as we were expecting. We felt really bad for William because we had to keep him in his stroller most of the time. If he didn't fall in a canal, he could have gotten hit by one of the thousands of bikes, or gotten run over by a speeding tram! (On a side note: We're pretty sure that Amsterdam tram drivers are trained at the same school as Rome taxi drivers and Belgium bus drivers. Yo! What a ride!) Despite the lack of flowers, crazy public transportation and open public urinals (Well I guess it would be one solution to one problem . . .) Amsterdam was a big, big city with lots to offer.

A typical row of canal homes with a gorgeous house boat to boot!

Our first morning started out bright and early not because we were traveling with a toddler but because we were on a mission to get to the Anne Frank House! I neglected to buy tickets in advance, so the advice pages online suggested lining up before opening or about one hour before closing. I chose the morning option because I did not want to miss this! This was a bucket list item of mine and it was going to happen! We picked up egg and ham sandwiches to go so we could eat them in line. Unfortunately, the sandwiches turned out not to be breakfast sandwiches but hardboiled egg and ham lunch sandwiches with all the fixings! Poor Jeff muddled through our surprising breakfast as we stood in line.

Sarah's recipe for Amsterdam happiness:

Start with her favorite novel as a teenage girl

Add twenty years

Title her English teacher

Plop her in the center of where it all happened and what do you get?

One of Sarah's dream's come true!

The museum and original building are so impressive and really well done.

Here I am in front of the original door.

The Anne Frank Museum is the three modern canal buildings directly behind me in the picture with the original Anne Frank House being the canal home with the pointed roof line over my right shoulder.

When you enter the modern-looking museum, you wind your way through various videos and displays on different floors working your way down the block to the Frank family's hiding place. The museum has a beautiful one-directional traffic flow in order to manage the millions of people who visit it each year. There is no furniture in any of the apartment's rooms for it was removed after the Franks were captured. What does remain absolutely does not disappoint. You can see the original magazine mural Anne created on her bedroom wall as well as Anne and her sister Margot's height markings on the wallpaper. I was surprised at how big their hideout actually was. I always envisioned it much smaller, however, if I were to spend every minute of every day there for as long as they did, I know it would feel extremely small incredibly fast.

This was an absolute highlight of our entire time in Europe for me. A HUGE shout out goes to Jeff for wrangling our monkey toddler through the entire 90-minute experience so I could just soak it all in and Kleenex it all out. Yes, I teared through much of it -- it was that cool!

One of the most touching moments was a final video playing after you leave the apartment. It's an interview done with Otto Frank, Anne's father, reflecting on reading the contents of her diary after her death. He said how surprised he was by the depth of her thoughts and feelings, the insight into life she had at such a young age. He stated it taught him that a parent can truly never completely know their child. Wow, so true.

Here's line after we exited the Anne Frank house. Woot woot! We rocked it early! In my opinion, the best time to get there is 15-30 minutes before opening because being a single-file museum, for the rest of the day the line outside the museum only moves as quickly as the people inside the museum. And let me tell you, if they're English teachers, they're crawling through! However, when the museum opens, no one is "in front" so the line moves briskly until it has trickled through the house. Get it? Good! Go see it!

With Anne Frank house checked off, we could get down to business and do everything else we wanted to do! Here is a photo of a super neat canal home on our Podcast walking tour of Amsterdam.

Since we missed out on breakfast food that morning we decided to have it for lunch at The Pancake Bakery by eating their famous Dutch Pancakes. We were lucky enough to score a streetside table, so Will was entertained for minutes longer than normal!

More cool canal homes as we continued our walking tour after lunch and strolled into the Red Light District!

Okay, the RLD was waaaayyy seedier than I expected. I know what you are thinking, "Sarah! what did you expect?!" I don't know! I guess I've just turned into Prudence McPrude since we were pushing our adorable son in front of us in his stroller on Easter weekend nonetheless! Above is our favorite pic from the RLD. You've got red lights in the background, a sign advertising EROTIC something, and a proper-looking grandmother ordering a lovely lunch to be served on white linen from a waitress in a tuxedo jacket. What?! Just feet away was also a huge 'Pissoir' sign pointing to another public urinal. Ahhh Amsterdam, you befuddle us.

The narrowest canal home -- just 8 feet across on the inside.

One of Amsterdam's many unique bridges

Tulips! Finally!

Saturday evening found us visiting friends we knew from the states. Rich, Kristen, and Jack had just recently accepted an expat assignment in Amsterdam and graciously hosted us in their canal home. But first we had to transport our son (who had fallen asleep in his stroller) up the treacherous flight of stairs to their flat's front door. Crazy!

Jack and Will had a blast together. Yes, the toddlers in the photo are their correct size. Jack is small for his age and apparently our son is ginormously large for his age.

After navigating two more ladder-like stairways, we had a fun BBQ on their rooftop deck while we exchanged laughable ex-pat stories. (Rich and Kristen SO WIN with their night-before-moving story, and it was soo nice to bond over traumatizing IKEA trips). I would navigate those stairways everyday if I had a deck like theirs too! Thanks Rich, Kristen, and Jack for the fun time!

Sunday morning was Easter and the super smart Easter Bunny knew where to find our little guy.

How did the Easter Bunny know Will would love a truck and finger puppets?

We spent our Easter morning hanging out at a cafe with a huge playyard in Vondelpark. Will loved it! I had read online that there would be an Easter Egg Hunt, but we couldn't find it. Boo!

We spent the rest of our Easter Sunday perusing the VanGogh Museum and having fun seeing the rest of the city. Here are my cute boys poking out of the 'I am (am)sterdam' sign. These huge promotional signs are scattered throughout the city. So fun!

Bruges, Belgium

Easter weekend of 2012 found us traveling to Bruges, Belgium and Amsterdam, Netherlands.

We wanted to see both cities, but Easter weekend seemed too long for either one of them. I figured they were close enough together to see in one big extended Easter weekend. Unfortunately, the most budget-minded trip I could arrange involved a round trip flight to Amsterdam, and a train to Bruges moments after landing so as to be able to see both cities in one fell swoop! The result? A full 8 hours in transit with a 17-month-old mobile toddler. Jeff was skeptical. He already knew he didn't like Brussels from previous travels sans Sarah (and pre-Will); what made him think he'd like Bruges?

Come on, Bruges, Sarah needs your help. Could you please just be really awesome to justify Jeff's wife's crazy travel planning?? Pretty please???

Bruges to the rescue!!!! This little gem of a town in Belgium is quaint, personable, and picturesque -- such a delight and easily in our top 5 favorite places we've seen since we've been out here. (Let me pause here to take a quick swipe of brow and to proclaim, "Phew!" This over-adventurous travel planner lives to book another trip and write another blog post at her husband's blessing.)

Bruge's stair-step rooflines on the storefronts lining the town square

One of Bruge's many, many canals

The curse of early-rising toddlers can be a blessing when traveling. It's during these early morning outings that we have some of our most memorable moments of any trip. The city is just waking up, store owners are sweeping their stoop for the start of a busy day, sidewalks are yet to be crowded, and the only noise is of birds and/or my squealing son.

Wow! We found someone out and about in the early morning to take our picture!

My favorite photo of the trip

Part of Jeff's love of Bruges was its overall coolness. And yes, you all-knowing Belgium knowledge hounds, part of Jeff's love of Bruges was thanks to its amazing beer. The sheer amount of different types of beer was overwhelming. We'd walk into restaurants and be handed a BOOK.

I'd be thinking: "Wow! This restaurant is the Cheesecake Factory of Belgium!"

Meanwhile, Jeff had settled in and begun reading his novel of a beer menu.

Me: "Ohhhhhh. The book is for the beer only!" (With impressive color coding organization I might add.)

I settled in to peruse the pamphlet of slim food offerings to accompany the beer.

The beer wall above features every single beer produced in Belgium standing next to its glass. Yes, every beer has its only unique glass chosen and/or designed to enhance the taste and overall beer experience for each unique beer. Can you imagine the shelving and storing of all these different glasses in the restaurants? Crazy!

William had fun watching ducks in the canals.

We even tried the ever-famous Belgium waffles. William wasn't a huge fan; his gelato palate would not tolerate the modest attempt at dessert. More for us!

We had fun taking a brewery tour which there are surprisingly few of in Bruges, not to mention, Belgium. There were plenty of stairs at the De Halve Maan (Straffe Hendrik) Brewery and by stairs I mean ladders. Whoops! Did we forget the Ergo? Thanks super dad for toting our toddler through it all!

We finally hopped aboard a canal boat to take a cruise.

William didn't like it at all.

Thanks, Bruges for an amazing start to our Easter weekend!

Next stop: back to Amsterdam!

Schliersee with the Schambecks

A rare and gorgeous Sunday in April drew us to a lake outside of Munich to see our friends the Schambecks. Bernhard, Sylvia, Lukas, and Lily had invited us to one of their favorite bier gartens on Shliersee. Let's go!

Here we all are on the boat ride across the lake.

William entertained us with his usual shenanigans.

William loved chasing the bigger kids. Ooops, let me correct that. William loved chasing the beach ball being used by the bigger kids.

Lukas and Lily were such naturals with William.

I was jealous of their amazing babysitting skills in keeping William entertained with only a truck, plastic frog, and pebbles. Thanks, you two!

But of course, our emerging walker's favorite find of the day was a bridge with non-kid-friendly rails perched over swampy water. Lovely. I'm sure any mom reading this blog is thinking to themselves, "Wow. Now THAT sounds RELAXING!" Thank goodness for tag team parenting (and beer) to calm the nerves.

At least the bridge made for some cute pics

My brown-eyed boy

Weisswurst Frühstück

We'd seen Bavarians do it, but we'd cringe and look away.

We'd hear our German friends talk about it, but we'd pretend we didn't understand.

We knew it would catch up with us eventually, and eventually it did. We had no trips planned and nothing penciled in our social calendar, so when Jeff's fun coworker Human invited us to our first official Weisswurst Frühstück, we had no other excuse but to say, "Ja!"

Weisswurst is not for the faint of heart, especially vegetarian faints of heart. A true Bavarian Weisswurst Frühstück consists of strings of white sausages served in the water they were boiled in, Weissbier, brezn, great mustard, and great friends. All before 10 a.m. -- it's breakfast!

We had all the ingredients . . . so we dug in . . .

Well, we didn't quite dig in Bavarian style. You see, a true Bavarian would take a Weisswurst, bite off the end of the casing, and squeeze its contents into his/her mouth. Our table opted to take a more Emily Post approach to our frühstück and use utensils instead.

Jeff and I were nervous Weisswurst eaters on a maiden frühstück voyage, so we gave the entire table and waiter a good laugh when we each ordered one. "Eins?" All the gentlemen in our party had ordered at least two if not three! We had to see if we'd like it first before ordering more. Those silly Americans, such skeptics . . .

William, not being one to let food be consumed in front of him without partaking, got in on the fun too.

He liked it! William liked it!

A big weisswurst smile

The frühstück gang

Thanks, Human, for such a great invitation! Hopefully we'll get to nosh again together soon, but next time, without utensils! ;)

Vienna, Austria

Vienna, Austria didn't wildly beckon Jeff nor myself in our list of places we'd like to see before we leave. But considering it's such an easy drive, we almost felt obligated to make it there. We just kept it in the back of our minds for anytime a weekend seemed right. The right weekend was in April!

On Saturday, we had fun taking a leisurely stroll through the city with our Lonely Planet Book's walking tour. Please don't ask us much about what we saw; the book lacked any sort of elaboration on what we were seeing other than what the thing was, but we liked what we saw!

Anytime you travel to any city in Austria, prepare to be Mozart-ed. Statues, landmarks, and more populously, men dressed as Mozart trying to push Mozart concert tickets. Mozart loved Austria, and today Austria LOVES Mozart!

Guess who this is a statue of?

Stephansdom is the Gothic Cathedral smack dab in the center of Vienna's city center. It's called Stephansdom because when building the cathedral, the town ran out of money and just put a dome on what was to be the second spire . . .

Which brings me to new segment of our travel blog I like to call: Really?

Vienna, it took you sooo long to get the cathedral built in the first place, you couldn't just wait and save money for another complete spire? Really?

A dome is the cheaper option? Really?

An ugly turquoise dome is the cheaper option? Really?

In the last couple hundred years you haven't found any spare pocket change to build the final spire? Really?

As you can see, we didn't think much of one side of Stephansdom. So, you'll only see our favorite side.

We had lunch on a rooftop cafe overlooking our newly-declared favorite side of Stephansdom. The cathedral is impressively clean (or being cleaned). In fact, Vienna was the most clean European city we'd been in, eerily clean. Come to find out, they constantly clean their buildings and landmarks. It's as if the entire city has used a Crest whitening strip. Really beautiful, but almost unbelievably white.

We finished our windy Saturday by wandering the grounds of Schloss Schonbrunn.

Sunday morning we were lucky enough to spend the day with a former intern of Palo Alto's BMW Technology Office. Julianne is finishing her degree at the University of Vienna. We had fun catching up over breakfast and then having a personal tour guide for the remaining parts of the city we hadn't yet seen. Here Julianne, sleeping William and I are in front of the city's, refreshingly cleaned Rathaus.

There was a spring festival being held in its front square. (Julianne reported that a dirt bike course and race has been there the weekend before. The square sure cleaned up well, but that goes without saying in Vienna!) Here the flower princess is being entertained by a one-man oompah band.

We then rode the Wiener Riesenrad, also known as Vienna's Ferris Wheel, in Prater Park. It was built in 1897 and has survived natural disasters and tests of war, unlike other ferris wheels around the world. It even has luxurious dining cars!

Here we are at the top.

Will was asleep when we boarded, but awoke during our rotation. What did our rock star son do first? He pointed out an airplane to us. Nice job, Will!

William and his new girlfriend strolling through Prater Park.

We ended our lovely weekend in Vienna at Figlmüller by eating the best schnitzel of our lives! Jeff and I were just going to share one so we didn't have too full of tummies on the ride home. After we plowed through one, we immediately ordered a second. Yum!

Thank you, Julianne, for sharing your Sunday and Vienna expertise with us!