July 19-22

Headed to Holland!

The first few photos from the gallery below show the typical traveling configuration of Ben’s belongings along with a true depiction of the sizing of the elevator of our place in Paris. Our train up to Amsterdam station was fast and uneventful. Some additional views of the countryside kept us busy for the couple hours on the train. We took the local Sprinter train to Haarlem where we met Ben’s family that was hosting us in this stop. We had some light lunch and headed into the city of Haarlem. We walked the streets and had a secondary light lunch to supplement the light lunch we ate before. We then went into the Grote Kerk which is the main church in the town. This church had a magnificent organ with thousands of pipes in its construction. Additionally the floor was comprised of old tombstones which was interesting and something we hadn’t seen in other churches. Another interesting fact is that Mozart came to this church when he was ten to play on the magnificent organ. We walked around further and visited the Teylers Museum which is a natural history and art museum rolled into one. They had a nice collection of bones and other artifacts but the art in some of the back rooms really stood out to us. We went back to Ben’s Aunt and Uncle’s house for dinner and later went back out for a drink at the famous Jopen Kerk and then went to the highest parking garage to overlook the city before a thunderstorm which gave us an interesting view of the clouds.

The next morning Ben had a haircut appointment with his cousin Rex. We went to Rex’s barbershop and got some coffee and a cut! The experience was great and so was the haircut. Afterwards we took the train into Amsterdam so that we could walk around and visit the Rijks museum. We walked all around the central and western part of the city seeing all of the classic sights that Ben has seen several times which was very nice to share with Brenna. We meandered over to Winkel 43 for some lunch and their famous apple tart. The apple tart was so good and the whipped cream was fantastic. We walked down south and visited the Rijks Museum for a couple hours. We saw the main sights featuring Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Vermeer, and others. We then went to a street market pretty close to the museum and got a herring sandwich, Stroop waffle, and a Korean fried chicken sandwich (all fantastic). We walked back north towards Amsterdam station through a bit of the red light district just to take a peek. We hopped on the train back to Haarlem and ate some dinner and took a walk for some ice cream.

The next day we went back into Amsterdam and stopped at the Bjenkorf for food which is a huge department store with a swanky cafeteria on top. We then visited the Van Loon museum which is a large house that belonged to a rich family in Amsterdam. We also did a canal tour which is a must when you’re in Amsterdam which showed interesting sights around town and gave history of the architecture of the houses surrounding the canals. We took the train back to Haarlem and had dinner at Ben’s grandmother’s apartment which was fantastic. We all then went for a walk in the park next to her building and even played around on the street gym in the park.

The next morning we went to Zandvoort with Ben’s grandmother to walk on the beach and explore the town a little bit. It was extremely windy out that day but the walk on the beach was still pleasant. It is amazing that Ben’s grandmother at the age of 92 is so active and can still walk on the beach with us. We had some great lunch on the beach before heading back into the town of Zandvoort and we eventually headed back to Haarlem. We went into the city of Haarlem for another tour of a grand old house in Haarlem which made you feel like you were special guests at the owners house. They take you through the rooms of the house in order so that you could see how everything was performed behind the scenes to host parties and serve guests which was very interesting and then you walk in the magnificent rooms where the guests were received. We then went for a drink at a local bar and Ben got the Haarlem mule which is called the Haarlem mule since it has Jenever which is an ancestor of Gin apparently. The mule was very good and we got the drinks with some Bitterballen which you have to try if you’re in Holland. We then went to an Italian place for dinner and had a grand time reliving our experiences from Italy. We left to go pack up and that was pretty much the end of our time in the Netherlands. It was a great balance of a family visit and exploration. Ben was super excited to show Brenna the classic sights as he has been to Holland many times prior to this trip. The trip is coming to a close but we have one more stop: To Belgium!