Our flight to London didn’t leave till 8:25, so we had a full day to kill in Amsterdam. It ended up being my fav Netherlands day!
We had watched some YouTube videos and everyone said Haarlem was adorable, so we headed there first in search of brekkie.
It has been grey, grey, grey here and back to being so cold, but so beautiful.
I love this door and all of the fun christmassy window decorations. As the girls would say, I am feeling this aesthetic.
We turned down one of the side streets and found the city! I thought it would be on the canal, but I thought wrong.
That church! All the heart eyes, so beautiful.
The Christmas decorations! Even more heart eyes.
And the shopping. I really, really wanted that adorable wicker bag up front, but Scrooge Matt was a shopping naysayer. This would be a perfect girls weekend shopping destination.
We tried 2 places for breakfast, but our girls have McDonald’s taste and we also have a McDonald’s budget. We found a sweet little cafe and had a delicious brunch.
Matt got a yogurt parfait and I had a basil, tomato, and mozzarella panini.
Adi had her chocolate croissant (she loves all bread!) and Frankie and D for mini pancakes with Nutella and whipped cream.
Such a pretty little city.
Matt suggested we drive out to the beach, and beach = lighthouse. Everyone here uses real trees, so we saw some of this:
There she is. So perfect.
Unfortunately she was all locked up, but still a fun little detour. This is the Lage Vuuetoren van IJmuiden Lighthouse. Really flows off the tongue.
After that we drove out to Bloemendaal at Sea.
It was bitter cold, and of course windy down by the water.
There were many more people than I’d have thought we’d run into on a Tuesday afternoon. Restaurants and little fish huts were even open. They are obviously still on break for a few more days.
I realized I didn’t have a container for sand and treasures so I fished that cup I’m holding out of the garbage and rinsed it in the ocean. It’s fine.
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Delaney played in the water and, now I know this is going to be hard to believe, but she ended up getting her feet wet. Then she was uncomfortable so she was able to sweet talk Matt into taking her to the car.
We found 2 pieces of sea glass and the sweetest little baby shells. And a cup of sand from the North (Atlantic) Ocean, obvi.
We walked up and enjoyed the views from the top.
By this point everyone was hungry again, so we got frites, frickadel, and bitter ballen- 2 more menu items crossed off my list!
I didn’t tell anyone what the bitter ballen was and we all took a bite at the same time. They are fried gravy balls. None of the girls liked them, and I have to say I wouldn’t order them again, but when you dipped the fries into the gravy middle, it wasn’t so bad.
We checked out a cool little lookout point across from the beach.
Then we made a long loop alone the beach and then back through a little neighborhood. We had time to kill and it felt good to move before a flight.
A bike parking garage! I love how bike friendly everything is there!
We turned in our car with no problems and got all checked in. The airport was totally dead, and we could only find 2 open restaurants, can you guess one of them? (It’s been mentioned in our Europe trip most days, including once already today). Ugh, D got McDonald’s - where they put ketchup on her burger again. It feels like all fast food restaurants are incapable of serving a buyer without ketchup. 🤷♀️
One little issue at the airport is that I had my self defense tool in my satchel and it got confiscated. 😔 That was a bummer because I take it when I run in less crowded places. But the bigger bummer was how the lady acted when she confiscated it. She asked what I did with it and then told me several times that it wasn’t allowed, and it wasn’t even allowed in the Netherlands. After the 5th time, and accusatory looks accompanying every declaration, I (unfortunately) let her know I had heard her and it was an unnecessary exchange. I will learn patience, I will, I will.
We ate near a play place and Delaney climbed all around this cute plane.
We got to the airport at 4 and had a lot of time to kill, but finally it was time to fly FLM - Royal Dutch Airlines. It was bumpy and I hate flying, but it was only an hour from Amsterdam to London, so it wasn’t terrible.
We Uber’s from the airport and are all tucked into our beds at our last Airbnb. Tomorrow we’ll be in our own beds, but first! The Rays do London. Or really, the Rays do London for 6 hours.
Either way, we’re excited. And our room key is adorbs.
We turned in our car with no problems and got all checked in. The airport was totally dead, and we could only find 2 open restaurants, can you guess one of them? (It’s been mentioned in our Europe trip most days, including once already today). Ugh, D got McDonald’s - where they put ketchup on her burger again. It feels like all fast food restaurants are incapable of serving a buyer without ketchup. 🤷♀️
One little issue at the airport is that I had my self defense tool in my satchel and it got confiscated. 😔 That was a bummer because I take it when I run in less crowded places. But the bigger bummer was how the lady acted when she confiscated it. She asked what I did with it and then told me several times that it wasn’t allowed, and it wasn’t even allowed in the Netherlands. After the 5th time, and accusatory looks accompanying every declaration, I (unfortunately) let her know I had heard her and it was an unnecessary exchange. I will learn patience, I will, I will.
We ate near a play place and Delaney climbed all around this cute plane.
We got to the airport at 4 and had a lot of time to kill, but finally it was time to fly FLM - Royal Dutch Airlines. It was bumpy and I hate flying, but it was only an hour from Amsterdam to London, so it wasn’t terrible.
We Uber’s from the airport and are all tucked into our beds at our last Airbnb. Tomorrow we’ll be in our own beds, but first! The Rays do London. Or really, the Rays do London for 6 hours.
Either way, we’re excited. And our room key is adorbs.
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