On the Road Again: London to Amsterdam (Sat July 7)

Logan stepped in yesterday as guest editor, but now we will get you back up to date.

In London we stayed in the fashionable West End, which is famous for its shops, the theatre district and most especially its night life.  Unfortunately this night life really picks up on Friday and Saturday nights.  Scott, who was fighting the sniffles, woke up around 2 AM when the police sirens really got going and never managed to get back to sleep.  The good news is that we didn't miss our 8AM train.  The bad news was that he was sure crabby the next day!

We really liked the high-speed trains.  The Eurostar from London to Brussels was particularly nice.  It is so quiet and smooth it's almost spooky.

Riding in style on the Eurostar.  And this is Second Class!
Check-in and security were less strenuous than the airport.
Plenty of leg room and no seat belts.
Tickets (when bought in advance) were shockingly cheap.
Beats flying hands down!

At 180-200 MPH you don't see much of the countryside!

Sometimes they slow down long enough to catch a glimpse (windmill in the distance)

Rural Belgium

Here you can see a bloody spot on the front of the train
where we made contact with an ill-fated bird.

In Brussels we managed to find our train despite the paucity of signs in English.  We have found several of these "mini" grocery store things.  We grabbed some lunch to take on-board.

Is this a grocery store?  The food they are selling inside says "Yes."

No English.  The Tower of Babel is hard for the American mind to absorb and language confusion starts to take over. Occasionally, you find yourself trying to string several language together:  "Ich kann not your language parle, Capeche?"   In our two days in the Netherlands, we've noticed that almost everyone we meet is reasonably fluent in Dutch, English and French, +/- German.  Now, that's impressive!  No wonder they're too tired to work past 4:30.

Our grocery store lunch enjoyed on board the Brussels to Amsterdam train.  The sandwiches weren't
the greatest but that 70 cent chocolate bar was out of this world. 

At Amsterdam's Centraal Station.  

Logan pointed out some of the differences between London and Amsterdam.  One immediately obvious difference is the price.  Our place here was 30% less, is twice as large and is directly on the harbor.  Everything else is cheaper too and to top it off, the dollar-->Euro exchange rate is a good bit better than the $->GBP (Great Britain Pound).  

This is the view out our front window (Train Station is just out of the frame to the left)

View of a canal out the side window.

The Living Room.  The boys have some extra beds in an attic loft that
we have nicknamed "The Secret Annex."

THE SAGA OF THE BIKE RENTAL:

After settling in, we set out in search of bike rental.  Davis took the training wheels off several months ago and Scott had formulated this section of the trip (we divided the trip planning by segments after we fired the travel agent), based on the assumption that we would definitely be traveling by bicycle.  It was a busy weekend and it was extremely difficult to find anything that would accommodate a kid--we finally lucked out on our forth stop.

OK, so, if you are thinking about taking your kids to Amsterdam and exploring the place on bikes, let me save you about €140.  Don't!  Wait till they are in high school...of course then there's the weed and the red light district...OK, never!  Never do that.  We did.  It's nuts.  Cars, Mopeds, Pedestrians and Cyclists all intermittently share the same travel space.  No one wears a helmet.  Traffic rules are suggestions.  5% of the populace is mildly stoned on a Saturday.  

This became obvious to Everlie rather soon after our arrival.  Scott, who is not known for his reflective nature or subtle skill at listening, began to absorb this only after Davis fell off in the middle of a moderately busy intersection.  On Sunday we left the bikes chained up, but we may try again Monday, in the countryside, depending on the weather!  Meanwhile, we may have to send Everlie to one of the "Coffee Houses" in order for her to fully regain her composure.

The Dutch have all these interesting adaptations for using bikes
as a practical everyday transportation tool.  They call them "bakfiets" or "basket bikes."

Homemade version.  We saw several children just riding on the luggage rack in back.
One kid was standing up on the luggage rack, holding grandma's shoulder with one hand.
No one has a helmet.  

A deluxe bakfiets adapted for baby carrying.  Unfortunately, renting something like this is difficult.  

After cheating death, we made it to the Anne Frank House and saw the real secret annex.  If you have ever read the book, The Diary of Anne Frank, it is really meaningful to see it in person.  The building was formerly the sales office for a small Jewish business selling pectin (for making jelly).  Just before the Nazi's occupied Amsterdam the owner transferred the business to one of his associates and took his family and 4 others into hiding in a small section in the back of the building where they stayed for over two years before being discovered.  Only one of them would ultimately survive the concentration camps.

Anne Frank House.  The line of people on the right is waiting to
get in.  If you buy your tickets ahead of time you can skip the line--Ha!

After this, we headed "home."  Despite our very central location, there is very little street noise in our current apartment, so we all got a solid night's rest.