Like I said in my last post, so many things about Camping Zeeburg were awesome…but I think my favorite thing about it was the fresh baked bread/pastries each morning. The smell of it baking wafted throughout the campground and I was practically drooling as I would get ready in the morning.

Baguettes in the oven:

A Zeeburg breakfast:
(we had to pay for the peanut butter and jelly and even the plasticware and napkin…it felt wrong to throw them away!)

Jessica and Remi getting ready to go:

Besides once in college, I hadn't been on a bike since I was little.
I was so nervous to ride, let alone compete with those Amsterdammers in their fancy bike lanes.
(they put portland bikers to shame)

I almost crashed right after I got on (we were trying to rush so we wouldn't be late for our Anne Frank tour)  but I pretty much got the hang of it after a while. There was also one other incident where I attempted to get on my bike (which was a little big/heavy for me anyways) sideways on a sloped street. It's not technically "crashing" until you are on your bike and going right??

We made it to the Anne Frank House which was the one touristy thing we wanted to do while in Amsterdam.

It was amazing to actually see where everything took place. It was somber, surreal, and something I will never forget. We stood in the spot where Anne's desk was and saw the pictures she glued to the wall. We walked up behind the actual bookcase that hid the secret annex and we saw Anne's actual journal that she had written in while in hiding. I definitely recommend going if you will be visiting Amsterdam…and get your tickets ahead of time online so you don't have to stand in the crazy long line.

Since most of you won't be traveling to The Netherlands anytime soon, you can go to the website to see a virtual tour of the secret annex. 

The three buildings in this picture are just to the right of the Anne Frank House. Otto Frank (Anne's father, and lone Frank family survivor) was intrumental in saving the house from demolition. The houses adjacent to it didn't fair so well, but they have since been turned into a museum space: 

After our tour we hopped on a boat for a canal cruise.
It was pretty awesome, and I loved seeing the city from a different vantage point.
There's no way we could have seen so much just by bike. 

Before our trip I thought Amsterdam only had a few canals, but there are actually 165 of them!  

The canal tour was amazing and I definitely recommend one if you're visiting.

We were always back to Zeeburg before dark, but I'm sure Amsterdam is lovely at night…especially all of the lights on the canal bridges:

There are a lot of house boats on the canals, and I think it costs a hefty amount to own one:

Best houseboat award:

We loved the mix of architecture (both old and new) in Amsterdam:
(how cool is that cantilevered building?!)

Their amazing library:
(we only saw it from the boat, but I want to visit it next time)

After the canal tour we hopped on our bikes to find some lunch.
We rode through awesome neighborhoods and a lovely giant park called Vondelpark filled with ponds, playgrounds, trails and restauraunts.
It felt like we were kids when we were riding through this park, it was so beautiful and so much fun:

We wandered through the Jordaan area (which is where I'd totally want to live) in search of a coffee shop that I'd heard was great. Sidenote: in Amsterdam there are "coffee shops" and cafes,  "coffee shops" are on every corner and do not sell coffee; but rather marijuana…which is completely legal. Cafes are much harder to come by. 
We finally found Moods Coffee Corner and it didn't disappoint:

Isn't this spoon a genius idea?:

They also had the world's smallest receipt:
(what is this a receipt for ants?!)

When walking through the neighborhoods, it's quite obvious that the houses aren't exactly standing straight anymore…a large amout of them were build in the 1600's and it's crazy that they are even still standing.
A very crooked house:

Jess and I on the Prinsengracht:
(My oldest friend, and a bridesmaid in my wedding; Jessica and I have been friends for 25 years. We met on the tire swing the first day of first grade. We've only lived in the same city for 4 years but we have shoeboxes full of letters on Lisa Frank stationary to prove that the distance never came between us. Love that girl and so glad that they are moving back to The U.S. in just a few short weeks, after living in Germany for 5 years!)

Navigating the shopping areas on bikes isn't easy, you don't want to get your tires stuck in the tracks and you don't want to run into people. I'm so glad our bikes had bells!

Food in Amsterdam was pretty good, but it definitely depended on the restaurant.
Greenwoods was our last (and favorite) meal in Amsterdam.
Carrot cake, an amazing scone with homemade jam and clotted cream, a latte and hot chocolates to start out our breakfast:
 (when on vacation you can do what you want…and calories don't count, especially when bikes and walking are your mode of transportation)

Chris got a traditional English Breakfast, complete with baked beans and I got the most perfect scrambled eggs and homemade soda bread toast with a side of amazing potatoes that I couldn't finish.
It was all so, so good:

Even the parking garages are cool in Amsterdam:
(yep, those are chandeliers)

You can't help but notice how close the cars are parked to the canals. There are no rails or curbs to keep you from accidentally backing in. You better be a good parallel parker!

And this is how much space you have to get out of your car:

One last thing I thought was interesting about Amsterdam is that a lot of the houses have hooks at the top of the roof to help with moving giant modern furniture. After seeing how ridiculously narrow and steep the (many) staircases were in the Anne Frank House, there's no other way you'd be able to do it.
(you'd better hope you like your furniture arrangement)

Right before we left Amsterdam we got to witness a few cranes trying to squeeze things into people's houses through the windows. I'm not sure what was in that box but I can see that going horribly wrong. We also saw a piano being lifted into a house and it was pretty crazy to watch.

Amsterdam was a highlight of our trip and we will definitely be going back sometime in the future.
(even if we are 80 darnit)

I'm finally blogging about our trip to Europe! It's a daunting task, as I took a million pictures
(europe in autumn is amazing, how could I not take pictures of everything I saw?!) 
but I am making myself blog about it before I start forgetting, even if my posts aren't exactly how I want them to be. You see, I'm a slight perfectionist and things don't get done until I can do them perfectly...which means they don't get done most of the time. So here I am blogging about our trip now that we've been back for three weeks.
(I'm giving myself a pat on the back for that one.)

Also, everyone asks if it was hard to leave the boys for 9 days. Yes, it was hard especially in the beginning (the initial goodbye was the hardest part) and I cried a few times during our ten hour flight but once we landed in Amsterdam my adrenalin kicked in and we immediately started go-go-going so we really didn't have much down time to think about it. Of course we missed them and thought about them a ton but I knew I had prepared them as best as I could and they were having fun with family and friends, it was like a vacation for the boys as well. We were also on complete opposite schedules as them (Portland is 9 hours behind) so it was easier knowing that they were sound asleep for most of the time we were awake. We did get to Facetime a few times which really helped all of us I think and we kept a photostream of the pictures we were taking so they could see us whenever they wanted to.
I love technology!
It was difficult, but not as hard as I thought it would be and I honestly can say that I don't remember the last time I have felt so at ease and stress free, and I definitely came back a better mom (and wife!) because of it. Don't let the fear of leaving your kids hold you back from adventuring with your love!
...
September 21, 2013.

Coffee in hand, we headed into PDX to catch the longest flight either of us had ever been on. It was the afternoon and we'd be meeting our friends in Amsterdam at 8:30am with a full day of exploring ahead of us.

Obligatory airport pictures:

I highly recommend only taking carry ons, it made travelling so much easier.

Our ride:

We made it to Amsterdam! 

After meeting up with our friends (who live in Germany but were gracious enough to come travel with us and show us some of their favorite spots in Europe), we headed to some vintage shops.
Neef Louis was amazing and I'm pretty sure I walked around the entire warehouse (yes, warehouse) with my jaw on the floor.
One of everything please:

I've always been on the lookout for an old school poster and they had a ton of them:

This is the one we brought home:
Their chair selection alone was amazing:

And to top it off they had a great cafe where we sat and had our first European meal.
Apple pie in Europe (served with fresh whipped cream, not ice cream) somehow outdoes the good ol' American version:
(that's Gage, Jessica and their daughter Remi our gracious hosts looking longingly at our slice of pie)

Europe also know a thing or two about hot chocolate:
(they just pour hot milk over chocolate chips!)

This fancy ham and cheese panini came with jelly for dipping and it was amazing:

Us with Remi, isn't she adorable?!:

After vintage shopping, our friends showed us around Amsterdam. We were so exhausted, as it was technically the middle of the night for us, but we still had the rest of the day ahead of us!

If you look closely, you'll notice that this is a bike parking garage:
(it's no doubt that Amsterdam takes biking seriously and we learned quickly that you don't dare step in the bike lanes when one is coming)

A few interesting bike facts about Amsterdam (thanks to wikipedia):
- There are far more bikes than people in Amsterdam. There are 1.3 million bikes vs. 800,000 people.
- Bikes get stolen all the time, so nobody rides fancy bikes. In 2005 about 54,000 bikes were stolen.
- Each year about 15,000 bikes are retrieved from the canals!

Enough about bikes...
 I had read so many reviews trying to find the best rated places to eat in each spot we were traveling to. One place I knew I wanted to find in Amsterdam was Vlaams Frite Huis. There are a ton of places that sell fresh cut fries in cones in Amsterdam but this little hole-in-the-wall fry window was so good. Fries in Europe are commonly served with mayonnaise instead of ketchup, but Vlaams is known for their selection of 55 different sauces so we decided on a curry sauce which was pretty darn good.
Fries are my love language:

One thing I noticed is that Amsterdam is amazingly clean for the amount of people/tourists that were there. And everything and everyone is gorgeous. You can tell that the Dutch people take pride in the way they carry themselves, how they upkeep their homes and the way they dress. Everyone is effortlessly stylish, even the old ladies.
I was constantly in awe of the architecture and just how pretty everything was:

Even the shopping areas were amazing:

And not surprisingly, the Euro is beautiful as well:
(especially when you compare it to American dollars)

After some shopping, we checked into our cute little "eco-cabins" at Camping Zeeburg just outside of the main part of Amsterdam.
Ours was the yellow one:

It was essentially a dorm room but it was perfect (and cheap!) for sleeping and holding our belongings. We had to share bathrooms with everyone else, but it wasn't that bad really. I'd say everything about this place blows Oregon camping out of the water. Somebody needs to build a campground like this in Oregon, there was even a restauraunt with a bar for the night owls (which was definitely not us). There was also a little store that had some basic grocery items and they baked fresh bread and pastries each morning, but more on that in my next post!

The "wagonettes" that were across from us:

The cute restaurant:

Eventhough we spent most of our time in Amsterdam out of all of the places we saw on our trip (we also went to Germany, Paris and Switzerland) it's the one place we know we'd like to come back to someday.
It's like Portland on steroids and we loved the heck out of it!

Stay tuned for Amsterdam p.2 coming soon...hopefully!