HANNAH SHARES

After our trip to Munich, Michael’s parents left the following Tuesday and my mom and sister arrived on Saturday to spend Thanksgiving week with us!

On Monday, us girls drove to Verona for the day. We stopped by Juliet’s House, walked through the Christmas market, and enjoyed pizzas and spritzes in Piazza delle Erbe (Verona’s city center).

We planned to spend the 4-day weekend for Thanksgiving in Amsterdam, so we celebrated Thanksgiving on Tuesday instead, since we’d be travelling on Thursday. While the oven in our kitchen apartment is great, it’s essentially an oversized toaster oven, not ideal for preparing a full Thanksgiving dinner. So we decided to order everything from Il Ceppo, our favorite local gastronomia, since they offer Thanksgiving dinner for Americans in the area. We picked up turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, and brussel sprouts. It was wonderful and even better, required no cooking or clean up.

On Thursday morning we were on our way to Amsterdam. We took a direct flight from Venice, Lucy’s first plane ride! Our original flights were cancelled only a couple of weeks before our trip, and our rescheduled flights shortened our trip quite a bit, so we only had Thursday late afternoon and all day Friday to explore. Lucy did pretty good on the plane, the pressure definitely bothered her ears, but she recovered quickly. We took a train from the airport to the Flower Market district, where we were staying in the city. We passed a restaurant right next door to our hotel before checking in that claimed to have the best burgers in Amsterdam (Ter Marsch & Co). After cleaning up we decided to check it out for dinner. We all ordered fun cocktails (although Michael opted for a local beer), burgers and fries. Italy has a few spots that do decent burgers, but not comparable to what we’re used to in America. Although I will say the fries in Italy are always amazing. Needless to say, we hadn’t really had a good burger in about a year. The burgers lived up to the hype! It was a really fun place and I would highly suggest it to anyone visiting. Our evenings tend to end a little earlier than they used to, so we headed back to the hotel to put Lucy down for bed while my mom and Greta went to walk the area. They brought back different flavors of stroopwafel, a thin layer waffle cookie with a caramel filling.

Friday morning we were very confused when we opened up the windows and it was still pitch black dark out at 7:30am. I checked and sunrise wasn’t until well after 8am! We had a really good breakfast at Lexi’s Coffee & Bakery – waffles, coffee, and fresh squeezed orange juice. After breakfast we took the train to Museumplein, a neighborhood with tons of great museums. Michael did a tour of Heineken Brewery and us girls went to Rijksmuseum, an art museum with an extensive collection of masterpieces featuring Van Gogh and Rembrandt. That afternoon we toured Anne Frank’s house, the canal house that the Frank family and others hid in during German occupation of WWII. The home was turned into a museum, but much of the building was preserved in its original state, and now includes exhibits of Anne’s life and what life was like in the Secret Annex. It was an incredibly moving experience.

After our tour we walked quite a ways back to the Flower Market District in the pouring rain. We stopped to warm up with poffertjes, traditional Dutch mini pancakes topped with Nutella and strawberries. So yummy! That night for dinner we went to an Argentinian steakhouse for dinner (it was good, not great).

My mom and Greta’s flight was earlier than ours on Saturday, so I walked with them to the train that took them to the airport. After Lucy’s nap the three of us walked to find a good breakfast, and found the perfect spot – Brasserie Meuwese. I love a good atmosphere, and this was a perfect cozy spot with great food to end a quick weekend. We even watched them squeeze our orange juice fresh behind the bar. Highly recommend this spot! We walked a bit more before packing up and heading to the airport ourselves. The transportation in Amsterdam makes it really convenient to get around, especially with a baby. It’s a super walkable city, but also easy to hop on a train and be in another neighborhood in a few minutes. I really hope someday we have another opportunity to come back and see the tulips in the spring!

AMSTERDAM GUIDE

DINING

Ter Marsch & Co – best burgers in Amsterdam, fun cocktails too!
Pancakehouse Upstairs – want to try this spot next time for traditional pancakes
Brasserie Meuwese – perfect for breakfast or drinks
Lexi’s Coffee & Bakery
Winkel 43 – known for best apple pie in Amsterdam (my mom and Greta went here, said it was good!)

THINGS TO DO

Anne Frank House
Amsterdam Tulip Museum
NEMO Science Museum
Heineken Experience
Van Gogh Museum
Rijksmuseum

HOTEL

Hotel NH Collection Amsterdam Flower Market