We took advantage of the long weekend in Europe to spend 4 days in Stockholm. We spent Thursday at the Vasamuseum checking out a naval ship that sunk in 1628, and then barbecued with friends. After a rainy Friday, Saturday was marathon time for me. Whoever tells you the best way to see a city is to run a marathon through it is wrong. This will be the last marathon I run without training first... Massive thanks to Andrew for showing up every 3-4 miles to provide motivation and to take photos. We ended Sunday by hobbling over to the City Hall where they host the Nobel Prize banquet, and then over to a vegetarian buffet restaurant with a heck of a view. All-in-all a great trip back to the motherland!
We were fortunate enough to have Andrew's family out to visit over the course of a few weeks, starting with a Mother's Day/Andrew's 30th birthday weekend in Budapest. We had beautiful weather and were able to see the city, check out the bath house, and enjoy a nice birthday/mother's day dinner atop the hills in Buda. After a week of travel, we ended up back in Amsterdam where Alex, Jessica, and Adam joined us for more sightseeing, bicycling, and relaxing family time. We also took Andrew's Dad out to eat to celebrate his upcoming retirement!
King's Day is a Dutch national holiday and is also one of Amsterdam's biggest street parties of the year. Everyone dresses in orange to show their Dutch pride (orange is the national color) and flock to the streets and boats to party all day. We were fortunate enough to have great weather, and to have my sister Maggie and her husband Brian in town visiting. The four of us did our best to partake in Dutch tradition, spending the day walking all over the city exploring the scene. It was also the only day of the year here that Andrew's orange Tigers hat made any sense. Nice sequined hat Brian!
We spent the majority of March and April exploring all that Amsterdam and the Netherlands has to offer. Highlights included an Ajax soccer game, Carnival in Den Bosch, a trip to the beach in Zandvoort, a picnic in the Amsterdam Forest with our neighbors Rachel and Brad, day trips to Leiden and the Keukenhof Tulip Garden, and other weekend fun around the city. We did our best to become real Dutch people, but we still can't speak much of the language :)
For Valentine's Day Weekend we continued our exploration of Belgium and took a trip to Ghent and Bruges. Our first stop was in Ghent where we did a lot of walking around since the city has a lot of preserved medieval architecture and also toured the Gravensteen which is a castle from the middle ages. In Bruges we enjoyed a great Valentine's Day dinner and then took a boat tour of the canals and a stroll through the old town center. Both cities were well worth the visit (though next time we'll try not to go to Bruges on a Sunday when everything is closed...)
Bear with us as we get caught up with our posts. Two weekends ago, Andrew and I went to Antwerp. Although we were slightly exhausted by the time we got there thanks to a two hour delay and some rerouting, we made it! The gothic architecture in this city is amazing and is everywhere from the central train station to the cathedral right in front of our hotel. No trip in Belgium would be complete without some delicious Belgium beer and chocolate smothered Belgium waffles...yum!
One of our first weekends in Amsterdam, Andrew and I decided to be tourists and went on a canal cruise during the Amsterdam Light Festival. Getting to see Amsterdam from the water with unique light installations along the way was a very cool experience especially since the Amsterdam Canal District just celebrated their 400th year anniversary (the warm spiced wine helped too)!
We'll be living in Amsterdam for the six months leading up to the wedding and will try and post pictures here
