1/2/2019 – 1/6/2019
We landed in Amsterdam and spent the night close to the airport, Scott’s flight left early the next morning. The hotel was really cool, called CitizenM. It’s a modular built building that I nerded out over. Here’s a link from Balfour Beatty showing how they’ve constructed them for anyone that is interested. The video is a bit long but worth watching. A quick Google search revealed that there are 2 coming soon to Seattle (SLU & downtown).
Anyways… After saying bye to Scott at the airport (which was terrible), I grabbed a rental car and headed to Almere to meet up with his mom, his sister and her boyfriend. We went out for a delicious all-you-can-eat Asian restaurant then walked around the town, picking up groceries for dinner. That night, we had dinner with a friend of Becca’s friends and relaxed. Sven cooked wonderful food. (Dutch cuisine consists of a lot of fried deliciousness and MAYO!)
The next morning, Leah & I headed to Bruges, Belgium. Along the drive we saw hundreds of windmills. It was pretty crazy to see that many located so closely to the road. Once we arrived, we parked the car in the hotel’s garage. This required using a car elevator. We hadn’t used one before and apparently the older French couple in front of us hadn’t either. The entrance was located directly off of a single lane one way street. We pulled into the entry and waited for the lift, the lift came back up with the French car still inside of it. They began pressing all of the buttons, opening and closing the lift door. Meanwhile, cars were honking at us for blocking the road. After several minutes, we were able to ride the elevator down and park it.
After checking in, we walked around Bruges, stopping first at De Halve Maan Brewery. This brewery has a beer pipeline that transports beer brewed inside of the city, outside to its bottling plant. They wanted to remain brewing at their original location, so this was their solution. Very cool! They also have a beer called the Brugse Zot, which is quite tasty. The story behind it is awesome; it’s as follows – Maximilian of Austria, (Click here for more info on his history with Bruges) did not like Bruges for several reasons. One time he visited, they kidnapped him, tortured and killed his best friend in front of him, only realizing that was a mistake and then trying to negotiate with Maximilian. One of the penalties he placed on the city of Bruges was that when they were to construct any new building, they needed to ask for his permission first. The city wanted to build a mental hospital, so they needed to ask Max for his permission. The mayor decided to throw a huge party and invite Max to it, make sure he’s having a good time then ask him for permission. Surprisingly, Max showed up to this party. He wasn’t into it at first but at one point he cracked a smile. The mayor jumped in an asked for permission. Max’s response was to simply close the gates of Bruges, because the town was already filled with fools. This was slightly offensive to them; however they grew to love it. Flash forward many years, their brew master created a delicious beer and asked the towns people what to name it and they said, of course “Brugse Zot”, The Fools of Bruges.
After having a beer (11%! woah) or two there, we went on a walking tour of the city. It is an adorable city with canals and beautiful brick buildings. We learned a lot of interesting facts along the way. One was the story of the Brugse Zot. Another was of a small housing development that only women live in, Begijnhof (yet another link). There are several stories on how these houses came about. One was that women asked their husbands to build them a house they could live in incase they died in the war, since they didn’t want to move back into their parents or join a convent. These houses provided places for women to live if they didn’t want to get married or join a convent. These houses are still lived in only by women. Pretty progressive for back in 13th century!
After the tour we stopped by another brewery (‘t Brugs Beertje) before dinner. We ate some of the best steak I’ve ever had at an unassuming bar. On the way back to the hotel we stopped by a chocolate store and picked up a few pieces. They had so many different varieties of chocolate! One of my favorites was little tools they made out of chocolate.
Friday morning, we went on a canal tour. It was really nice seeing the city from a different angle. Afterwards, we stopped for a waffle and did some souvenir shopping before heading back to Amsterdam.
We met up with Becca at her work and heading into Amsterdam. We grabbed dinner at a tasty Thai restaurant then went on a canal tour to see the Festival of Lights. Every year Amsterdam has a holiday light festival along the canals. The art was wonderful and some was also very bold. They had a version of Starry Night, dandelion seeds hanging in the air, giant spiders and “walk”/“don’t walk” signs finally meeting each other in the night.
Saturday morning, we all went to a family CrossFit class; which was necessary after all the fried food we’d been eating! It was a lot of fun and kicked my ass. We had lunch then headed back into Amsterdam to visit the Rijk’s Museum. The Rijk’s Museum itself is a stunning building let alone the artwork inside. We spent a few hours admiring the art then headed to happy hour before dinner.
The next morning, Leah headed back to Seattle. It was wonderful having those few days to bond and hang out with them. I sincerely enjoyed it. After coming back from the airport, Becca and I went to a bouldering gym. Then stopped by the grocery store, ate, relaxed, packed my bags, jumped in the rental car and headed to the airport… off to Cape Town!
Red Rover 