April in Amsterdam

Kids opening surprize easter eggs

April has been a bit better here.

Easter was sunny but cold. I took the kids to the park in the morning, with a detour to feed the ducks, and then gave them surprize eggs that I'd made. In the middle I put a small easter egg, and then I wound strips of crepe paper around and around, tucking other little presents into it. I didn't want to give them a whole lot of chocolate, so that seemed like I good alternative, and unwinding them kept them amused for awhile!

Houses in Haarlem

One weekend Jana and I biked to Haarlem to meet up with some couchsurfers. Haarlem is a city of about 150 000 people, and is about 13kms, or 1 hours bike ride North-West of Badhoevedorp, close to the sea. It's the centre of the flower-growing area, nicknamed 'Bloemenstad' (flower city) and used to be a major city before the growth of Amsterdam. I really like it there, the old buildings are beautiful but not tourist-clogged, there are less chain stores and more small shops selling funky housewares or clothing, and there are cool bars and cafes and a couple of markets. We went with half a dozen others around some of Haarlem's 19 Hofjes, or little almshouses build around courtyards for single women to live in, like the Béguinage I visited in Belgium and several others around Europe. Unfortunately my camera died, so I don't have any photos, but we had a really nice day and finished up with coffee on the 6th floor terrace of the V&D building (supermarket/department store).

Flower garlands in Haarlem

I went back to Haarlem a week later with Carmela for the Bloemencorso, or 'flower parade'. We went around lunchtime and spent the day looking around, checking out some of the sights that I hadn't already seen and then visiting the Frans Hals museum of fine art. The whole city was decorated with fresh flowers, building the anticipation. After some food and a few beers, we stood out in the lit-up market square waiting for the parade in absolute freezing cold! The parade is made up of floats and cars decorated solely with flowers, the smell and colours are amazing! It starts at Noordwijk, where many flower fields are located (and where I went on holiday with this family last year) early in the morning, and travels 40km to Haarlem. It was meant to arrive at 9pm, but was about an hour late, and I really cannot emphasize how damn cold it was!

Float made of flowers at the Bloemencurso

While it was pretty, I didn't think it was worth the wait or the hype to be honest, once all of the floats arrived the whole thing ended, I was expecting a bit of a party like I'd become accustomed to here in Europe, like at the Diekirch Carnival. The coolest part of it was the marching brass bands, one of which was mounted on bicycles - joining a bicycle-riding band troupe is totally now on my bucket list! At the parade we met a couple of Polish au pairs and headed out for a drink with them afterwards. One of them then introduced me to Jopenkerk, a brewery/bar set inside an old church. Its really beautiful, it still has the amazing walls, ceiling and stained glass windows, and on one side of a glass wall are the big copper tanks. There we met some french guys, which led to more bars, and eventually I managed to bike the 13km home at 4am - not the smartest idea, but I lived!

Tulips at the Keukenhof Gardens

I also visited the Keukenhof Gardens with Carmela, and another friend Patrizio from Italy. With 32 hectares, it is the World's largest flower garden, and is only open for a couple of months each year. It focuses on tulips, as well as daffodils, hyacinths, and a few others. We walked around for ages and had a picnic lunch there, and it was pretty, but after a while it all starts to look the same, all perfectly manicured beds of the same flowers, with a million tourists squashing them to take photos - I think that the Wellington Botanic Gardens have much more variety on offer!

Tulip fields around Lisse

Despite more freezing weather, we hired bikes and headed out into the countryside to see the flower feilds, and I enjoyed these much more. The huge feilds are planted with rows and rows of coloured flowers, interspersed with canals and the occasional windmill. We even biked out to the beach about 10km away, not far away from Noordwijk. Here we ate the Dutch version of fish and chips, kibbeling and fries. Kibbeling is battered and fried chunks of fish, which I much prefer to the more popular Dutch herring dish, raw herring marinated in brine and eaten on bread with onions. There are carts selling it everywhere, including one on the middle of Badhoevedorp that emits a lovely fish smell! I ate it once - while it's not terrible, the texture isn't great, and given the choice of that or something else, it isn't what I would chose to eat.

Me and Ollie at the pool

The kids have been good. I've barely seen Pepi as he's mostly at school, but Ollie and I have had a lot of fun. I've started taking him swimming on Mondays, we get an hour and a half in the pool and an instructor takes a group lesson for a little while too. At first he was terrified and clung to me, but by the end of the first lesson he was happily jumping off the edge of the pool into the water with me catching him, and he has improved a lot. Now he can "swim" with his arms, or "kick" with his legs while I hold him afloat, but he can't manage to do both yet, and he's still to scared to float by himself, even with water wings on.

Ollie 'reading' at the library

One day we took the bus and tram into the city to the big library, it has a cool kids section with english books, and for Ollie the bus and tram are a big adventure in itself! He spent the whole time pointing out "more water, more water, more water" at all of the canals - welcome to the Netherlands buddy, there's water everywhere! We also went to the airport, it's only a short bus ride away from home, and it has a huge viewing deck complete with a plane you can climb inside, and the restaurant inside has a children's playground. There's also a train station under the airport, but we didn't even get that far we spent so long watching the planes, he was really into them!

friends at the windmill brewery bar

I've been getting out in the good weather a bit, either running or going on bike rides. I've been quite a way along the big Ringvaart canal here, through several small villages, and I'm looking forward to finding other directions to bike in. I enjoy this aspect of living here, that its so easy to get out for some exercise and see some nature. I've caught up with a few friends from Luxembourg that have visited - this always equals a lot of time spent wandering around Amsterdam's red light district, and I've been out with friends from here a bit too - all in all a busy month!

More photos from April are here.