Christmas in London

So London is known for going all out for the Christmas and New Year's holidays. Something about the cold, rainy weather all fall means that people really get decked out with decorations - and there are just a million things do to around town. Our first year here, we had a brand new baby and barely left the house for the holidays. But our second year, the baby was now a year old and we wanted to see everything. Both of our mothers came to town, so we hit the sights. 

Carnaby Street

First- Carnaby Street is a smallish street in the middle of the downtown area that gets super decorated every year. This year's theme was the Oceans, so all of the decorations were made of reclaimed plastic. It was so cool that we took my mom, and then went back a few weeks later with my mother in law. 

Birthday and Decorations

I guess this will forever be a problem with having a December birthday - but we celebrated the baby's first birthday and then decorated the tree. We will have to find ways to separate the events and avoid his birthday just being consumed by the ever-expanding holiday season. He didn't seem to notice this year though. 

School Stuff

So if you've seen Love Actually, you know that there is a British tradition of doing the nativity play at primary schools and everyone gets a part. We are constantly surprised by the amount of religion included in the public school system and must always remind ourselves that there is no separation of church and state here. We were hoping he would get the part of the 2nd lobster- and were surprised to find out he had chosen the part of the bad guy, Caesar. (Caesar is bad because he required the census- which we explained isn't actually a bad idea, but the point was lost on him.) Anyway- he did great - he had one of the few speaking roles but commanded stage with authority! Later, I got roped into helping out at the school's Christmas Fair. We've also come to learn that meeting Santa in advance of the holiday is a thing they do here - but you don't sit on his lap. No mall Santas here.  Instead, he sits in something called a "Grotto", and the kids take turns awkwardly standing nearby to tell him what presents they want. It makes for weird pictures. 

selling toys and games at the fair - baby always on the hip.

chatting with Santa in the Grotto

Other Downtown Lights

The rest of the city downtown is also lit up - not nearly as cool as Carnaby, but still nice. We wandered around a bit- because it's more spread out, it isn't nearly as crowded as Carnaby - so I didn't have to carry the big kid around on my shoulders the whole time. 

Drinks at Somerset House

After wandering town to see the lights - we stopped at Somerset House for a drink. This is one of the many old, historic, probably once a royal residence, grand homes in the London area. It had an outdoor skating rink and bar area that was decked out like a wintery lodge. It was a lovely place to just sit and watch the skaters - I believe both kids fell asleep. 

Gingerbread City

After drinks, we headed to a new event called the Gingerbread City. Someone ran a competition between architecture firms and students to create houses out of gingerbread - and then created a huge display of them inside. It was amazing - everything made out of sugar- some parts were mechanized to move. Trains were moving through the whole thing. We could've stayed for hours - but everyone was getting pretty tired and cranky at this point and ready to head home. 

Christmas Day

After a pretty busy holiday season, it was nice to wrap it up with some quiet time at home just to ourselves- in our Christmas Jumpers - before heading out for our last trip of the year. 

A Long Weekend in Amsterdam

So, as I mentioned in my last post, our big kid started school. That meant a lot of changes for us, but one big one was that we could no longer travel whenever we wanted and instead had to stick to the school schedule. In fact, if we took him on vacation when school was in session, we could be fined. Schools are year-round here, so they go almost all the way through the summer and have long breaks between each term, and then a week off halfway through each term. Juggling childcare for all these breaks is hard, but that's a different issue. So - once he was through his first half term, it was time for a week off and well-earned vacation! It was now the end of October and super rainy. As usual, we waited a bit too late to decide, and the only affordable option was to do a few days in Amsterdam. It wasn't exactly our first choice - but it turned out to be a fantastic getaway.

Day 0: Travel Day

We would've loved to take the train - which is only 4 hours to get from London to Amsterdam, but it was like 10x the cost of the plane. So we caught a cheap plane (less than 30 minutes), and navigated to our Airbnb. Having learned this lesson before, they stayed in and unpacked while I went out in search of a grocery store for dinner. By the time I had come back, they had cleaned the house out of snacks and beers and were all passed out. 

travel pros - ready to fly!

Day 1: Pancakes, Walking Tour, Museums

First stop was to get pancakes! I wouldn't say the Netherlands are known for great cuisine exactly, but we knew a few tasty tidbits we needed to try- and massive pancakes cooked with apples and bacon inside, covered with Stroop- which is like super condensed, extra sweet maple syrup, seemed like a good way to start the rainy day. 

coffee with a little stroopwaffle cookie

that is the tub of stroop on the table

this is a pancake.

Then we walked into the old part of the city - past the old square and royal palace and into Begijnhof - which is this super cool hidden courtyard that was sort of a hidden convent of sorts. Lots of breaks to pop into cheese stores and get snacks along the way.

 

Royal Palace

I am truly shocked that we didn't return with one of these massive cheese wheels. These boys love their cheese.

the Begijnhof - a truly charming oasis in the middle of the city

Next,  we hopped the streetcar to the museum district. We knew we could only pick one - so we opted for the Van Gogh Museum. The other big museum that would've been cool to see is the Rijksmuseum, which is just across the way from the Van Gogh, making a very cool museumy-parky-area to stroll around. I had the baby in the carrier on me for all this time, and we decided to put the big kid in a stroller in the museum. That made it easy for us to split up, kind of look at the art, and keep moving. Our big kid was not impressed, so being able to just push him along helped. We did discover that scavenger hunts in art museums kind of make it more interesting for him - but mostly we just have to move along quickly. 

onwards to the museum district

museums! (and non cooperative 4 year olds).

this was his favorite Van Gogh.  Not sure why exactly, but he was into it.

this face is a combination of: 

1) This place is so beautiful and, 

2)We're almost back to the hotel and I can't wait to take this baby off!!!

Last stop was dinner - we went to an amazing little restaurant known for its traditional Dutch food, which basically is a lot like English or German food - super heavy stuff to keep you warm and sober you up after too much beer. Lots of mashed potatoes and sausages - but after a long, cold rainy day, it really was pretty perfect. 

walking home along the canals at night

Day 2: Markets, Pie & Boats

So we started Day 2 by heading to the market, the Nieuwmarkt. Again, it was a rainy day, so there weren't a lot of people there and the vendors were mostly covering up their goods. But, the big treat was to have a fresh stroopwaffle. So, stroop- as I said is thick syrup, and they put it between two thin waffles for a little cookie. We'd had a bunch already - but a fresh one turned out to be unbelievable.

trying the fresh stroopwaffle

 

we're soon full of sugar!!!

Then, as if we hadn't already had enough sugar- we went in search of the best apple pie, as suggested by our hotel lady. It was a nice stroll along the canals until we found it- and yah, she was right, it was amazing.  

yes, babies like pie. Who knew?

helping me by holding the umbrella. 

 

After another long morning of walking around town, the big guy was getting pretty red out - so it was a perfect time to hop on a boat tour. I'm a big fan of boat tours no matter what - it's just nice to see a city from a different perspective - but in particular when you have little people that need a rest. So, we had an hour or so driving around the canals, which was just lovely and a welcome break from the walking. 

baby fell asleep just before getting on the boat! Awesome!

chilling on the boat

charming city

The boat put us out right near the Anne Frank House, which is listed as one the top sights you must see in Amsterdam. We both wanted to see it, but definitely didn't want to take the kids - and didn't want to lose a lot of time by having one of us go and then switch - so we came to the conclusion that we'd see it the next time we were here.  But still, we both felt bad and kind of regretted the choice. Instead, we wandered around a bit, and headed back to the hotel for a nap break. 

it is just so scenic here. 

So the last stop was dinner. Indonesia was previously a dutch colony, so the Netherlands has a huge Indonesian food scene now. There's something called a rijsttafel, or "rice table' where you are given a central plate of rice and the like 20 other dishes. And we just had to check it out. Thankfully, I think at least one or two of those dishes were compatible with our picky eaters, and we were happy to wolf down the rest. Other than the fact that this was a huge amount of food, it was a nice break from all the traditional heavy dutch food we'd been having. 

always playing cards while we wait

crazy excited about this!!

Day 3: Travel

And that was it. Time to check out and get moving again. We hopped the train back to the airport and onwards back home. 

baby food on the train

Conclusions:

- In general, this was a really great trip. It felt pretty easy, nothing was hugely stressful. Maybe we're just getting better at the whole traveling with kids thing, or Amsterdam is just kind of the perfect size. But everything went really well. 

- Thankfully we did not ever need a car on this trip, so we didn't have either the car seat or booster. We did make the mistake of bringing a pack and play with us, only to discover that the Airbnb did have one (always ask even if they don't list it!).  So we had to haul it around going to and from the airport - thankfully we've learned to put the baby on me and the pack and play in the stroller - so no one actually has to carry it much. 

- The first grocery stop was super useful not only to get us through that first night's dinner, but to put something healthy in everyone's stomach for breakfast. All this stroop is total crack - so making sure there was a good layer of yogurt and fruit in their bellies first helped keep them from going completely nuts. 

- We had the stroller with us as well as the baby carrier which allowed us to swap around and let the big kid have a rest every now and then. Because it's pretty collapsible, we could take it into museums and onto boats - but it was also durable enough to handle cobblestones, so perfect!

- It would definitely have been nice to spend more time there. At least another day would've been great. This was actually the most expensive hotel we had ever had to pay for - this is not a cheap place - so we were a bit limited by that. Maybe getting to explore some of the other places in the Netherlands would've been nice- and obviously coming at a nicer time of year would've been easier. But mostly, we were absolutely charmed by the city and would really love to go back.