Amsterdam, Netherlands - (Week 1-2)

Hello Family and Friends,

We had a successful bike ride from Brussels to Amsterdam.

Atlas eating an apple and taking a little rest from the last leg of our bike ride in the lobby of our Amsterdam hotel while we check-in.

The day after we arrived we picked up some very special guests from the airport: my parents!

Atlas, Brett, Eartha & TV {Mom and Dad) in front of the train station.

They are visiting us for 8 days! Mom has met us across the world in Mexico and Japan. However, this is the very first time that Dad has traveled to see us! We had an absolutely wonderful time! We played card games and Farkle every night. And if you know my Dad, this isn't a surprise. We would close down the lounge and then head to the bar and close that down as well. We even taught some new friends Farkle, which is a pure luck dice game, and Wizard, which is a little less luck card game.

Besides playing card games every evening, we also visited the Rijksmuseum.

Rembrandt's The Night Watch in the process of being restored.

A to scale model of a 1600s warship built by actual ship makers.

The library that is actually still in use so we had to be quiet.

 A painting from one of the artist of the Hague school which is where we get most of our ideas of Netherland culture.

We also visited the De Haar Castle, which most recently was used as a social house for the baron to invite famous people for dinner parties and masked balls.

On the castle grounds.

Very opulent interior of the castle. This would be where the baron would first welcome his guest.

We did a little rowing at the pond on the castle grounds.

Mom and Atlas finding their way through the maze on the castle grounds.

Brett showing Atlas how to navigate the small obstacle course on the castle grounds.

We then left the Netherlands and took Mom and Dad to a quaint town to celebrate their 40th anniversary coming up later in the year. Ghent, Belgium is about a three hour train ride from Amsterdam. It's a charming, old world town.

The three towers of Ghent: Saint Nicholas Church, the Belfry and Saint Bavo's Cathedral.

Brett was even able to get us accomodations in an old post office that now serves as a hotel.

The postcard in the background is a photo of the old post office and those are old letters in the foreground.

A secret spiral staircase within the hotel that we found when exploring.

A view of the post office now hotel from the water while on a river tour.

Other views of the city from the canal.

More of Ghent from the water.

Gravensteen castle was built in the middle of the city as a reminder to the counts, who were getting very rich and powerful, that the king was still in charge.

We returned to Amsterdam in the middle of World Pride Amsterdam. A pride parade came down the street right in front of our hotel.

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This one rollerblader saw that I was recording him and gave me a little show.

Once back in Amsterdam we took Mom and Dad to see the Amsterdam Palace.

The palace in located in Dam square, which is where Amsterdam got its name. Translated, Amsterdam means "river dam". A barrier was built to stop the Amstel river from flooding.

The view of Dam Square from inside the palace where the Royal family will address the Netherland people.

Atlas and his name sake.

And of course we couldn't have a complete experience of Amsterdam without biking. Bikers in Amsterdam rule the streets. There are infinitely more bikes than cars. And as a pedestrian, you have to watch out more for bikes than cars.

We took Mom and Dad along the river route.

Mom leading the bike caravan.

Mom loved the bikes so much that we split from the boys and took a little detour.

Near the end of Mom and Dad's trip, we went to the Anne Frank Museum. We got to see where Anne and her family were hiding when they were found by the Germans. The whole museum along with her diary, is really a father making his daughter's dream come true. Anne wanted to be a writer and hoped that her writing would one day be published and her dad made that happen. One of the lighter moments of the tour was that we learned the reason it was super easy for the Germans with their tanks to overtake the Netherland army is because the Netherland army was primarily made of bikes and a few motorcycles. The Netherlands had one tank and it was not operational.

Very Amsterdam to have a bike and motorcycle army.

And too soon, we had to say goodbye to Mom and Dad. I guess they had a life or something that they had to return too.