Out of hibernation. Chapter 1

So it's been a long cold winter here this year, and I now completely understand why bears go into a cave for months at a time. As the temperature begins to rise though, you can finally free yourself from the frozen tomb. So what does one do when they are finally released from the frigid prison, well if you are us you hit up 4 countries and 11 cities in 3 weeks. For those of you keeping score, that's over a country a week and an average of about 3 cities per week. We didn't actually go at that rate but it was close.

In the first installment of this series I'll go over the first week when my family arrived for their first time in the NL.

My family arrived on a Saturday morning to chilly weather and a slightly gray sky. It wasn't exactly the welcome mat from mother nature's point of view but it was typical Dutch. We had planned out our entire trip for them, and were going to slowly work them into the Dutchfold. We couldn't of course start them off with too much and overwhelm them but we couldn't sit around and miss anything.

On the first day we introduced them to our life. After gathering everyone home, Two by car and Two by train, and unpacking we continued our transportation introduction with a ride on the Metro to the Blaak market.

There they got to see the European open market in all its glory with vendors lined up shouting and selling their goods. We then continued to work off the jetlag with a stroll around the center of Rotterdam and they became familiar with a chocolate covered Belgian waffle, yum! Apparently the waffle did some of the girls in, so while they napped the rest of the weary travelers traversed with us to Albert Heijn to experience a Dutch Grocery store. We finished the night with an uncompleted game of Scrabble.

On the next day we decided to expand their horizons even more. We went to meet Alyssa's Mom and Stepdad for Panenkoeken in Den Haag then walked the boardwalk of Schevenigen.

They then got a big look at little Holland at Madurodam. We then continued to walk around Den Haag until we came to the Escher museum, (which I found awesome!). With another city down we came back to our apartment thinking we might cook everyone dinner but since our Frites stand next door was open we grabbed ourselves a bucket and some fritesaus and dug in.

The following day we went really touristy and traveled to Amsterdam. We rode the train together which does take quite a lot of coordination especially when trying to sit together. Once in Amsterdam, we headed toward the center of town and Madame Tussaud's wax museum.

There we proceeded to get the bejeezes scared out of us and experience some great family bonding (as we clung to each other). Laughter was had by all though. After the wax museum we went to the Anne Frank Museum to experience the book we had all read as children. We then ate at the Open Restaurant overlooking the water, which was very good. Upon finishing our meal we trammed it to see Boom Chicago, which was an American made Improv show. After the show we traversed the Red light district. It was raining the whole day so the only people wandering the area were the desperate customers, and us.

Our next day we trained to Den Haag to pick up our rental car for the rest of the trip. We had planned to go to the Peace Palace and tour the building but showed up 3 minutes too late for our tour and missed it. (This was extremely annoying because the Dutch say they value people being on time. But they never are and usually everything is about 5 or 10 min late, except this. We did drive by a bunch of the embassies around the building which was interesting in itself.

We then went to Delft and let everyone experience the greatness that is Turkish food and Shoarma. I was then shuttled back to school while everyone else got to tour the park near us. We did end the day on a great note with a rousing game of Cranium where we learned there are only 4 trees, one of which is a Christmas tree, and that matadors are still hard to draw.

Since we had just rented the car the previous day we decided to put in some miles. Wednesday was a big day and one of the most fun. We started off by driving from Rotterdam to Antwerp. We walked around and saw the main square, main shopping district, train station, diamond quarter and picked up some chocolate and lace while in town.

We then continued our travels to the southern tip of the Netherlands and Maastricht. Since we had already been to Maastricht we knew all the good places to go right off the bat, like the ancient Roman wall, so we gave a tour of the sites and went to the Natural History Museum.

With the light fading we then drove across the border to the German town of Aachen and had a traditional German meal and experienced some German made beer, including a delicious banana beer.

With our belly's full and having whipped across Central Europe we drove on home.

When Alyssa and I were planning this trip we wanted to end it all with a bang and what better bang then the Tulip explosion that is the Keukenhof on the first day it's open. Unfortunately, the only explosion we saw was the remains of a wintery blast that had left all the plants stunted in growth. In other words, if you love dirt, this was your place. You could see how beautiful it was all going to be once the flowers and trees bloomed, but that wasn't when we went.

We eventually made it to the zip line, the one glimmer of hope I knew could make the trip, only to find it stuck. I refused to let this last obstacle get in my way, and with much swinging and banging of parts, the zip line was freed and ready to be zipped upon.

Everyone enjoyed the 40 ft zing and then we went to the hedge maze. Alyssa and I had never been inside the hedge maze and since we were all in pairs we decided to race to the other end, which was a great time. We walked around for a little more then headed back to the car and went back to Amsterdam. There we took a boat tour around the city and then afterwards the guys went to the Heineken experience and the ladies went shopping.

To end the day we went back to Rotterdam to eat at a very nice restaurant near our apartment that we never knew about. Upon completion of dinner we spent the night at Alyssa's mom's house before heading off to the airport in the morning for the next part in the series.