15 Mar 2017

Though it was a bit chilly, we spent the morning checking out the neighborhood park. There is a large play area with sand, tire swings, and this crazy walking bridge thing. This is a good place for Theta to get over her fear of sand.

There is a stylish hotel adjacent to the park, where we enjoyed a coffee on the terrace. Inside, the restaurant is roomy and bright, with lounge-y seating along the windows and around a cozy fire. Though the restaurant looks nice, it gets low ratings, so we won’t be trying the food here.

Trying out a decently rated restaurant near our apartment. I had the tomato soup and oysters -- both were okay.

Playing with a ladybug in the back garden of our Airbnb home.

Doing a bit of exploring and shopping on our first day. We came across this Dutch store (with kind of an odd name) that sells simple but nice clothing, homeware, stationery and kids stuff.

This is a fun place to browse. They sell a variety of knick knacks at IKEA prices -- we bought Theta a simple puzzle toy.

Had a heavy, meaty dinner at this brasserie with cheeky decor. We tried classic Dutch bitterballens for a starter -- they are basically meat croquettes. Not my cup of tea. The classic burger and ribs were pretty good. It was rather dark in there so I could only take blurry photos.

It seems like Amsterdam is a lot more kid friendly than Paris when it comes to dining out. Even a loud, divey pub like this has a high chair.

Got a carrot cake to go while waiting for our Uber.

Jon read somewhere that 70% of the world’s flowers come from Holland. They are cheap here, so I bought a bunch of white tulips for 3€. Within hours, all of them fell limp except for one. Not really sure why.