It’s been two weeks since we landed in Amsterdam! Absolute craziness! This month has flown by.

On the plane on the way to Amsterdam on Saturday April 13th

I’m so excited to be recapping our trip. We had an absolutely amazing time.

I was thinking I’d try to make these posts short and to the point, but yeah, I know that’s not going to be the case! I’ll write a post for each day and give you the Instagram recap at the beginning and then you can read the entire thing if you want the deets!

So! Day 1! Sunday April 14th! Here’s what I wrote on Instagram:

We’re in Europe! For a very very very early 40th birthday gift to myself (seriously early – my birthday is the end of July) we came to Europe to see the architecture, eat amazing food, and meet lots of my friends!

We flew out last Saturday the 13th and landed in Amsterdam on the 14th. We spent the day walking around, eating, visiting with my friend Anita and her husband Mike, and going on a boat tour.

WHY’D WE GO

Last summer on my 39th birthday I got the idea that I should treat myself to a trip to Europe for my 40th birthday. I wanted to visit countries I’d never been to before and where my rock painting besties live – the Netherlands and Germany – and where my blogging friend Amy lives – Belgium.

WHAT I WANTED TO DO ON THE TRIP

The #1 goal of the trip was to see and spend time with my friends. #2 goal was to see the Dutch tulips and go to a castle in Germany. #3 goal was to try all sorts of vegan food. #4 goal was to see cool buildings. We are not very museum-y, and only went to one museum on this entire trip.

WHO HELPED ME PLAN

To really treat myself, I used a travel agent, Stephany‘s friend Amber, through Amber’s company Booked Travel Planners. I told her the general intentions of my trip, where and when I wanted to go, what kind of hotels I wanted to stay at, and she came up with an itinerary for me that we modified a few times. She booked the hotels, transport to and from the hotels, rental car, and one excursion we did (a boat tour in Amsterdam), and told me which flights to book. She created an itinerary for me that I could see in PDF and on a handy app that I used during the trip. Working with Amber was great and I highly recommend her!

My friend Anita planned a ton of our second day in the Netherlands, which I will get into in that post. Thank you Anita!

ANXIETY

I was really excited planning this over the late summer and when I booked our flight in October. Then stupid anxiety set in. I was worried about what to pack. Worried if Steven would have fun. Worried the time change would mess with us both too much. Worried about layovers. Worried about overeating. All these dumb intrusive thoughts that occupied my brain when I was trying to sleep. Stupid brain.

Then about 1 month before our trip all those anxieties went away (with help from my therapist) and I was simply STOKED to go.

GETTING THERE

We had a direct flight from Chicago to Amsterdam. It left around 6:15 pm and landed in Amsterdam around 9:00 am the next day (just under an 8 hour flight). I’m NOT rich so we were in regular economy seats, and I took the middle seat on the way there. I used a nifty app called “Timeshifter” to give me tips on when to sleep, have caffeine, and get direct sunlight on the way there and back to help me adjust to the timezones. The app was really useful and I tried to follow it, which meant I woke up very early on Saturday (3:30 am) and it wanted me to sleep on the flight.

Did I try to sleep on the flight? Yes. (LOL to the moment that both Steven and I reclined our seats and realized how much more comfortable that made us – we are not airplane seat recliners).

Did I get any sleep on the flight? Not much. I got about 1.5 hours, on and off. So… I started this trip with 1.5 hours of sleep, having woken up at 3:30. Cool cool.

But you know what? I actually didn’t feel like death. I was SO worried the time zone change would mess with me and make me a miserable b word on this trip, but I did great, and pretty much felt great! Woo hoo! (We will talk about how slap happy I got each night, but that’s better than being b*tchy.)

A week or so before we left I got an email from United that they would not serve me the vegan meals I requested on the flight. I thought that sucked, and went through the link in the email to request them again and brought a peanut butter sandwich to have. I was pleasantly surprised when they did have a vegan (and gluten free, ugh, ha) meal and snack for me on the way there and back. When they brought it I thought it was for Steven since I had gotten that email, then realized the regular service has vegetarian options (and he got that, although they did give him a meat breakfast sandwich so he had the peanut butter sandwich I brought).

We watched Ferrari together on the flight and it was horrible. I didn’t watch anything else and tired to read and sleep.

We saw the tulip fields from above when we flew in, and we were really excited!

ARRIVING 

I was really excited they stamped our passports! This is the first time we’ve used them since we renewed them a year and a half ago, so they were empty.

Passport check and getting our luggage was fine. The airport was hella busy and we were excited to get outside and wait for our driver (note – I downloaded Whatsapp for this trip and used that to communicate with our transportation. And I use it to communicate with my overseas friends regularly now.). I’d normally just use public transportation to get myself to hotels and back, but it was a treat to have someone pick us up and take us right where we needed to be.

Tulips at the airport

Our hotel is the black building

We stayed at the Ink Hotel. We got there quite early – just after 10:00? So our room was nowhere near ready, but freshened up, and left our bags there, and went to explore a bit before we met Anita and Mike for lunch!

Our messy hotel room the day we left – I forgot to take a photo when we checked in. None of the hotels had a top sheet – just the fitted sheet and comforter. It made me sweat through my pajamas almost every night. Ick!

EXPLORING AMSTERDAM

Amber had recommended a koffiehuis to us (did you know that in the Netherlands, a café is the equivalent of a full bar, a koffiehuis serves coffee, and a coffee shop sells drugs?) so I stopped there and got a chai, then we were on our way!

Notice I don’t have a coat on? The weather was sunny and warm (enough) when we arrived. Several people warned us that was NOT typical Dutch weather, and it wouldn’t be nice like that again for months… er…

We had lunch plans at 1:00 so we walked around for a bit and explored Amsterdam! Steven had been there before (post high school trip with friends in 1999) but it was all new to me and I loved seeing the narrow alleys, canals, and leaning buildings.

I got lured into a shop by a shop cat and I bought two postcards but it left and I never got to pet it! Ha.

LUNCH WITH ANITA & MIKE

Like with many of my close Instagram friends, I don’t remember the moment when Anita and I switched from just commenting on each other’s art to DMing back and forth about life, but she and I have been corresponding for several years, and I was SO excited to meet her. Like most of the rock painting community she’s kind, thoughtful, and just lovely, but she also has a great sense of humor and LOVES to have fun. I know if we lived close to each other we’d get into some trouble together and probably seem super obnoxious to everyone else. Ha!

We originally weren’t going to get together until Monday, but I asked if she and her family wanted to join us in the city (they live north of Amsterdam) for lunch Sunday, and she came down on the train with her husband Mike (and left their kids with her mother).

Anita was so patient with me and helpful with planning EVERYTHING to do with our Netherlands visit. Especially our lunch date. I had all these vegan restaurants there I wanted to try but a lot of them would be closed Sunday, or too far away, or WHATEVER. It took me FOREVER to figure out where to eat, but we finally settled on SOIL Vegan Cafe. Anita and Mike met us at our hotel, then we all hopped on the tram (we could just tap our credit cards on the way in and out instead of buying a pass) and went to SOIL.

Points to both of them for being cool with a vegan restaurant, especially Mike, who I think was a bit sus of it and the fact that someone his wife met online from America was in the Netherlands and wanted to spend time with her (totally fair to be sus!!! If you don’t regularly meet with people from the internet it seems odd).

Anyway! We got a few dishes to try: Mushroom Bitterballen (this is a traditional Dutch thing), Ribs, Bulgogi Cheesesteak, and Dragon Noodles. This was the first place we experienced not receiving plates for our appetizers. We asked Anita if this was normal in the Netherlands, and she said no, so then we wondered if it was normal for vegan restaurants. Ha. Maybe more on that later.

MOST IMPORTANTLY, these were the best french fries either of us have EVER HAD. They were cut in somewhat of a U shape and perfectly fried and crispy. Delish. I’m so glad I got them.

I’d been planning to order the apple pie because I wanted to try how it was different from American apple pie, but our waiter never came back (which I was aware is common in Europe) and I didn’t feel like asking for it. Next time!

We had a great time chatting at lunch and getting to know each other. With all the friends we met in person for the first time on this trip, we could just pick up like we were old friends, but there was also a lot of “get to know you” questions that were fun to ask each other. For example, I couldn’t recall what Mike did for work, so we talked about that, and asked questions about their families, the towns they’re from, etc.

I’m making this sound really mundane, but it was very special to be spending time in person, having normal conversations like this. My heart was so full then, and for most of the trip.

After lunch we rode the tram back to our hotel. Steven and I got our bags and put them in our room then came back out with the gifts I had for Anita (she had gifts for me at lunch). We walked around for a bit then went our separate ways.

BOAT TOUR

On our walk to the boat tour we stopped at a grocery store to get a drink, and because we generally like exploring grocery stores (we laughed when I tried to use self checkout in Dutch and didn’t understand it – then Steven pressed the image of the British flag and switched it to English). Then we continued on our way. We saw a Dutch pancake house right next to where we got on the boat and decided to try a pancake after our tour.

The tour was so so – the people running it seemed more focused on selling alcohol then explaining what we were seeing, but they did explain some of it – like the hooks on the buildings, how they are leaning, the tiniest building in Amsterdam, etc. etc.

We ran off the boat right away while everyone paid their alcohol bills (we didn’t have anything). Byeeeeeeeeee.

DUTCH PANCAKES & STRANGE PIZZA

We stopped and got a vegan Dutch pancake and hot cocoa from PANCAKES Amsterdam (it was decent),

then made our way to our dinner reservation. There is something you should know about this trip – we ate A LOT! It was not unusual for us to stop and try something then go on to our next meal!

We rode the tram (on our own, go us!) then walked about 25 minutes to Mediametic ETEN. This is one of the places I wanted to try to have lunch with Anita and Mike at but it didn’t open until 4:00, so I made reservations there for Steven and me.

I’m SO glad we didn’t go to this place for lunch. It was so odd. SOIL was a much better option.

The location of Mediametic ETEN was cool – right on the water – but it was in a warehousey building that looked like a food experiment lab? Totally nice people, just strange vibes! We got hummus to start (no plates!), and it was delish, but the pizza was not great (no plates for the pizza either!). Too healthy and floppy? Meh.

THERE WAS A CAT INSIDE THE RESTAURANT! That was exciting.

But it snubbed me. Cry!

See it?

I got pretty slap happy during dinner and was laughing so hard I was crying at the silly jokes Steven was making. This is how my jetlag manifested – giggles. And it was always a good sign it was time to get close to our room to get to bed.

CALLING IT A NIGHT

We walked and took the tram back to our hotel (it stopped right on out street) then wound down. Maybe we were in bed by 11:00? It was a long but wonderful day! (Oh, except for when I took a shower before bed and bent over to shave and hit my head really hard on the bar in the shower and tweaked my back. Ouch.)