Just Another Family Adventure: Part 2

Saturday morning we woke up and headed straight to Holland from our apartment in Gent. About two and a half hours later, we found a delicious pancake house with a million kinds of crepes. It was amazing! Hannah chose one with strawberries, ice cream and whip cream. Genna opted for a cherry and whipped cream crepe. Brian picked a savory crepe with ham, cheese and tomatoes. I had a savory goat cheese, honey, and walnut crepe. They were huge and so Isaac shared all of ours, but he preferred the ice cream and strawberries, and was not as impressed with the actual crepe beneath. The restaurant was across from the beach in Harlem.While we were in Harlem, we happened upon a circus where several elephants and camels were in a roped off parking lot. Brian pulled the car right up to the rope because, he explained, "there is no sign telling me I can't." The elephants made a bee line for our car and started systematically trying to remove any plastic they could get their trunks around, starting with our bumper which, I should add, was already loose on that side. Everyone started laughing and pointing at the crazy Americans and our van parked too close to the giant elephants. I convinced Brian to move the car back a bit, but he didn't move it much and I still had to stand and defend our luggage rack, side view mirrors, and antennae. Let me just tell you, elephants trunks are stronger than they look. I swear this elephant could have easily grabbed Isaac out of my arms and walked off with him. Good thing he is not made of plastic! Isaac is still talking about how, "Mommy touched elephant." It was more like pushing with all my strength, but whatever.


Then we went tulip hunting and, much to our dismay, we found very few tulips that had bloomed. We saw tons of fields full of these...

We did find lots of beautiful flowers though. And, of course, we took a million pictures. I put my favorite individual pictures of the kids on the sidebar. Here's the rest! (The red flowers are actual tulips.)

By the time we were through with the flowers and made it into Amsterdam it was getting late in the day. We stopped first at this very old windmill that has a brewery next to it and the children had fries. (Belgian fries are another specialty! No more American fast food fries for me!)

Then we went for a drive through the city. I was ready to head home after just a drive through it, and Brian was too. However, we drove past a flea market. I am a sucker for European flea markets and said, without thinking, "Oh, now that's where I would like to be." Well, that's all it took to put my husband into parking spot search mode. First he parks on the side of a street with no signs at all where other cars were parked, and I had to really convince him this was not a parking spot. (This was probably the third or fourth "To park or not to park" discussion we had had on this trip. We were always on the same sides. I would say it looked too good to be true. He would say it's fine if there aren't any signs.) Then he finds another one that has a big "P" on it and has hours underneath so I eventually concede even though it still seems to good to be true. We decide to split up and meet back in about 45 mins. Hannah went with me and the itty bitties went with Brian. Hannah and I found some super cool stuff and walked up a couple minutes past our meeting time to the spot I knew we had parked in with someone else's car in it. Panic hits me for a second, and then I think Brian is circling because we were late or something. I call his cell and before I can speak he says, "Sorry, I know we are late, but we had to find a potty for Genna." Panic knocks the breath out of me this time. When I tell him the cars not there, he says, "That stinks" all nonchalantly. (Later he explained that he thought I was in the wrong place. I am not that dumb. I know where we parked.) Long story, short the car was towed and we had to call a taxi and hold onto our kids for dear life as we drove through the city of Amsterdam sans car seats. Turns out under the sign with the "P" was a picture of a truck unloading stuff. I have no idea how I missed that! To both our credits though, the rest of Europe has a circle with a line through it where you can't park! Anyway, about 250 Euros (over $300 if you don't know the conversion rate!) later we were headed back to our apartment in Gent. No wonder they all ride bikes there!

Surprisingly, after I got over the initial shock, I was thankful the car wasn't stolen instead and that the process of getting the car back didn't take hours. The girls were hilarious in the taxi. They just couldn't understand where our car had gone and why someone took it. They expressed their outrage to the taxi driver Overall, we had a wonderful time despite this one big hitch. I am sure my husband will be shocked to read that since the first thing he said to me when we finally got in our car to head home was, "You're going to put this on your blog, aren't you, and our whole wonderful trip to Holland will be forever remembered by the time we got our car towed?" Maybe, but I still think we had a great trip, albeit expensive.

Whew, that was a long post. Is it over now? Can I come out?