Amsterdam, Netherlands 2024; Day 1

Yes, that’s right! Your favorite 5 Adventurers are back at it with two weeks of more world travels and, of course, more blog content.

Our travel day started yesterday in San Clemente, CA, just 18 hours after the kids finished the school year. We made a quick stop in Irvine at pEd and Loesje’s for a yummy breakfast and a quick visit with Marisa and her daughter (Loesje’s granddaughter) before making the trek to LAX.

After a short delay to let Air Force Two depart ahead of us, we were winging our way to our first destination – Amsterdam.

We looked pretty good at the beginning…

…but then spent a sleepless night courtesy of KLM airlines. Brownie snacks with crinkly wrappers served in the middle of a red eye – who came up with that crazy idea!?!

CreeperPuppy met a new friend at the airport which was nice. That kid sure loves hugging robots.

But we made it into Amsterdam Centraal about 11:00am local with no mishaps. We stored our bags and started wandering the streets in a fatigued stupor. So first stop: stroopwaffles!

After that we had 4 hours to kill before we could check into our hotel so we did our two favorite things: markets and playgrounds.

Our first stop was the famous Noordermarkt.

It was hopping with patrons on a Saturday morning even with the threat of rain. Fresh baked bread, smelly cheese, fresh oysters to eat there or take home. Jewelry, art and thrift clothes all crowded into the same park as when it started back in the 17th century. We didn’t buy anything but wandered the stalls to take it all in.

The playground had a swinging rope Suaram shared with another girl

We wandered and enjoyed the scenery.

We even spent a few minutes watching a very popular local trick bike competition.

And finally ended up at a little park near our apartment. We were happy to see that the kids can still figure out how to have fun even after 20 hours of travel. And boy aren’t they growing up fast!