One Year Down

Just before 6:00 a.m. on July 9th of last year, the Lewis Five stepped out of the plane at Schiphol (pronounced Skip-pull) into a bright Amsterdam morning - the sun had been up for half an hour by then, and would remain up until after 10:00 p.m. We hopped into a Mercedes minivan (most cabs are either Mercedes or Teslas) and made the 30-minute ride to our new home, full of various conflicting emotions, and woozy due to losing 6 time zones.

As I sit down to begin writing this entry, we are fully 11 months into our new reality and preparing to make our second trip home - although not as we would like. Due to my new job - and our not having our much-missed family member Leah with us - we are splitting up for the summer. I'll be bringing the girls home and staying for a couple of weeks, and Holli will go home to visit two weeks after that and bring them back. So while I'm very much looking forward to going home, I'm not at all excited about missing my girls for the following 4 weeks; Holli has the same problem, and hers starts now.


We have had a lot going on since the end of May, starting with an unfortunate missed opportunity to see Cinderella on the day after Memorial Day (Witte Monday here), which was an in-service day at ISA. Lucy and Eliza have not seen the new "live" Cinderella, and the only place it was showing in town that day was next to the Arena (where the Amsterdam football team plays). It was a beautiful day so we jumped on the bikes and headed out. It is about 9 km (~5 miles) each way; this is a bit long for Eliza and thus she rode on her seat on my bike while the other two pedaled on their own. Unfortunately, when we got there we found out that the film was dubbed in Dutch... This information was not immediately available from the website I checked!

Disappointed, we remounted and started back but quickly stopped at a completely empty Iamsterdam sign. The girls just HAD to climb on them and pose for pictures since the other ones around town are usually crawling with people.

Getting up is the easy part...

Lucy had a misstep during her dismount, resulting in a painful sprained wrist. She had to tough it out during the ride home - and she did admirably. The promise of frites (fries) and applesap (apple juice) helped her fortitude, so we stopped at the outdoor cafe on the Museumplein and found some interesting new art.

Miffy in various finishes.

We took advantage of some warmer weather to get out on a pedal-boat, which was a lot more work than I'd like... But the girls all enjoyed the hour-long trip.

No pedals in the back seat equals big smiles!

An opportunity came my way via our family friend (and BF co-worker) Michael: A ticket to the fourth round (Sunday) at the French Open! I could not resist this never-even-dreamed-of chance so Holli scrambled to make sure the girls' plans would not be affected (Lucy had an overnight birthday party including a next-day trip to an amusement park, and Eliza had a birthday party to attend as well).

In the interest of acting like a local, I decided to take the bus to Schiphol - my first use of public transportation since we moved here. It was remarkably easy, if not quite as fast as a cab - and only 10% of the price! The flight was short (an hour) and I used Uber for the first time to get from Charles De Gaulle to my hotel. Paris has Uber Pop (operating somewhere near the law - if not completely outside), which requires no special licensing. It worked out very well and saved me about 40% compared to a cab, but it's a bit of a crap shoot whether or not you get a good driver (as I found out on my way back to the airport Sunday night).

My luxury accommodations - this is the entire room; the camera is touching the wall behind me.
How about that painting???? Nice, right???

Once I dropped my stuff off, I got to roam around Paris for the rest of the day. We skipped over the Army Museum (insert any number of jokes here!) during our last visit, and it turned out to be very close to the hotel, so that was my first stop. Very impressive looking from the outside, and surrounded by a dry moat, complete with removable bridges and armed guards - real ones carrying automatic weapons - at the gates.

There was no shortage of interesting stuff inside - most of which was related to armed conflicts (no surprise there). This was right up my alley, and I could have spent quite a lot of time there.

Horse armor - "helmet" above and a huge "breastplate" below.
There were several examples similar to this, all very ornately decorated. 

A shield depicting some battle or another.

One of several display cases containing swords from various eras.

A couple of maces - both pretty AND useful for bashing in your enemy's head...

Some Japanese horse armour - this was extremely cool and dragonesque! 

The canopy overlooking Napoleon's tomb

I didn't want to spend all day looking through this museum (I'll wait until the girls are with me - I think they'd love it), so I left after about an hour and started walking to the Musee d'Orsay, which I also missed during our last trip. I spotted some people biking in apparent circles, so I had to see what was going on.

Polo on bikes - they seemed like they were having a ball!

I made it to the Musee d'Orsay and spent an hour or so there. More art than I care for - as opposed to historical pieces - but there were a few things that appealed to me!

A scale model of what I believe is the Paris Opera House. Cut in half.

Quite a collection of original Van Goghs, including this one of his Bedroom in Arles

I decided that two museums was plenty for one day and began looking for Harry's New York Bar on the recommendation of a fellow B-F/ ISA dad.

I stopped at this spot below the Pont Alexandre III bridge for a beer on the way to Harry's.
It was a good enough location that I stopped on the way back too!

Harry's is an interesting place. My Old Fashioned was 16 Euro, but it was stout!
Most of the rooms are covered by college pennants, and I was very happy to find the Cards represented.

Among the whiskey bottles that are not for sale I found an ancient Old Forester bottle (top right)!

La Tour was sporting a gigantic tennis ball in honor of the French Open. 

I did finally get to see some tennis the next afternoon. The Bryan Brothers played in the first match on Court 1, so I opted to watch that instead of the one on the main court. They got in a few games before the rains started, beginning a three hour delay. With no beer sales. Thankfully it wasn't a hard rain and they were able to resume play.

Had great seats, but it was general admission in this section. Just getting there on time was enough to secure them!

A little later on, the Philippe Chatrier Court (the main one), we got to watch a local favorite Jo Tsonga beat Berdych in 4 sets. It was a lot of fun to get behind the home-town player, and he was easy to root for! 

Tsonga (near court, serving) was absolutely destroying the ball on his serves - into the 130 mph range.

Tsonga ended up taking the match, but not in straight sets like all of his previous matches. We were rooting for a quick ending so that we could see Federer, who was to play another Frenchman - Monfils - in the next match. As it turned out, I had to head for the airport, but Michael got to see them split the first two sets before it was called due to darkness.


Holli had an overnight trip to Poland the next week followed by a week long trip back to Louisville starting on Friday. Fortunately she was in town to see Lucy test for her A Swimming Diploma, which she passed! This is a very big deal in Holland, and took a lot of hard work on her part to master the necessary skills!

After completing the longest swim with the hardest stroke!

The Graduate!

Holli's flight was delayed - Southwest doesn't fly across the Atlaitic ;) - but she finally arrived in Louisville and headed out to dinner with Mom and the Highfields in St. Matthews on Friday night.

Coals bound!

She got in another family dinner Saturday night at Mesh (at the former location of Azalea).

Sunday afternoon included attending Sam's birthday party at Cherokee Park - the best place for such an event.
It looks like he did not stop growing just because we left town!

And she got to see her buddy Leslie (before heading downtown for the start of the weeklong meetings)!

Back in Amsterdam, Eliza went home with one of her best friends for her first sleepover on Friday afternoon (along with two other 6 and 7 year olds!), and with Holli gone too the house felt pretty empty. Since the weather had turned hot during the week (at least by Amsterdam standards - 95 degrees!) the remaining three of us decided to walk to the ice-cream shop that we drive by every day.

Lucy decided to ride her Penny board... 

I guess this will always scare the hell out of me.

They start with an individually-wrapped frozen vanilla ice-cream bar on a stick. You get to choose a chocolate coating (dark, milk, or white) and three toppings, which they expertly apply to the coating before it solidifies. Excellent.
Lucy was supervising very closely so they wouldn't mess it up.

All hopped up on ice-cream and chocolate, we made the last-minute decision to go to the US-Netherlands soccer friendly on Friday night. I noticed that some heavy storms were coming only AFTER I bought the tickets, so Lilli, Lucy and I saddled up and headed for the Arena about an hour early, and just in time to beat the rain.

The game was incredible and the atmosphere was crazy. Loud Dutch dance music played non-stop before the game while the thousands of Dutch fans decked out in orange sang, yelled, and effectively used the supplied noisemakers both for their intended purpose and as paper airplanes. 

The play looked a little sloppy to my untrained eye, with too many easy shots at goal (fortunately for the US, many were missed). The first half ended with a goal each, but by the time we returned from a late-decision pizza run there had been 3 more goals (only two counted - both for the orange side) and the US was down big against a much more highly-regarded team (the Netherlands lost to Argentina in the World Cup semi-final last year in a PK shootout).

Somehow, the U.S. rallied, scoring three goals late in the game to take the win. The bulk of the crowd was not nearly as happy with this result as we were, but there were only a couple of paper airplanes thrown our way and everyone remained pretty friendly (after all, the game doesn't count!).

The "official" American section was in the upper right-hand corner. And that IS an American flag on the big-screen!
The national team followed this up the next week with another great performance in Germany, beating the defending champs 2-1 on their home turf!

The ride home seemed like a victory lap for Lilli, who was basking in the
anticipation of seeing her European classmates on Monday morning!

We collected Eliza from her party on Saturday morning, and during lunch decided to drive up to the Efteling amusement park. Lucy had made the trip as part of a birthday party a couple of weeks earlier and had a ball, and the weather was perfect for it.

Two out of three ain't bad - Eliza must have still been recovering from her nap on the drive in.

A very cool dragon with an articulating head, neck and tail. And it breathes fire. Really.

Some choice screen-grabs from Eliza's video (I promise that she begged to go again after each ride!):

Sunday was another big day as several of the families that are moving over the summer invited everyone to Vondelpark for a big party. About 50 kids showed up, and they all really had a great time running around in the sun.

Eliza's end-of-year Kindergarten picnic was held in the school's inner courtyard, which is quite beautiful.

I kept expecting the Lorax to jump out and protect these flowers.

Lilli attended a birthday party at the Fun Forest (ropes park) in the Amsterdam Bos. She got to do some of the more difficult courses this time around.

Riding home after the party (well, not home really but to the next party - this one a karaoke theme) with her buddy Maya. 

Lucy's class hosted a breakfast this week, where we ate customized cereals that the kids created.
Lucy named hers "Derby Flakes" - they make you fast as a horse!

We FINALLY had some more guests this week - Lucy's KG teacher Lori Hendrix and LCS Upper School Counselor Jim McGuire stopped by for a couple of days on their way to Tanzania to do some work with the School of St. Jude. This is a great foundation that provides free private-school education to 1,900 local students that would not otherwise be able to afford it. Lori will be working with the teachers and Jim with the counselors for a week or two, followed by some time seeing the sights.

While we had them here, I made sure to get them familiarized with the local transportation and brews.

Apparently Lori rides with her eyes closed as this was the case with every picture I took.
Pretty impressive for an Amsterdam rookie!

Managed to get a picture with a windmill and a brewery!

Jim braved the temperatures and plunged (his feet) into the North Sea!

Lucy was very excited to get this chance to spend some time with Lori.
To say that she was her favorite teacher would be a terrible understatement!

The last day of school was not at all what I was expecting.

As I walked through the halls collecting the girls, I saw many faces for (likely) the last time; several of the girls I coached were moving away, along with some parents and other kids that I've gotten to know and like to various extents. When Lilli came into the cafeteria, she was in tears - many of her close friends are among the departing, and things got pretty emotional in her classroom.

This is a part of ex-pat life that I had not at all considered when we decided to make this leap. I wrongly assumed that we would make some friends and keep them for three to five years, and there would be a bittersweet goodbye at the end when we moved back. This is not the case... I now realize that this will happen every year, and I'm not looking forward to it.

We met our friends the Wickens (remember our Rome trip?) for dinner later this night - our last one for a long time. They will move back to California when they return from a vacation to Ireland, and they will be sorely missed here.


Lucy was invited by one of her best friends to spend the weekend at their place near Stockholm, Sweden and they left immediately after school on the last day. She will be there from Wednesday night through Sunday afternoon - she has to be back early enough to get to the Taylor Swift concert!

Lucy & Ella posing in front of the Swedish flag!

Lilli, Eliza and I are carrying on without her for the couple of weekdays left before our trip home. We planned a trip to the hardware store followed by a walk to the American Book Center and a watch repair shop on Thursday, and Eliza picked out this to wear (including the bag).

We're now counting down the hours - can't wait to see everyone!


Daisy
Haven't given any updates lately, but there's not much to tell. She has recently begun exploring roofs again since we are using the deck more often, and she's shedding quite a bit (despite the breeder's assurance to Holli that she would not shed) as the pictures show.

She can see lots of birds from up there.

I tried brushing her the day before cleaning day, but it didn't make much difference.

Amsterdam Sightings

The mullet is not a strictly-American thing.

This kid's bike appears to have been pulled out of the canal and has been sitting out front for a couple of weeks now.

One of the incredible wildflowers that grow everywhere.

I finally found a name for what they do to so many of the trees here: Pollarding.
Makes for some interesting sights.

I spooked this Heron near my outdoor "Friday office"

I've seen a few of these guys around - Ringnecked Pheasants. This is the best picture I've gotten of one, and it's in the industrial area where I work!

Holli and I found this rosebush during a post-dinner walk last week.

The beach where I took Lori and Jim.

Some new architecture
Most of the building pictures I've put on the blog are of old churches, castles, etc., but some of the best Dutch architecture is of the modern type. The area around the World Trade Center - through which we drive twice daily - is varied, unique, and awesome, and is typical of the Dutch (and European?) desire to make buildings interesting. Very few concrete block or poured concrete exteriors on boxy buildings here.

I think this one is part of the University of Amsterdam.
The building appears to have only a single continuous surface (no corners) - including the roof.

The building in the background has an open staircase spiraling around the exterior, which you can see at two elevations.
The upper one appears to include a terrace.

This one is not near the WTC, but still pretty cool!

See you soon!!