We love to spend time with friends when we can, and Yvonne, one of Angie’s old friends from her time in Poland, lives in Amsterdam. From Paris, we caught the train to Schipol Airport, where Yvonne met us to help us get back to her place. We arrived in time to do a night canal boat tour Yvonne had booked with Those Dam Boat Guys. The Amsterdam Light Festival is a beautiful public art installation along the canals, and a boat tour is maybe the best way to see it. We had done this tour back in January of 2020 when we last visited Yvonne, and we were looking forward to seeing this year’s pieces. The artwork didn’t disappoint. We spent a lovely evening floating around Amsterdam and looking at the installations, as well as the beautiful buildings along the canals.
For our second day with Yvonne, we headed to Haarlem. The last time we visited we didn’t have time to see anything other than Amsterdam, so it was nice to explore something new. We walked through town from where the bus dropped us off, and ended up at Jopen brewery. The folks from Jopen brew their beer and also have a restaurant housed in an historic church. We loved trying out some of the craft brews on tap and relaxing and catching up with Yvonne.
The next morning, Adam and I had train tickets for Bruges. However, overnight a huge snowstorm hit the Netherlands, and by the time our train was scheduled to depart, all train service had come to a stop. When it became clear we wouldn’t get out that day, we headed back to Yvonne’s to make a new plan. Ultimately, though we tried again to get a train the next day, we never ended up leaving Amsterdam. We felt very lucky we could continue to stay with Yvonne, and we had a blast exploring parts of the city we hadn’t seen before. It was particularly a special time to be there, because with no trains running, and very few flights, the tourists that would normally pack the city were largely absent. We seemed to have the city almost to ourselves at times. It was amazing!
Even though the snow didn’t seem like much to us Iowa natives, it was very abnormal for the Netherlands. That explained the travel disruptions, but also the glee of local people taking advantage of the snow. Everywhere we went that there was a slight hill, children and parents were out with what looked to be newly-purchased sleds to enjoy the snow.
One morning, we were looking for things to do and found that the Resistance Museum had a Josephine Baker exhibit on. Intrigued, we went to check it out. We learned so many cool things about this amazing woman! Her life had so many chapters, and her activism was inspiring. She also connected to our recent Paris stay: Baker had worked at the Folies Bergère, which was very near the AirBnB where we had been just a few days before. The AirBnB was even named Josephine after her. In addition to its temporary exhibits, the museum has many informative displays in its permanent collection about the resistance to the Nazis during World War II. The Resistance Museum was a great stop for a couple of hours of learning.
On another day, we decided to explore the Westergas part of the city. We made it up to the park just as snow was really starting to come down, so we ducked into the Troost Brewery to sample some of their craft beers. When we had warmed up and the snow had calmed down a bit (we thought), we headed back out for a walk around the park. The snow started back up and we had a lot more winter wonderland than we bargained for!
The other major location we visited was the STRAAT Museum, on our last day in Amsterdam. That was amazing, so I’m going to write about it in a separate post. But mostly what we did in Amsterdam was hang out at Yvonne’s, wander around the city in the snow, and enjoy tasty food and drinks at cozy restaurants and bars. Though it wasn’t the stay we’d planned, we felt incredibly lucky to be there. It was a fantastic end to our break.
