Amsterdam in April

With husbands away, my girlfriend and I headed 6 hours north into the Netherlands to catch the flowers and see Amsterdam. We were a little early actually, the Keukenhof is usually in even greater bloom, but it was still beautiful and Amsterdam was totally fun. We saw how wooden shoes are made (even noticed a workman on the street actually wearing wooden shoes), how they make their famous Dutch cheese, a working windmill making peanut oil, and the beautiful canal streets of the city. Which, with all the brick row houses, reminded me a lot of Baltimore City.

We hit the Anne Frank house, so cool since Ethan and I read the book before we went. And the Van Gogh museum, which was so geared to the kids, they came away knowing all about Van Gogh's artistic style and his famous works by title.

And the Dutch, having colonized a lot of far-reaching places, has food influenced from all over... so a break from the Brats was welcomed.