Amsterdam, Netherlands

"The Ark has Sailed"

We readied ourselves for our usual “Thanksgiving with kids” trip this year, counting on having other kids and parents with us, but as the date drew closer, we discovered that our usual companions would not be able to join us. Over the past few Thanksgivings, we had grown comfortable with our travel arrangements, counting on the other parents to make the rules. If they let their kids do something, Tony and I would let our charges do it too. This year, it seemed we would have to face these types of decisions on our own. The “kids” we would be traveling with; my sister’s youngest two; are now 17 and 20, so we didn’t expect to have too much trouble. We originally proposed flying to Zurich, taking a train to Konstanz and riding bicycles around Lake Konstanz. The girl child, Lauren, wasn’t very enthused about having to pack in only a small backpack and riding a bicycle for 3 days so we started looking for other alternatives. My sister had emailed me a story about a man who had built an Ark in the Netherlands. The story was intriguing. Johan Huibers has spent 10 years constructing a replica of the Ark in the bible. The Ark is said to be 1/5 the size of Noah’s Ark, but spectacular all the same. We decided to see the Ark for ourselves. The story my sister sent me said that the Ark was in Schagen, about 30 miles north of Amsterdam.


This is the first year we have felt like the kids are old enough to make their own way to the airport, so we advised them to drive to the North Springs Marta Station and take Marta to the airport. We were supposed to meet at 3:00PM, well before our 5:10PM departure. They were running late, after arguing about which one would drive to the Marta station, but made it there by 3:30PM. My biggest fears about the trip were allayed when I saw them, their luggage and most importantly, their passports. After we checked in, I took their passports so I could make sure we had them for the trip home.

At the security checkpoint, we discovered that the boy child, Jared had paid no attention to my instructions about his liquids, so we had to discard a brand new bottle of contact solution and two large tubes of toothpaste. We found a table in the Crowne Room and let the kids go shopping for toothpaste.

All four of us got “good seats” on the way to Amsterdam. We were seated in front of the kids. As we were getting settled in, we were offered champagne, orange juice or a mimosa. We took champagne and turned to see that the kids were enjoying what looked like a mimosa!

What should we do? Should we rat them out to the flight attendant? Should we take it away from them? Should we pretend we don’t know them? Where were the other parents to advise us? We chose to enjoy our meal and movie (I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry) and not turn around again to see where the flight attendant was taking that bottle of wine.

We slept well and awoke as we were landing in Amsterdam. I made sure to check the seat pockets and under the kids' seats to make sure they had all of their things. On previous trips, we have had to reboard the airplane to get items (like shoes!) one of them had left behind. I have tried to stress that we are not moving to the airplane so they don’t need to unpack yet! I found Jared’s Playstation Portable (PSP) in the seat pocket. Someone would have been very sad if we’d made it off the plane without that.

We breezed through passport control and went to the train ticket kiosk. It was a little confusing. We first selected four of the “5 day return” tickets, thinking that meant 1 round trip ticket returning within 5 days. As it turned out, that option was for 5 round trip tickets, so we canceled that transaction and stepped out of the way so that someone else could use the machine. The next attempt, we selected 4 one way tickets and chose credit card as the payment method. The machine asked for a pin but wouldn’t accept the pin for either of our credit cards. We canceled the transaction and stepped out of the way so that someone else could use the machine. The third attempt, we chose debit card as the payment method, but it said both of our debit cards were invalid. Before we canceled the transaction and stepped out of the way, I tried one last method. I chose credit card as the payment method, but presented my debit card instead. Bingo! We got our train tickets! €3,60 each ($5.30).

We took the train to the Centraal Station and walked across the street to the GVB office. We bought 72 hour tram passes for €13,50 each ($20.00). We boarded tram #4 for Rembrandtplein. I had booked our hotel through an online booking service, sight unseen. It is unusual for us to book a hotel in advance, but since we were traveling with children, I wanted to have all of the details worked out in advance. The Rembrandtplein Hotel was in our price range at €75/night ($110.00) per room. On our previous trip we had stayed near Rembrandtplein and knew that it was a nice locale with lots of restaurants and bars. I was pretty sure the Rembrandtplein Hotel wouldn’t be 5 stars and I was right, but it was adequate for our needs. It was VERY OLD.

We set out in search of some lunch. I had read that the falafels near Rembrandtplein were particularly good, so we found a falafel place just off the square. None of us knew what a falafel was, but we all ordered one. It turned out to be a pita pocket filled with little fried balls of chickpeas. It was interesting. The kids were good sports and ate theirs, even though I could tell it wasn’t their favorite food.

After lunch, we walked back toward Centraal Station and stopped off for refreshments at a smoky little place.
Then we set out to see one of the twenty one “must see” sights from the 2002 Let’s Go Amsterdam Guidebook. It was a fountain that was supposed to be in front of the Casa Rosso Theatre in the Red Light District. We knew we must be close to the Red Light District when we saw this museum.

The fountain was supposed to be shaped like a large, ahem, body part. As we approached the Red Light District, we started to see the tell-tale red lights above doors. We had been to the Red Light District on a previous trip, but I didn’t remember much about it. Tony commented that he would have been uncomfortable walking through the area WITHOUT his niece and nephew, but was especially uncomfortable now. We didn’t see the fountain in front of the theatre, so we ducked into an alley to see if it was around back. In the alley, we came face to face with numerous scantily clad women posing in windows. We had to come back up the same alley to get back to the street. I took the guidebook into the Casa Rosso to ask where the fountain was. The nice bouncer told me that the government had made them take the fountain down two years prior.

We heeded the warnings about taking pictures, but as we made our way out of the area, did sneak this photo of some cannibis plants growing in a window

As we walked along the canals, we noticed that many of the buildings were leaning. Some were leaning forward, others to the side. They looked like they might be on the verge of falling.


Amsterdam is the city of bicycles. And bicycles seem to always have the right of way. If you weren't careful you would be run over by one. There were hundreds of them parked outside of Centraal Station.


We dawdled over dinner and then headed back to the hotel. We reflected on our day over drinks at the hotel bar. The bar didn’t look like it got much use. The glasses and soda cans were sort of dusty.

We made the climb up the 4 flights of (very narrow, winding) steps to our room and said goodnight to the kids who climbed up one more flight to theirs. We ASSUME that they stayed in for the night.

We had planned to get up at 8:30AM Wednesday so we could catch a 10:00AM train to Rotterdam to see the Ark. I tried to use the phone to call the kids room, but all I got was a strange beeping noise, so I climbed up the steps and knocked on their door. They answered the door and seemed to be moving about, so I went back downstairs to get ready. After my shower, I climbed back up and knocked on the door again. They were in the same position where I had left them 20 minutes before. I got them moving and went back downstairs. Twenty minutes later, I went back upstairs and found that they still hadn’t made much progress. Back downstairs, Tony and I decided to revise our plans for the day. We would go to the train station and buy our tickets, but wait to travel until the next day. While we waited for the kids to get ready, I read the travel guide. I found a write-up on the little town of Gouda (pronounced How-da). Gouda, where they make the cheese of the same name, is between Amsterdam and Rotterdam so we decided to stop there on our way back from seeing the Ark.

The kids finally made it down to our room and we walked the few blocks to Rembrandtplein to catch the tram to Centraal Station. We went to the Service Center to buy our tickets. It was a little confusing, but once we understood that their system is just an elaborate “take a number” system, we got our number and got an agent. We were glad we had cash because they do not take credit or debit cards. Round trip tickets to Rotterdam with a stop in Gouda were €23,30 ($34.50) each.

The kids wanted to buy a pastry from the shop at the train station, but I had my heart set on one of the cheese pastries I had seen in a store window the day before. We passed several places that weren’t exactly what I was looking for. I was about to settle for something else when I spotted Kaasland across a crowded square on Haarlemmerstraat. In the window were several mouth watering cheese covered bread offerings. We selected some and they put them in the oven for us.


We were headed for the Heineken Experience. The last time we were in Amsterdam (1996), they were brewing beer at Heineken. Our 2002 guidebook said that it was more like an amusement park now and no brewing was done there. There was supposed to be a ride where you could pretend you were a bottle of beer going through the brewing process. We rounded the corner and saw the sign that said, “Closed for Renovation”. We were very sad.


We jumped on a tram to go back to the train station. We didn’t have a ticket so we had to buy one on board. The agent sold us a Nationale Strippen Kaart for €6,40 ($9.50), then he punched 4 of the 8 slots on the card. I think we could have taken 4 more rides on our card. Back at the train station, I insisted that we go to Tourist Information to see how much farther it was to Sliedrecht. It was only about 17 miles, but it would be another 40 minutes on the train and then 20 minutes on the bus to get there. I wanted to go for it, but I was outvoted.

At Tourist Information, when the agent looked to see where the Ark was, she went to the same website I had looked at before leaving Atlanta, but she followed the link for the Dutch language. Apparently IT was up to date with the latest information. The English side had not been updated.

The kids were hungry, so we decided to take the train back to Gouda for lunch. We almost missed the stop. There were no signs showing the name of the station. At first we didn’t get off the train, but then I turned on the GPS and saw that we were ½ mile from Gouda so we jumped off. We asked the ticket taker if this was the Gouda station. He said it was and commented that if the train had left on time, we would have missed our stop.

The first thing we saw when we walked into town was a store called the Arke. It was like we were being mocked!

We ASSUME that they stayed in for the night.

On Friday, we woke them up at 5:45AM and called them every 10 minutes to make sure they were ready to leave the hotel at 7:00AM. We had a 10AM flight so we needed to be at the airport by 8AM. We planned to purchase our train tickets at the kiosk, but when we got to Centraal Station we discovered that the ticket kiosks don’t take credit or debit cards. They don’t even take paper money, just coins. We had to hurry down to the Service Center to buy our tickets. They add a service charge at the Service Center, so the return trip cost €4,10 ($6.00).

Amsterdam airport is difficult to traverse. We arrived on schedule, 2 hours before our flight, and we were none too early. There was a long line to check in. By the time we got checked in, it was time to go through passport control. After passport control, we passed through the duty free shops. We didn’t take time to shop because our gate was so far away. The security screening was done at each gate, so once we got into the gate area, we were trapped.

The agents didn’t clear the standby passengers until the very last minute, so even though we knew there were enough seats, we were nervous that they would push back without us. We got our seats and hurried on board. We got “good seats” again! The flight was delayed by about a half hour because a cargo loader got stuck and had to be towed away.

I watched 3 ½ movies on the way home (Hairspray, License to Wed, Knocked Up and ½ of Mr. Bean’s Holiday) while Tony snoozed.

Back in Atlanta, we gave the kids back their passports, put them on Marta and went home to crash.

Aunt BJ and Uncle Tony