Amsterdam....I am

Our final full day in Amsterdam lead us to exploring the city and going to Vondelpark (central park).  Our first stop was at the Rijksmuseum.  It was such a beautiful day and we could not have asked for better weather.  Of course the whole city also knew it was a beautiful day and they were out in force.

Haley, Ian and Hana walked the grounds surrounding the Rijksmuseum and quickly found a little labyrinth designed for children.  They spent the next 20 minutes running down one path until they could go no further.  Eventually Ian lead them out and we moved on to the iconic "I Amsterdam" signage.

As you can imagine the signage was packed.  We must have waited 20 minutes to "get our turn" to have the kids climb up on the letter of their choice and take a picture.  Of course Haley tried to pick the highest point to climb to, in this case the letter T, but the wait was to long.  So we took a few pictures on the "other letters" and moved on.

We took a nice long walk down a gorgeous parkway and past more museums.  At the end of the parkway we found our way to the Vondelpark (central park).  As we entered the park we came across another and less crowded "I Amsterdam" sign.  The lack of crowds made it far to tempting not to stop and get another "I AM" picture with the kids.

After the quick stop for a picture it was off to one of the parks nice cafes.  This one looks like a UFO landed right in the middle of the park.  With such a sunny day we move to the upstairs patio for some sweet treats and a coffee (my first in 3 days).  The apple pie was amazing and the coffee was good (of course at this point any coffee would have been good).  The kids had brownies that received a so-so review.  Ian does not like "nuts" in his brownie and did not appreciate the waitress not informing him of this "brownie issue".

After our snack pit-stop, we continued our exploration of the park.  The kids continued their search for playgrounds and that lead us to a nice little area of the park with a water feature and small playground.  There must have been 300 people in this part of the park.  Entire families were together enjoying the weather and some leisure time.   The kids quickly ran off to play while Myiesha and I found a nice sunny spot to sit down in.

After about 30 minutes Ian came running over to me to express that his "new friend" had invited him to go play soccer.  Ian has been showing a new interest in soccer and he wasn't going to miss this opportunity.  As with all American parents, be paranoid about our children, I decided to walk with Ian to where he was going to play soccer.

When we arrived at the spot with Ian's new friend (please note I don't remember this child's name) I was met by his mother who happened to be an expat from Canada.  While Ian pursued his "soccer pitch" dreams I heard about the ups and downs of living in Amsterdam.  In many ways the Europeans seem to be more "pro family" than Americans.  They seem to understand that to be "pro family" you have to be pro "mom"/"women".  You have to be pro time off so family's can be together.  You have to be pro healthcare for all for the entire family to be healthy.  You cant be pro family if you only want to support a child in the womb but care nothing for the child once it is born.  As an example, after a woman gives birth she is allowed off time from work to be with the child.  When this time "runs out" she goes back to work at only 80% time (4 days a week) but receives 100% pay.  This last for 8 years.  Wow!  Now that is pro family.

In addition, it was truly nice to see so many "families" together.  Fathers/husbands were everywhere.  Many times we saw fathers with their kids only.  We were told this is common in Amsterdam as one day of the week is "father's day" when the dad takes full responsibility for the children so the mother can rest.  How refreshing it was to see this.  Yes I know many will say these type of "government regulations" will hurt a society but I must say they all looked very happy, healthy and relaxed.  Just saying.

After another hour of play time we decided to pack up and head out to the highest rated Ethiopian Restaurant in Amsterdam.  It was so nice to have a great meal of food we understood and enjoyed.  The owner of the restaurants was very friendly and also brought us a twist on our favorite "honey wine".  It seems he adds carbonated water to the honey wine and it was a perfect refreshing drink for an early dinner.

After dinner we headed back to our apartment to get ready to pack.  Tomorrow we would be leaving for the next segment of the Taylor Schlitz Family Amazing Race....Paris, France.  As you can imagine everyone is excited and Haley can't wait to see the Eiffel Tower.  But before any of that can happen we will get to experience the wonders of high speed rail in Europe.