Road Trip

Michael took us on a road trip today, he has been itching to get out of town. We rented a Peugeot and off we went.

 First stop was a glass museum. It was more the history of glass especially Art Deco then current pieces. Michael was in seventh-heaven.

 This area of the Netherlands has many dikes, water was every where.

 This was the parking lot of the museum. I thought these flowers were pretty. Such greenery in the Netherlands.

 A very blustery day. The weather was in the seventies with cloud cover all day. Such strange weather in Europe, down 20 degrees in one day.

 The Netherlands love their statues, this one of glass blowing.

This is the town we had lunch in. Michael said it was like stepping back in time. It was very quiet. It seemed the quintessential European street to me with flowers and all.

Cars. people and bikes all shared the same road.
The End.

Rotterdam Day 3

Temperature is still climbing, today 94 degrees. We are spending the rest of the day in our AC room.

Port of Rotterdam, Erasmus Bridge.

At the port of Rotterdam, says "they stayed on course". Another war memorial.

 Today was museum day. First up, Kunsthal. Small museum that was difficult to navigate. 

 First exhibit was Viktor and Rolf Fashion Artist 25 years. This reminded me of the I Love Lucy episode with the sack dress.

Princess wedding dress, doll form.

Actual wedding dress.

This room was dedicated to student artists. These faces were made of cardboard and duck tap.

 Another exhibit was from Dutch artist Dick Bruna. His work was popular in the 50s and 60s. Some of the images were familiar to me.

In a park after lunch on to our next museum.

The next museum Het Nieuwe Instituut, was a bust. It was a really strange museum. We were interested in the Steve Bannon Propoganda Retrospective but it was too much reading and a lot of videos. In addition to this museum we bought tickets to see a 'modern' house from the 1930s, Sonneveld House. It was restored beautifully and a lovely self tour(forgot to take pictures).

Rotterdam Day 2

The heatwave in Europe is following us. The high for today was expected to be 89 degrees. We decided to head out early to beat the heat of the afternoon.

The Dutch love their statues. We saw this one of oil barrels.

"The Destroyed City" by artist Ossip Zadkine.

The pencil building and cube houses.

Part of my libraries from around the world picture goal. The library was not open yet.

We ended our day at La Pizza, it was really good food. Michael and I enjoyed a kid free meal as Jacob decided to stay in the room. I think he is on parent overload.

Welcome to Rotterdam

We arrived in Rotterdam at 4AM, it was a long day of travel. Our flight out of Tel Aviv was delayed by one hour, so a long night became longer. We all went straight to bed and slept for four hours. It was easier to deal with lack of sleep when you don't have to change time zones. We are staying in Premier Suites Rotterdam, a kind of upscale apartment living. First order of business was grocery shopping but we discovered Rotterdam does not wake up until 10AM on Sundays, no stores open yet. Second order of business was laundry, we all ran out of clean clothes. There are 3 machines free of charge so we were good to go. Third order of business was to relax, it has been a whirlwind 10 days in Israel.

We are staying in the heart of Rotterdam. The short building is the central station. Jacob is also impressed with this modern city.

We went to a park near our hotel to look around and enjoy the weather. I think this statue is called Big Man.

Being a kid again.

 Colorful Rotterdam

Another statue we found commemorating 1940-1945. The description was in Dutch but probably a war memorial. We enjoyed our slow day and our pasta dinner. We didn't eat any pasta in Israel. Until tomorrow...

Amsterdam Part Two

We are still suffering with the heat. One young local resident told us it is the hottest it has ever been and one older local said it hasn't been this hot since 1976.

The mornings remain cool so we try and get out early. This morning we went to the local street open market. There was a variety of stalls including this farmer's market.

We enjoyed croissants and smoothies as a snack.

In the afternoon we headed to Jacob's bucket list item, meeting the folks at Blender. Blender is the 3D modeling computer program that Jacob has been using for the past 6 years. Their headquarters are in Amsterdam! He met the developer and owner of the organization Ton who is the tall gent. The other employee does the videos for the website. Ton gave us a nice tour of their new digs. 

This was a great experience for Jacob. We are going to send him here next summer to work:)

Amsterdam's Central Station. They have amazing public transportation.

Bibliotheek, the Library! This was a 6 story library. It had AC but not working well for me. This part of town was hot and we just wanted to leave so didn't spend much time but I can add it to my list of libraries from around the world.

Michael asked our B&B host to stock us with some traditional Dutch food and this is one of them. They are sprinkles you put on toast. Jacob enjoyed this treat for breakfast.

We have enjoyed our time in Amsterdam. Here are a few things we have learned. The people are incredibly nice and helpful. Everyone owns a bike and it is the primary transportation. The population seems very healthy. Would we return? absolutely!

We are off at dawn's early light for the next leg of our journey. I know the heat will follow me but I am hopeful for more AC and ice!

Amsterdam

Our first day in Amsterdam was really hot in the 80-90 degrees. We managed to go for a walk to this old windmill.

Our second day we headed out early for our 8:30 AM reservation for the Anne Frank House. It was a wonderful tour which lasted an hour. I was so happy to have experienced this. One for the bucket list.

Amsterdam is one canal after another. I thought this was a pretty spot and not too crowded.

Jacob is keeping up with his Instagram account. This is a royal building.

We went to the Stedelijk Museum which was modern art and it had Air Conditioning!!! This particular piece caught my eye and it was called C'est What.

This box is floating and turns. We think it is computer operated. It was an impressive piece.

Jacob is enjoying the modern architecture. I like this stylized version of the photo that Google did for me.