Hello hello!

First full night of sleep! I was finally able to sleep until 6am, which is my normal time to wake up back home. I think I’ve finally adjusted.

Unfortunately Jimmy is a day behind me, so he’s still working on it. He’s been waking up early, then going back to sleep and getting up late. Which means we got a bit of a late start today.

I’m not mad about it, though, because I am saving all of my clout for making him get up at 5:30am tomorrow. But that’s a story for a different blog post. Cliff hanger.

Today I had a trip to Haarlem planned, as I’d heard it was an adorable city and the annual tulip parade floats would be in town. The tulip floats are like the Rose Parade floats: all botanical, all day long.

But first we needed breakfast, and I continued my pancake trip around the world with a Moroccan pancake.

Honestly, I liked this pancake better than the Dutch version I had yesterday. It was oh so flaky and delicious.

Jimmy enjoyed his breakfast too

After breakfast we decided to make a quick change of plans. We noticed the weather was supposed to be nice in the AM, then cool down with a chance of rain in the PM, so we decided to hit the beach. Zandvoort is a little town with a great sandy beach just a 10min train ride from Haarlem. We made that our first stop, which since we started so late meant we got there around noon.

We also decided to have our first experience on a bus in the Netherlands. Up until this point it was all trams, trains, and thousands of steps. We had read that you can buy your ticket from the driver, so we waited for our bus (you have to wave them down to get them to stop; lesson learned), got on, and asked to buy a ticket.

The driver sighed and rolled his eyes, I was thinking he was pretty grumpy. Then his scanner to activate the passes didn’t work, so he told us he would help us get our passes at the train station.

At the station he was actually super nice, and took us back to this closed building where apparently they squirrel all of the bus passes away. He got us our new passes, and sent us on our merry way. Thanks bus dude!

Outside the window on the train ride we saw SO MANY baby sheep, and at one stop I tried to get Jimmy to get off early so we could go say hi, but we were pressed for time. The train windows were too dirty for pics.

Here’s Zandvoort!

After a bit of wandering the beach (and watching some very cute pups play in the water… oh yes, and the naked swimmer. Gotta have one at every beach you know), we decided to grab some coffee and a snack at one of the restaurants on the water. They had comfy lounge chairs and I could have napped there all day. Except that they didn’t have decaf coffee, so no napping for me.

After some lounging, we headed to Haarlem because we had a canal boat rented for a certain time and didn’t want to miss it.

First things first: Haarlem is a historic town with gorgeous churches.

However, today we arrived to find this:

It was a full on carnival. Music was pumping, rides were swirling, and kids were eating giant buckets (literal buckets) of cotton candy. Different vibe than I was expecting, but I didn’t hate it.

After eating some carnival food and doing some wandering, we headed over to a quieter part of town to get our boat.

Lovely canal pic

By the way, I have no idea who the ladies in the Victorian garb are, but I love them and want to be them someday.

Our boat!

We rented from Club Spaarne, and got to take the boat all around the canals in Haarlem. The owner gave us one caution: one of the bridges is very low, so make sure you duck. Sounds great, we said, and off we went.

It started out really pleasant. The canals were beautiful, and Jimmy was a great driver.

We made it through the harrowing experience of the very low bridge. She wasn’t kidding. We had to hit the deck to go under it.

Then the monsoon came. It rained SO hard. We pulled on our rain coats and umbrella, and laughed at our ridiculousness. People on the shore also laughed at us. We were the only boat out, and had the canal all to ourselves.

Honestly, it was absolutely miserable because we were DRENCHED, but it was also so much fun because we felt so incredibly silly. Definitely unforgettable.

After a bit the rain let up and we drove by the windmill in Haarlem.

The whole boat trip felt a bit like a Disney ride. A pleasant beginning to set the story, a mishap that leads you into a thrill, and a calm ending that gets you ready to go see a parade.

Speaking of which, we left the boat and went to see the tulip parade!

The floats were so great, and smelled amazing. At the end, they started to take down the floats and gave away the flowers. Some people ended up with gorgeous bouquets to take home. I wasn’t pushy enough to get the spectacular flowers, but I got a free sprigs to put in our houseboat.

At that point the rain started again, so we went to a cute pizza place for some dinner, then headed back to Amsterdam. Early day tomorrow, so we’re nodding off a bit early.

Oh, check out this amazing stash of bikes at the train station!

I leave you tonight with Venetian pizza