Our flight to Amsterdam went smoothly and we ended up arriving about 30 minutes early. This gave us plenty of time to get through customs before we met up with Uncle Hiro, who came in from Helsinki almost two hours after us. We took a taxi into Amsterdam to our hotel since we couldn’t figure out if our I Amsterdam cards could get us into the city. Luckily the Prinsen Hotel had all of our rooms ready early and we were able to drop off our luggage in our rooms around 11am. After we got situated a little bit we met up with Ojiichan and Hirojichan in the lobby at noon and left to go see Kyoko-san perform at the World Gymnaestrada event at the RAI Amsterdam complex. We had to walk about a kilometer to get to the metro station passing Vondelpark and the Rijksmuseum on the way. Once we were on the metro it took us straight to the RAI and we walked to find the entrance for the Gymnaestrada event.
 |
| Gymnaestrada Venue |
There were quite a few food trucks and vendors set up outside the venue so we decided to get a quick snack at one before going in for Kyoko-san’s performance. I picked a truck called Las Fritas that specialized in french fries with lots of different sauces and we also got a beef croquette and a cheese souffle, which was really just a breaded slice of cheese that we found to be pretty disappointing. The fries were delicious with a crunchy exterior, pillowy-soft interior, seasoned perfectly and complemented nicely by the various sauces that included aioli, curry, chutney and of course ketchup. The beef croquette had a really great crunch and a satisfying, rich flavor that wasn’t too heavy for Christal.
 |
| Las Fritas Fries |
Once we had our food we tried to make our way inside the venue, but Hirojichan had forgotten that we needed to buy tickets, so we spent a few minutes in line getting our tickets and then made our way over to where Kyoko-san’s group was performing. Her group was made up of several female instructors and they performed a well choreographed show that lasted about 10 minutes.
 |
| Kyoko-San's Group Performance |
After they had finished their performance the six of us, Christal, Luke, Maddy, Ojiichan, Hirojichan and myself, headed back to the hotel. Back at the hotel we got the kids and ourselves showered and were all able to take a nap before we gathered to head off to dinner. Luke’s nap ended up being quite a bit longer than the rest of ours as I had to carry him through the city and on the tram all the way to the restaurant. I had made a reservation at d’Vijff Vlieghen, which translates to ‘The Five Flies’, which specialized in seasonal dutch food in a richly historic setting. When we stepped into the restaurant it felt like we were transported back in history a couple hundred of years, but the food was refreshing and modern and everyone seemed to enjoy it. By the end of dinner LB had finally woken up and on our way back to the hotel we stopped by a store to get some snacks for him to eat. Once we got back to the hotel LB ate his snacks and we got ready for bed and hit the hay early.
 |
| d'Vijff Vlieghen Interior |
No comments:
Post a Comment