Anneke's Travels: July 12 & 14: Visiting Amsterdam and Meeting Cousins!

On Wednesday (a week and a half ago...I'm so behind already!!), my Aunt Jeanne and Uncle Bob took Hendrik and me to Amsterdam to meet some of our cousins. There are two of them: the younger girl is Naomi and she is 7 years old. The older girl's name is Hannah, and she is 9 years old. Her birthday is a year and a day after mine!

We went to their school to pick them up with Uncle Bob and it was a Soup Lunch day for all of the students and anyone who wanted the soup because it was the last week of school. We got to stay for the soup, and I got the soup from one of their apartment neighbours! It was super tasty.

After school pickup, we went to a park that they showed us. It is a biiig park and it has two zip-lines that you can sit on and go across. It's sooo fun!

I like playing with both of the girls. Hannah skipped her football (soccer) practice to play with me. 😄 Most of the time, we played hide and seek and they have a big house with a secret passage from Hannah's room to the guest room! It was super fun.

After that, we walked to the library. It's a HUGE library, it has, like, 7 floors! There's a whole downstairs part filled with children's books. A lot of the books are Dutch, but there is a section of English books for Hendrik and I. We get to use Hannah and Naomi's library cards so that we can take books out while we are in Amsterdam. I'm excited to go back to the library again because I saw some good books that I want to take out. Uncle Bob says that it is the biggest library in the Netherlands!

There are also so many museums nearby their house in walking or biking distance. I am excited to visit them all!

We took the train to go back to Amersfoort and then we met my mom and dad at a restaurant for dinner. I got a Salami pizza that I've never gotten before. I thought it was kind of weird having a salami pizza instead of pepperoni, but it was still super tasty. I think I like it better than pepperoni. It took sooooooooo long for the food to arrive, though, so maybe anything would have been good after that wait. I also got a Fanta to drink and they come in glass bottles that look like beer bottles. They're cool! I have never seen Fanta in bottles before, only in pop cans and drink fountain machines at fast food restaurants.

On Friday, we went back to Amsterdam, this time with mom and dad. We got there around 11 and went back to Hannah and Naomi's house to drop off some of our luggage. I led my family the whole way from the train station to their house because I already memorized the route!

The girls were still in school because they get dismissed at 3pm, so we explored a lot of Amsterdam with mom and dad and I got to have ANOTHER Fanta. That was my 3rd Fanta this week! (The first time, I got one for free in downtown Amersfoort, the second time at the restaurant, and the third time at a beer/drink place - mom and dad got beers, and Hendrik and I each got a Fanta). In Canada, we would say "FANtah", but in the Netherlands, they say "FAWNtah". It's weird that it is pronounced different.

After exploring, we went back to the girls' house and we met Naomi outside of the building waiting to be let in after school. She had already gotten home, but she forgot her backpack at school so she had to go back and get it and come back home again. They live in an apartment sort of building but they own their house in it. It has two floors even though it's kind of an apartment, which normally only have one floor.

I played with Naomi, mostly, because Hannah had to run to soccer practice. After mom and dad finished the tour of their house and got some keys, we went back to Amersfoort on the train so that Naomi and Hannah and their dad, Davey, could keep packing for their trip to Canada the next day.

I am glad that I will get to see them again in Ontario when we get home in August. They will be staying at Lakewood with my Aunt Corrie and we'll get to swim in the pool!