Amsterdam with Fam(ily)

Before last month, I had never been to Amsterdam! Thankfully, it’s one of the few places we could fly to from Ankara. And what was even better: Meadows’ sister, Ingram, flew from England, and her fiancé, Kyle, came from New York to join us! Just call it a Carpenter double date.

When we got in Friday night, we dropped our stuff off at our Airbnb. I have had nothing but good experiences with Airbnb, but this was the best! Not only was it huge, but it was really nice and well decorated. Plus, host left out some delicious gingersnap cookies for us! If you ever need a place in Amsterdam, check it out.

In our short walk to the bar across the street, I almost got hit by a bicyclist one… two… three… four different times. Those bikers mean business! The bar we went to was a time warp: hundreds of sweaty 18-24 year-olds fighting for service at the bar while rap music circa 2005 blasts. [Instead of feeling old and washed up, I felt young and hip because I knew the words to every song!] And we took a selfie.

We got up Saturday morning and headed to the Van Gogh Museum. The museum is fabulous. One of the first rooms displays Van Gogh’s collection of self portraits. You can easily see how his art changes and how things get a little distorted near the end of his life when he wasn’t so mentally sound.

The museum follows his life from growing up the son of a pastor to becoming a painter with no formal training. His early works include The Potato Eaters, a dark and realistic portrayal of peasant life. Vincent’s brother and art dealer, Theo, was not impressed; therefore, Vincent pursued formal training. From here, we watched as his subjects and style were influenced by those around him: a Japanese period, sunflowers, self portraits.

In his final two years of life, Van Gogh’s mental illness took hold of him; and yet, he created some of his greatest works (The Starry Night for example). Before taking his own life, Vincent painted roughly one painting a day for a year! The legend we know now only existed as an artist and contributed to the art world for nine years. It’s pretty unbelievable!

From the Van Gogh Museum, we walked to the “I Amsterdam” sign in front of the Rijksmuseum. We didn’t climb the letters, but we did take a few photos!

Our next stop: a failed attempt at visiting the Anne Frank House. They’ve implemented a new system that limits walk-in visitors to a few hours each day, and the result was mass chaos. The lines were insanely long! Since we know we’ll be back, we enjoyed some beers (and cider for me!) in the sunshine. We do a lot of touristy stuff every weekend, so it was nice to sit and catch up with Ingram and Kyle.

We spent the afternoon walking around, visiting pubs, popping in the cutest shops and exploring the city. The canal houses are so picturesque, and I loved spotting the wonky ones!

In the evening, we met up with Ingram’s friends for dinner. Brasserie Ambassade did not disappoint: great wine, scrumptious food and lots of laughs.

We sat by the canal to enjoy the city by moonlight. This photo doesn’t even look real, but I promise it is! Then, we hit a pub for another round!

On our late night walk back to the Airbnb, we stumbled upon the most beautifully lit building: the royal palace! Life at home would be much more exciting if our evening walks always involved such discoveries!

By Sunday morning, we grabbed a quick breakfast and headed back to the airport. Amsterdam isn’t particularly close to Turkey, so it was a pretty quick trip. We only scratched the surface of everything there is to do, but we had a blast nonetheless!