Home With Heidi: Europe Trip

Michael was promoted to partner this year, and because of that we had the opportunity to travel to Amsterdam for the Global New Partners Conference. This would be my first trip to Europe, and Michael's first trip where he wasn't working the entire time, so we decided to spend three days in London, three days in Amsterdam, and three days in Paris.

We started our trip in London. We knew that there was a lot we wanted to see in a short amount of time, so we purchased a three day London Pass, which also includes a hop-on, hop-off bus tour. With the pass, we were able to visit Westminster Abbey, Kensington Palace, the Tower Bridge, and the Tower of London. We also visited Buckingham Palace, though it's closed to tours, and took a turn on the London Eye at night. We got fast track tickets for the eye and were able to bypass the lines and get on right away, a little more expensive but definitely worth it to not have to wait in line.

Big Ben

Westminster Abbey

Kensington Palace Gates

Buckingham Palace

Tower Bridge

One of our days in London was spent at Whitehart Lane for the Tottenham-Liverpool match. Michael is a big Spurs fan, so it was great to be able to attend a match in person. The game ended in a draw, but the atmosphere was amazing!

Go Spurs!

The food in London was great! The first day we stopped at a pub for a snack and had fish & chips and a pork pie. That night we met my aunt and uncle, who happened to be in town, for dinner at Novikov, an Italian restaurant. The next day we had afternoon tea at Perken Reveller after spending the morning touring Kensington Palace, the Tower Bridge, and the Tower of London. That night we ate at Devonshire Arms. Michael had bangers & mash and I had a chicken pie with mashed potatoes and vegetables on the side. So good! The last night we were there we went shopping at Piccadilly Circus and had dinner at the Leicester Arms. We ordered fish & chips and a steak & ale pie - again, so good!

We went from London to Amsterdam. One thing I now know to check on when traveling is when the city hosts it's marathon! We met our driver at the airport and what should have been a 20 minute ride to the hotel turned into a three hour tour! Our driver didn't realize why the roads were closed at first, so he kept trying to go around the closures, which took us further and further from the hotel. We finally realized the reason for the road closures and decided to have the driver let us out about two blocks from the hotel. Unfortunately, at this point the half marathon had just started, so we ended up waiting about 30 minutes on the side of the street for a break in the runners that was large enough for us to run across with luggage! Unfortunately we ended up missing our scheduled tour, so we unloaded our luggage and walked to a restaurant called Volt for lunch. I had an open faced hummus and beet sandwich and we split some french fries and mayo.

Amsterdam Marathon

That night we went to a welcome reception at the Het Scheepvaart Museum. That was the first time I tried Stroopwafels, waffle cookies with caramel in the middle - heavenly!

The next day we had meetings in the morning, and that afternoon we split into teams of about ten people and went on a scavenger hunt through the city. After two hours of walking all over the city, we boarded a canal boat and continued our scavenger hunt by boat. In the US we would have had to sign waivers, been given life jackets, and had a driver...not in Amsterdam. We hopped in the boat, were given a five minute tutorial on how to pilot the boat, and set off on our own. Luckily we made it back to the hotel safely, and that night we went to the gala at Concert Gebouw.

Scavenger Hunt on the Canal

The next day I had the opportunity to travel to Purmerend, which is a city about 20 minutes north of Amsterdam, and visit a library with the KFFL. We listened to an author perform children's songs from throughout the world in Dutch and then broke off into groups to work with children who were attending the event. I played book dominoes with the kids - they loved it! I felt bad for the person that had to reshelve all of the books, but the kids had fun and that was why we were there.

That night we had dinner at Stork. After dinner we made our way to a bar, and ended up getting back to the room at around 2 am, which didn't bode well for a 5 am wake up to go to the airport to catch our flight to Paris.

We arrived in Paris mid-morning and took a cab to our hotel. We spent the next two and a half days walking the city, and also took advantage of the hop-on, hop-off bus tour both days and one night to see the city lit up. Paris was definitely my favorite. Everything there is beautiful! Because there was so much to see we didn't tour many places, but we did visit Notre Dame, the Pantheon, the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, and Luxembourg Gardens. The concierge at the hotel recommended we not visit the Louvre on this trip, which I had read in several different articles prior to arriving - there is too much to see, and when you don't have days to spend in the museum it's not worth it. Again, I'd definitely recommend the bus tour as a way to see most of the city in a short amount of time. Paris is the most beautiful city - my heart hurts over what happened there this past week.