Father's Day

Happy Father's Day, Markus! We celebrated with a day of something-different-and-fun all day long. In the morning, we drove to Rotterdam and took a Spido boat tour of the harbor and shipping port. Spido's central location also took us past several of the world famous modern architecture Rotterdam has to offer, including the Erasmus bridge and those crazy yellow cubist apartments. The boat was probably the most fancy we've ever been on for a simple tour, and it was well-equipped for tourists, giving an audio tour in four languages (Dutch, French, German, and English) broadcast over the PA with detailed videos on the monitors and lots of interesting info as we passed the various sights. In typical Dutch fashion, it rained off and on, and almost everyone sat at little tables inside drinking extremely strong coffee from a machine on board. Still, there was plenty of space, quite a few other small children for Ellie to watch, and room to run around. What else is needed?



The last leg of our tour took us past the New York Hotel in the old Holland-America Line building. That little island is the up-and-coming spot for yuppies, with a huge residential tower (called Montevideo) that contains six restaurants (and you never have to leave home in the rain...bonus!). We figured that would be a safe bet for lunch, so we drove over the Erasmus bridge and fought against the suddenly-strong wind to eat at Odyssey, a ground level cafe in the Montevideo Tower. It turned out to be a great choice. Despite its spartan decor and lounge-feel, there were already two other families with very young kids inside who were running around and screeching like mad things. We figured this meant we would be safe to bring Ellie in (although thankfully she doesn't usually go wild in restaurants, the owners don't always appreciate this). We snagged a low, comfy couch for our table and ordered up some tasty sandwiches on freshly baked bread. Yum.



By the time we were all done, Ellie was completely exhausted. She'd skipped her morning nap (increasingly common), and the boat/lunch/weather combo had sapped all remaining resources. This is a touchy zone, because if she falls asleep in the car, she won't keep sleeping if you take her out again before her nap is done. To dodge this, Markus suggested we drive to Haarlem (an hour or so away) to see what we could see. Excellent choice!

After having spent most of our weekends in The Hague and Amsterdam, we forgot that most cities close up on Sundays. Haarlem is such a city. All shops were closed, which turned out to suit us fine since the weather also cleared quite a bit when we arrived. The center is very pretty, and there is a large open central square near the cathedral where children were running and playing. Because everything was closed, there was very little traffic or people about, making city walking even more pleasant. We discovered some truly beautiful little spots completely by accident, including Ellie's favorite...an Italian gelato shop that also serves Belgian waffles (what else is there in life?). There were a couple of irresistable photo ops you'll see below: one of Ellie seated on a bench outside an Ellie-sized house (she found it and sat there; I just snapped the picture) and the other of Ellie and Markus strolling past a particularly good sign for Father's Day.






We drove home in time to make some dinner. I tried two new recipes (half-someone-else's, half-my-own-invention), and even that worked out fabulously! It had been fairly cool, grey, and rainy most of the day, so it was extra-good to have pasta with creamy tomato sauce (I added goat's cheese to my homemade sauce) and freshly baked beer bread topped with sea salt and blended with fresh rosemary from the garden. Beer bread is so painfully simple and so amazingly good that I highly recommend you stop reading and go bake some right now. Really.
All in all, we enjoyed a fabulous Father's Day as a family, and we wish a belated Happy Father's Day to all of you out there who find themselves in the category.