Oster Invasion

This was a special weekend as my parents made the journey across the Atlantic to come pay us a visit in our new temporary home. They left Denver on Thursday, got delayed in Chicago, and arrived about an hour and a half behind schedule on Friday morning. Thankfully my job, especially as a manager, provides me a certain amount of flexibility so I was able to log on from home in order to meet them when they arrived. Around lunch they arrived at their hotel and I went over to meet them. Now some of you are saying, “a hotel but you have spare bedrooms!” Well, there are two fatal flaws to the house. The stairs are the first. With my moms knees going up and especially going down the stairs is pretty treacherous. The second is the mattress in the spare room. It’s a great mattress for guests staying a few days or for those who can’t afford or want to pay to stay in a hotel but it does leave something to be desired. The hotel we recommended is right around the corner from us across the canal, nh museum quarter. Seeing their room, it looks like a nice place to set up shop for their stay. They upgraded one level to the standard room with a view and got a very nice view of the canal below. Anyway back to the blog, after meeting we went around the corner to a little cafe, Cafe Loetje. The cafe was in a cute little square with a Church. We sat outside in the nice fall sunshine. They got very lucky and arrived on a weekend with fantastic weather forecasted. The ambiance coupled with the beautiful weather made for a nice experience. The food was also quite nice. We ordered sandwiches and frites. HUGE sandwiches. Definitely should have split them. The fries were paired with mayo – of course – and I will say I’m becoming a bit of a convert… the mayo here tastes different than mayo at home. It’s slightly sweeter I think. Once we paid the bill I had to go into the office for a few meetings and we set a time to meet for dinner.

Dinner was at a restaurant we have been waiting to try until we had visitors called ZaZa. It was worth the wait! We told them we were celebrating my mom’s birthday which was last week and they had a nice set up with balloons and little bows on the glasses for the occasion. Bill and I started with starters – me a carrot and coconut soup that had quite the presentation – and Bill a scallop dish. I normally win the food ordering game but this time I think Bill was the victor. The scallops were delicious and sat on some sort of tart thing that was incredible.

Moving onto the mains we did something very obscure for Oster’s, we all ordered different things. I had the lamb, Bill the rib eye, dad the shrimp and risotto, and mom the ravioli. Everything was terrific but I think the ravioli won. Hard to beat good ravioli. Everyone debated dessert but I knew I wanted something. The bread pudding was calling my name. Fabulous. Warm, moist, flavorful, everything you want in a bread pudding but are generally disappointed to not find.

We were boring after dinner and just retired for the evening to prepare for a busy day Saturday.

Saturday we were up early for our tour of the Van Gogh museum. On our way we noticed that the much instagrammed I AMsterdam sign was fairly empty so we stopped to get our gram on and take some pictures. It was fun to be a little silly and Mom was quite proud of her poses. If you want your picture here when you come visit, I suggest going early as well. By the time we finished our museum venture the sign was packed with people.

Once the photo shoot concluded we went over to the museum. We arranged for a private tour guide for an hour. The hour wasn’t long enough to make it through the full museum so we rented an audio guide for the remainder. The guide was informative but too be honest, for the price I’m not sure you need a guide for this museum. The audio guide is organized very well and will take you through everything with ease. So advice for visitors – save some money and just go with the guide. In between the guide and the audio guide we did take a break in the cafe which was quite nice. They had a very large selection of food and beverages (including wine and beer). If you built your visit around a meal you would be pleasantly surprised. It is also to break up so much touring.

After the museum we took my parents to the Albert Cuyp market and had them try stroopwafels. I am not sure they appreciated them quite as much as I did but they humored me at least to say they enjoyed them. We picked up a roasted chicken and some hummus and bread for lunch. We intended to take it for a picnic in Vondelpark but ultimately decided a table and proper cutlery were more appealing than a picnic so we ate at our apartment. We did, however, make it to the park after lunch. It was the perfect park weather so we couldn’t pass it up. Apparently the rest of Amsterdam felt the same way because it was packed with people. After about an hour, we felt the effects from so much walking around and my parents went back to the hotel to rest before dinner. I used it as an opportunity to catch up on my trashy Bravo shows – thank you VPN.

When my parents returned to our apartment I practiced my domestic skills and prepared a nice charcuterie board for us to enjoy.

Then we were off to Bistrot de Alpes. We to eat around the city and have been trying to go to different places, careful not repeat too many restaurant. This place was so good the first time, however, we returned a second time. The food is Swiss style – i.e. fondue and melted cheese (you can probably now see why we returned). We got the staple cheese pasta and the raclette. I think I blogged about this previously but to recap, cheese block + heat lamp = melted cheese goodness.

Dinner was capped off with a great creme brûlée. Perfectly crisp on top without being burned and cold and creamy in the center.

Sunday we started with another brunch repeat at Bakers and Roasters. We all got different things again! Proud of us team! This time I tried the Kiwi Brekkie which was top notch. I forgot to take a photo – sorry!- so settle for a picture of my chai tea.

The big activity for the day was the Anne Frank house tour. If you visit us in Amsterdam and want to go to the Anne Frank house (which is worth it so you should) you must buy tickets well in advance online. Some of you are saying, “oh Jenny you’re exaggerating because you are a planner. I’ll just get them there. No big deal.” This is not in fact Jenny the over planner telling you to buy tickets online. There is literally no other way to buy them. They must be purchased online. They also only allow a certain number of people into the museum every 15 minute so your ticket is for a designated time slot. They limit the number of people allowed to enter during each slot so there is a fixed number of tickets each day. Because there is a set number of tickets available, the museum tends to sell out about a month in advance plus or minus depending if you come at a busy tourist month or not. Anyway back to the tour. If you haven’t read the diary before or it’s been a hot minute I would suggest reading up. Bill specifically reread it before our visit and helped give us little nuggets of info as we went through. The museum has a good audio tour and signs if you don’t have time to or don’t want to read it but it is helpful to have some context. The house itself is very small and there isn’t a vast amount on display but to me the museum is more about what it represents than its contents. It is one family’s story from a horrible moment in human history when people allowed hatred to overpower human decency and turn against their neighbors, their friends, their brothers. Anne’s story is a reminder that this sort of hatred exists and we need to remember and mourn the victims of this atrocity to leave this sort of hatred in the history books and not allow it to creep back into our present. Very powerful thoughts.

To go back to a lighter note, after the Anne Frank house we decided to try the insta famous Winkel 43 for some apple pie because what is a better pick me up than dessert? It’s a great slice of pie that’s for sure. It’s different than American apple pie but call me blasphemous, I liked it more… the crust was almost a crumble and tasted like cinnamon. Delicious. By the time we arrived it was about 2 in the afternoon which was good because we missed the lunch rush and were able to find a table. It’s first come first serve so you have to be ready to pounce if you see a spot open up.

We didn’t have anymore formal plans for the day so we decided to do the Rick Steve’s free city tour through his app. The tour itself was pretty good but I didn’t particularly enjoy doing it on a Sunday afternoon with perfect weather. The center was a mad house and getting around was like trying to walk towards the stage at a concert. We did see a few things we had not including the flower market. This time of year there aren’t a ton of fresh blooms on display, more bulbs. I must say I’m excited to come back in the spring when all the fresh cut flowers are out. At the tail end of the tour we also did something particularly Dutch. We tried herring. We did sort of cop out by getting the version in a sandwich. Overall it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be – slightly less fishy. I can’t say I’ll be rushing back for more however.

That was the end of our weekend adventure with the Osters. Monday they headed off to Switzerland and Milan for the week but they will be back Thursday then the crew is off to Bruges and Ghent in Belgium! For now, I’ll leave you with the video of Bill’s first bite. Bottoms up!