Jonathan and Marissa zijn in Nederland

Leif and Marissa

By now you know that Leiden is a great place to live. Canals, bicycles, windmills...everything you could want in a Dutch city. But it still can't keep us from feeling a little homesick. Luckily Kurt's cousin, Jonathan and his girlfriend, Marissa were in Europe for a wedding and decided to make a side trip to see us!
 They arrived last Saturday around 1 o'clock, somewhat tired but ready for a tourist adventure. We roused the kids from their naps, rented a boat, and took them for a canal tour. You may remember from a previous post that we did the same with Lars and Sam when they were here at the end of July. Unfortunately the weather was a little less agreeable this time and we ended up a little soggy. In spite of the rain I think everyone enjoyed it. We promise to take any of our visitors on this tour but, hurry, from what we have heard the fall gets quite rainy.
  On Sunday we woke up bright and early thanks to our one year old alarm clock child and caught a train into Amsterdam. It was a bit rainy still so we dutifully donned our rain gear. Unbeknownst to us we would end up just carrying it around the rest of the absolutely gorgeous day.

Marissa, Elephant, and Jon

From the train station we walked to the Amsterdam Zoo (aka Natura Artis Magistra). Admission was a bit pricey but it was a well manicured zoo with a wide variety of animals and some grand old buildings. I tried not to make my guilty feelings evident (Kurt has warned me about passing guilt onto the kids) but some of the habitats seemed a little on the small side; The zoo is 175 years old and ideas have changed since then about the rights of animals and humans. That being said we did get to see a lot of animals really close up (Sorry, animals!). The butterfly house was particularly awesome- as we walked through a sweet smelling greenhouse filled with plants, all manner of butterflies flited around us like erratic fairies. Leif tried desperately to convince the butterflies to land on him but to no avail. For lunch we ate at a cafe opposite the giraffe habitat. While they wrapped their purple tongues around some hay we enjoyed some surprisingly reasonably priced fare. Unfortunately, Kurt spilled almost his entire cappuccino defending Leif's saucijzenbroodje from a cheeky pigeon.
   We were unsure at this point how much more we could push the kids. Klaus had taken a 20 minute nap in the stroller when we first arrived at the zoo but both he and Leif were looking a bit glassy-eyed as we wrapped up our time with the animals. The plan was always that Jon and Marissa would stay in Amsterdam all day but that we would return home early according to the kid's needs. J and M were planning to go to the Anne Frank house but other than that their plans were pretty loose. We decided to walk them to the Vondelpark, a large metro park in the southern part of the city. On the way both boys took naps so we felt comfortable stopping for a snack at the Blue Teahouse, a 1930's teahouse located in the Vondelpark. It felt wonderfully European even though we ate chips and salsa. From there we took temporarily parted ways with Jon and Marissa and took the train home. 
  Everyone was a bit worn out on Monday so we decided to stay in Leiden. We really wanted Jon and Marissa to experience biking in the Netherlands so we convinced them to rent a bicycle. I gave my bike to Marissa and, in true Dutch style, I sat on the luggage rack of Kurt's bike. With the kids in the bike trailer we all set off for Leiden's Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (see video). This gem of a museum houses the Netherlands's antiquities collection. I knew about this museum but I was not prepared for how awesome it is. The collection is amazing with several Egyptian mummies, countless pieces of black/red figure Greek pottery, an impressive statue of Emperor Trajan, and an entire late Egyptian temple. As always, we did not get to spend as much time there as we would have liked but luckily it is right here is Leiden and we have museum passes. 
After nap we biked around the city some more and then took Jon and Marissa to the Burcht. We picked up some Indian food at India Way Tandoori Restaurant for dinner. It was the first Indian place that we have tried in Leiden and I think we can stop looking for our regular Indian place. We have found it! The food was fabulous and the waiter was very friendly and really accommodating (I'm a pesky pescatarian and Marissa is gluten intolerant).
  This morning we sadly said good-bye to Jon and Marissa. Fortunately since we return to the U.S. right around Christmas we will get to see them almost as soon as we return. Hooray!