Adventures In Far Off Lands...: Day 4 - Delft, Leiden, Haarlem, Amsterdam

After a luxurious continental breakfast in Rotterdam, we were off to Delft, a small but beautiful town. It is most famous for it's blue and white pottery. The central square was gorgeous with a large cathedral, adorable cobbled streets and plenty of shops! Danielle and I went a little crazy in the souvenir shops while Jenna took a wee nap in the car. This was one of my favorite places, with it's beautiful canals, strewn with lillypads and small colorful boats. It was really so enjoyable and a great kickoff to another eventful day!

We left Delft and drove through another small town called Leiden. There wasn’t to much going on here except a big windmill in the middle of town so we decided to listen to our bellies and mosey on to the next destination for a bit of lunch. Haarlem, which is just outside of Amsterdam houses historic streets, great antique shopping and a massive cathedral. We parked in a side street, once Rue (the GPS) told us we were close enough to the square and decided to walk the rest of the way. Parking in Holland is no small feet as you must parallel between trees and backing up a bit too far can land you straight into the canal. Talk about upping the stakes! It's a good thing we eased the tension with Jenna yelling "ALLLO!" at every poor Dutchman who'd pass the car. There was so much excitement in fact that certain rules had to be established as this continued throughout the trip...Rule #1 - No geriatrics, Rule #2 - Not so loud whilst passing those on bicycles and Rule #3 - No yelling if we're about to stop.

Once the parking and yelling had ceased, we meandered down a busy street filled with shops, making mental notes of those we'd need to return to on the way back, we finally arrived at a perfect lunch locale. After enjoying a beautifully sunny lunch on the square we started to head back to the car. The girls were uber-excited as we finally found our first truly FREEEEEE bathroom on the trip at none other than...McDonald's, of course. We wouldn't eat there but we were certainly more than happy to use their facilities. Danielle said it best when, and I quote, "Leave it to them to sympathize with the Americans and offer free toilets so we don’t have to run around like potty training children to try and find a bathroom before we pee our pants."

Not more than 8 minutes and 3 blocks later we arrived at the car, I mention the time because for some reason Jenna was in toddler 'I gotta pee' mode and insisted on having a wee moment right out the car, canal side of course. While Danielle and I shielded her, we desperately tried not to pee our own pants from sheer laughter and fear of falling into the canal ourselves. As if things couldn't get anymore interesting, much to the dismay of us all, it began to absolutely pour.

Unfortunately this was no ordinary rain and the streets began to instantly flood. As the windshield whippers swept back and forth furiously, we desperately looked to Rue for guidance. There is a fantastic Flip video that perfectly depicts our sheer panic at the overwhelming amount of water. It was one of those moments that had us laughing hysterically and feeling absolutely ridiculous.

Despite the Tsunami, we made our way to Amsterdam. Our hotel, had a location to die for! The only thing was we nearly did die climbing the narrow, windey, steep stairs! Fortunately we were right around the corner from Leidsplein Square with hundreds of pubs, restaurants, bars and transportation. We were quite excited to experience the nightlife of Amsterdam so we headed out right away and found a pub on the square to enjoy a beer and do a little people watching. We were heading down the street, when we ran into some Australians who had tried to entice us into a Pub Crawl and with a few beers in us already, we said Why not? We quickly hurried home and got dressed for our first night out on the town. We really surprised ourselves a bit with our enthusiasm to dive back into the world of 20 year old Mexico drinking shenanigans but what matters is that we had the time of our lives! As shots were poured the night grew longer as we moved from bar to bar, at some point we stopped in a coffee shop and sampled the local fare. Unfortunately, it wasn't quiet what we were after, but we became professionals in the next few days. After a fantastic night of debauchery inclusive of some late night Egyptian Felafel's (Holler!), some crazy old man in checkered pants and a lot of booze, we were off to La Hotel Boheme and some late night laughs.