Brussels to Amsterdam

Hello! It's Eli in Europe. Again, I'm sorry for the late post. I have been very busy lately as yesterday we moved onto the second half of our trip in the Netherlands!

Yesterday in Brussels, after a brief fire, we headed out to our car, ready to leave for Amsterdam. There was only one problem: we didn't have the keys to our car. The car would start as long as the keys were somewhere in it, and it started when the entire family was in. However, we wouldn't leave Brussels without knowing where the car keys were. To solve this problem, we used the process of elimination. Each member of the family got in the car and my father attempted to start it. If it wouldn't start, that person did not have the keys. First my brother went and the car wouldn't start. Then my sister; same result. Next me, and the car still wasn't starting. Finally it was my mother, who first put her purse in the car to see if it the keys were there. No luck. After that, she got in the car, and my father attempted to turn the car on with little hope. Surprisingly, the engine started and the car turned on. After a minute of searching, my mom found the key in her coat pocket. As my brother put it, my parents were simply having "an old person day."

Bratwurst sausage

After that fiasco, we entered Amsterdam into our handy GPS and left Brussels. About 45 minutes later, we were hungry and decided to stop in Antwerp, Belgium. We visited the beautiful Antwerp train station, where I had a good Bratwurst sausage.

Antwerp Train Station (Bratwurst stand bottom right)

After this, we continued our drive to the Netherlands. We passed many wind farms and farmhouses. Later. we turned on the local radio and were rather disappointed that they were still playing music from the 80's.

Wind farm and Belgian countryside

Finally, we arrived in Amsterdam. We could tell by the ubiquitous bike lanes that we had arrived. We then entered our hotel: The Doubletree Amsterdam. The hotel did not feel like a Doubletree; it had modern architecture and we received a free cookie upon check-in!

We headed upstairs to the rooftop bar just in time to witness a picturesque sunset over Amsterdam.

Sunset

Later, we headed out into the city for dinner. There are some unique characteristics of Amsterdam which I'll talk about later, but we could certainly notice them. We made our way to an Indonesian restaurant. I had never tried Indonesian food before, and it was quite good. Indonesian food is to Amsterdam as Chinese food is to America (or New York.) Because Amsterdam is not known for it's fantastic local cuisine, it has a wide variety of different flavors, including Thai, Indian, Indonesian, and more. The meal was filling and enjoyable.

We made our way back to our hotel, and  fell asleep ready for some adventures in Amsterdam, which certainly came the next day. But that's a story for another post...