Chocolate & Cheese

     When we booked our trip to Amsterdam and Brugge a few months ago, we knew that this trip would be so different from any of our past vacations. It's no longer just the two of us... now there's a third Grudda who communicates frequently through crying tantrums, necessitates more luggage than both of us combined, and mandates food/attention every three hours. We maintained the realistic expectation that any number of disasterous things may happen during our trip (particularly on the flight).

     As it turns out, Aliyah was born to travel the world. While Nicole's ears were painfully popping during take-off and landing times (something she still has not gotten used to), Aliyah was smiling uncontrollably at all of the new faces surrounding her on the plane. Amazingly, she also fell asleep quickly and peacefully for all of her naps regardless of where she was: in Nicole's arms, strapped in the Ergo, lying down in a hotel pack-and-play, or bundled up in the stroller. The cold didn't bother her, and her crying tantrums were almost nonexistent for the entire trip. Aliyah's nonchalant manner allowed us to really enjoy our first family-of-three vacation.

Naturally - the moment that we took out the camera for our "first plane ride" photo happened to be the only moment  during the flight where Aliyah wasn't smiling, eating, or sleeping. We also couldn't get her to look at the camera...

     Our favorite part of Amsterdam was the cheese!! There are cheese stores everywhere, and every single one of them offers free samples. We never knew that cheese came in so many different flavors: pesto, cumin, garlic, arugula, red pepper, herb, mushroom, asparagus, lavender, honey, thyme, olive, walnut, nettle, etc.. They were all so delicious! 

    We also visited the Anne Frank House, where Aliyah's cuteness granted us immediate access in spite of the long line. It was surreal to walk through such a minuscule hiding place, where eight people lived in hiding for two years.

We may or may not have walked around Vondelpark for over an hour looking for this sign...  which, for your information, is not where it is located

On the train en route to Belgium!

     In Brugge, the cheese shops were replaced with chocolate shops! We couldn't find any chocolate samples, but we did make sure to spend every last euro coin we had on delicious chocolate truffles. When we weren't feasting on chocolate...we were wandering around The Minnewater, eating Flemmish rabbit/duck, and complaining that the Belgian waffle "breakfast" restaurant didn't open until 11:00a.m.

A random man in Belgium stopped to tell Nicole that she was "the woman carrying the little grizzly bear"

We made it back to Casablanca in time to celebrate Dave's 29th birthday in warmer weather.  

Ironically, Dave got "chocolate" pie & "cheese"-its for his birthday

-David & Nicole