Hi there. This is the first installment (hopefully not the last) of our weekend adventuring. We do things. Go out. Eat stuff. See stuff. I thought it might be fun to have this standing post each Monday-ish to share what we were up to during the end of the week. And I’m going to attempt to do so in not enough too many four pictures.

On Friday night, we tried out a restaurant in our ‘hood – The White Elephant. It was good. Really good. We will be back.

On Saturday, we headed out to explore some of North Holland that we haven’t seen before. Leading us to picture #1:

Boring picture until you realize I'm driving manually. Then it becomes terrifying.

I have driven stick before in my life (like twice) and this was my first time behind the wheel of any vehicle (other than a bicycle) in over 6 months. Hence the terrifying aspect of this photo. Jaro displayed a patience even I didn’t know he had. Wonder who will teach our kids to drive? Anyway, I got a lot of practice and feel great about it! Can’t wait for more road trips.

After one or two stalls in the parking lot We headed out to a nearby town called Beverwijk to see its HUMUNGOUS weekend market. Seriously, I read that 80,000 people visit this market in an average weekend. Dat be HUGE! Anyway, it was a strange place, which leads us to picture #2:

Manicure, anyone?

Shops used displays such as this to lure (?) customers in for a manicure. I’m sorry, what? Okay, I’ll go ahead and get the British flag, thanks. The best part about the market other than these tips was the Asian food market. We picked up a ton of gems like Sriracha hot sauce, ginger beer, peanut snacks and rice noodles. I’d go back just for that store.

Moving on, we headed to Edam. Cute, quaint Edam. Right up there with Delft in terms of charm. Which leads us to awe-inducing picture #3:

Teeny bridge in Edam

We wandered around this town for a couple hours wondering where all the people were. It was like the entire town was sleeping. And on a Saturday. Need to re-visit in the summer.

After driving through farmland with more windmills than you can count and small towns like Alkmaar & De Rijp, we headed back to Amsterdam. A quick bite at Bazar (unusually quick, we only had an appetizer and beer) and that was enough. Goodnight.

On Sunday, we got going early (again, with me behind the wheel!) and headed south to Maastricht. This medieval town in the very tip of the Netherlands still has intact 13th century fortification walls around parts of the city. Very cool! Here we enjoyed a lunch at Bisschopsmolen, a bakery that still used a working watermill for power, followed by afternoon beers at In Den Ouden Vogelstruys, with pretty views of Sint Servaasbasiliek, which you can somewhat see in picture #4:

Sunny afternoon beers in Maastricht

We arrived back in Amsterdam late last night. BEAT. Worth it as we had a chance to discover all sorts of new parts of this incredible country we live in. We had a blast! And it was nice to just hang out together. Even though we moved out here on our own, I still don’t feel like we do that enough. I hope everyone had a weekend just as fulfilling as ours!

xxx