Posts filed under ‘On the Go’
Miffy’s House
Who doesn’t love Miffy? My daughter surely adores her! Dick Bruna created this little rabbit in 1955 and by now her stories have been translated to more than 40 languages! Did you know Miffy has her own website? It’s great to explore with children: there is an audio book, animation, music, games, and more! There are also links to a variety of webshops: the books are great and I can also recommend the DVDs!
Last weekend we decided to treat our children to a little trip to ‘Miffy’s House’ (a.k.a. the Dick Bruna House). (more…)
A destination very far away
I married my husband out of love, not because of the country he comes from, as it is possibly the most unpractical country to travel to from Europe: New Zealand.
New Zealand certainly has a lot of advantages, namely it is 30 degrees there at the moment (not 2 degrees as in Paris), and the New Zealanders were the original inventor of the Ugg boot! They also host important cultural events like the international gum boot throwing competition and the world famous golden shears championship!
I am actually really looking forward to being in New Zealand. It is the getting there with the 2-year-old toddler that fills me with dread. How do you keep a 2-year-old happy and quiet for a 24-hour flight there and back??
Pancakes!
What exactly are pancakes? In America they are thick and small and eaten for breakfast in stacks – the higher the stack the cooler the cowboy! In France they are called crêpes and are very large, thin and delicate and eaten for lunch or a 
snack from one of the little street stands. (This makes me wonder… Michela, is there such a thing as an Italian pancake)??
In Holland, ’pannekoeken’ are the size of an average frying pan, and are a bit thicker than a crêpe but thinner than American pancakes. Traditionally they are eaten for dinner, usually after the traditional Dutch pea soup called ‘snert’, with a variety of savoury (bacon&syrup, cheese&paprika) or sweet (apple, banana, icing sugar, sugar syrup, confiture) toppings. It’s a children’s favourite.
We just discovered a restaurant called Pancakes!, which serves, well, pancakes (in all different varieties) and is conveniently located in the center of the ‘nine streets’ in Amsterdam (a little shopping delight for the ones who don’t know it yet)! They have highchairs (I counted at least three) and a children’s menu that comes with a little surprise. Might your little one get bored after all, a toy-box filled with books, toys and games is present, or the staff can provide crayons and paper. There’s a microwave for warming up milk. And they also cater children’s (birthday)parties – age 4 years and up!
-Esther in Amsterdam
Babyccino
My daughter has known the meaning of a good babyccino since she was able to hold a spoon. I have known the meaning of a good babyccino since I discovered that it could keep a toddler entertained for at least 10 minutes at a lunch table. If one orders a second one (disregarding the occasional babyccino spilled all over the table) that’s 20 minutes of valuable, uninterrupted mummy time! What a great invention is that?!
While our children were happily messing about with their babyccinos, I think my girlfriends and I spent hours discussing topics like: the best baby/toddler products, fashion, recipes, films, websites, beauty products, shopping, expositions, restaurants, travel, practical matters, the occasional gossip (think Sienna Miller & Jude Law, Kate Moss & Pete Doherty), raising our kids, raising our husbands -and anything else that would interest us, (urban mothers). (more…)
Tricotti
I’ve carried 2 babies around London in this sling, and every time I used it at least three people would come up to me to inquire what sort of sling this was and where I got it. The inquiries were, of course, followed by “oohs” and “aahs”; all babies are cute, but in this sling they are even more endearing!
Me too!
Since we’re all mums that like to travel, I have to tell you girls about the perfect baby/toddler seat for on-the-go. THIS IS IT: the Phil&Teds Me Too Chair.
It’s light (less than 1 kilo /2 lbs), it’s flat (2,5 cm /1 inch when folded), it fits on nearly every table and it looks really, really good.
Da Bike!
OK, I first thought I should hold off with writing about this topic because it’s really so un-originally DUTCH, but hey – we do live in Amsterdam now, and it’s truly quite impossible to avoid it: The Bike.
I do have to give you girls some background information. After 7 years of cycling to High School, ‘through weather and wind’, as we say here in the Low Lands (meaning rain or shine), 9 kilometers to and 9 kilometers back (about 35 minutes each way – and that’s riding fast!) and 8 years of cycling to university (less far but with hangover – that’s equally bad), I thought I had had my fair share of cycling.
So. No cycling in New York. No cycling in Brussels. And No cycling in London. Seven years of no cycling, and no plans to change that situation. I actually quite liked our lil’ old Saab 93 that we had in London, combined with the occasional taxi!
Sigh.
Back in Amsterdam, things are different. I forgot. Everybody cycles. So, after the initial shock, I started to get used to the idea of cycling again. Especially when I saw these cool ‘transport bikes’ everybody has nowadays:
Not bad, I thought. And so practical! With a crate in the front (handbag) – brilliant, and so cool!
So, I decided that for now, I wanted a bike with a crate. Maybe after a while, when the children are a bit bigger, I would convert to a ‘bakfiets’:
You can easily fit in 3 children, as you can see, maybe even 4! All the SATC mums in Amsterdam have one similar to this one, so it must be ingeneously practical!
After browsing the Internet, I found out that the best-tested ‘bakfiets’ in the Netherlands (by Dutch cyclers club ‘fietsenbond’) is ironically this one, the ‘Nihola’ from Denmark:
(see also http://nihola.info/).
So, I send my husband en route (he studied industrial design engineering so he must be an expert) with the assignment to find me a cool bike with a crate, if not a bakfiets, preferably the cute one from Denmark.
Of course, I neglected to look at prices. How much could a bike be? (I have never paid more than 50 euros for a bike).
Prices:
Transport bike, as in picture: from €1145,-
Bakfiets, as in picture: from €1579,-
Nihola, as in picture: from €2195,-
End of story: after two hours of anxiously waiting for my cool bike to arrive, my husband called to say he got me a decent second hand Gazelle bike, (€200), which would be fitted with 2 children’s seats and a basket on the front.
Please don’t tell anyone.
♥
-Esther in Amsterdam
Recent Comments