It Smells Like... Team Spirit!

As a native New Englander, I know a little something about team spirit.  We are die hard Patriots, Red Sox, Bruins and Celtics fans.  And if you dare enter into a bar anywhere in the Boston area claiming to be something else...well... I wouldn't recommend it.  New Englanders are passionate about their sports.  We rally for the hometeam like nothing I had ever seen.  That is, til I moved to Barcelona.

FC Barcelona (known as Barca) is our local "futbol" (that's soccer for those of you at home) team.  And the people here are passionate about Barca even more than us New Englanders are about our sports.  Don't think I'm right?  Come visit, I'll prove it to you.  Not only do I regularly see people walking up and down the streets with banners on game day, but when they win a game, you literally hear the screams thru out the neighborhood.

Now I remember when the Red Sox and Patriots won the World Series and Super Bowl respectively back in 2004 (the year Aidan was born which is why I remember it - don't ask me any other sports years!).  There was a huge amount of cheering and yelling for sure.  But could I hear it thruout my neighborhood?  Were people lighting off firecrackers in the streets and honking their horns?  No, they weren't. 

Last night, Barca played Real Madrid - Real Madrid is to Barca what the Yankees are to the Red Sox. The enemy! And every time they meet the match is called El Capital. Why, I have no idea and since this is a quick entry, I haven't got time to look it up. The season ends at the end of next month and there is still at least one or two more games to be played against Real Madrid, more than in most seasons for some odd reason. Anyways, I'll be honest, yes, I cheer for Barca...but do we watch the games? No, not really. However, you can't help but get caught up in the spirit. Last night as Josh and I lay in bed reading, you could hear the screams and shouts from thru out the neighborhood. We could tell when someone made a mistake from the booing and when they scored a goal from the cheers. We heard them scream Messi, Messi, Messi! He's our Tom Brady.

 

Lionel Messi - Picture from a web search

And at the end of the game, there was plenty of horn honking going on and firecrackers going off... I'm going to say that without even looking online at the score that they won.  My guess is it was even more crazy down in the center of the city where people were likely hanging out of their cars with banners and impromteu parades going on as well... I wouldn't be at all surprised!

So if you think you have team spirit you may want to reconsider how the people of Barcelona celebrate a victory and climb on board the Barca bandwagon!!

Julie

Vodelpark and Dead Bodies (never a dull moment!)

Amsterdam, like many cities, doesn't have a whole lot of green areas.  But we'd planned to take the kids to the park to run out some of their energy and hopefully to rent some bikes.  We'd hauled their bike helmets all the way to Amsterdam in the hopes they could ride there.  Vodelpark is one of the bigger parks in the area and was very pretty overall.  Lots of different paths, water features and of course, several playgrounds for the kids to play on.  Unfortunately we never found the bike rental place much to Liam's disappointment :(  I think they still had a good time though!

The boys climbing a cool tree

Running in the grass!!!!

I love GRASS!!!

Cool playground area - reminds me a bit of the climber in the Childrens Museum Boston

I will climb anything I see!

Me too!

I think this is the highest I've ever seen Liam climb!

After the park we decided to hit Hard Rock - we know the kids like it and we might as well try to hit one in each country we go to... kind of like McDonalds and Burger King, right?  Thankfully Hard Rock was right across from the entrance to the park.  However we were surprised upon our arrival to see the bridge that would lead us to Hard Rock closed off with police tape and policemen guarding the tape to make sure no one passed. 

Yum - vanilla shake!

Giant chess game going on across from Hard Rock...the boys were fascinated and sat there for a good 15 minutes!

Initially I didn't ask what happened, after all I wouldn't want to be nosy ;).  However I did ask her when the tape would be opened because we really wanted to get to lunch.  She had no idea but suggested we go down to the next bridge and cross over - duh, makes sense!  So we went around the back of Hard Rock to get in and saw police tape on that side as well.  People were gathered by the tape and curiousity finally got the better of me.  I finally asked the waitress what was going on.  Her response... "they are looking for a body."  Ugh, really???  Of course, Josh had to go over and look.  He told me there were divers in the water but no body while we were there.  Turns out the waitress was right - a friend of ours googled it and this is the article she found. 

http://www.expatica.com/nl/news/community_focus/Body-recovered-in-Amsterdam-canal_56819.html

Never a dull moment when you are out with the Marcus family right?

But all ended well for us.  The waiter at Sara's the other night had suggested an ice cream place to Aidan and I - only he didn't know the name of the street it was on or the name of the restaurant but just pointed us in the general direction.  On an evening walk after our adventurous day, we stumbled upon it!  Or so we believe - after all, they had blue ice cream just like he had told us!  Aidan was super excited that after all our wandering around that we had found it.  And for me, I was excited because we strolled thru some beautiful parts of Amsterdam that seemed immune to tourism and the noise of the city.  The buildings were beautiful and the streets were clean and everything just seemed calm given the chaos of city life just one street away.  All in all a great end to a really fun family trip!  Can't wait for the next one!

Just love all the unique looking buildings!

Another canal - such a pretty view!

More cool buildings

House boat

I thought this sign in the wall was just very interesting...

A few bikes

This house in the center was built in the 1600s...might explain why it's leaning a bit too

Love the red shutters!

A crane or similar type of bird hanging out on a car - Aidan thought this was very cool

Self portrait

Cute little street

Finally - ice cream!!  Aidan had bubble gum and cotton candy (called Smurf) ice cream - yum!

Julie

Tiptoe thru the Tulips!!

Tulips are my favorite flower - always have been.  And any time I've pictured Holland over the course of my life, I've pictured those gorgeous tulip fields in springtime.  So no one was more excited about our impending trip to Amsterdam than I was.  Finally a chance for me to see the tulips and our timing was just perfect since it was peak tulip season!

Our travels took us to the world famous Keukenhof Gardens.  We hopped on two buses and were there within an hour ready to hit the ground running.  As we prepared to turn into the parking lot we were met with a vision unlike anything I'd ever seen - fields upon fields of tulips!  I only wish I'd gotten a picture from the bus because it was probably the most stunning view of the day, though that's not to say that I didn't get plenty of great pics, you'll see....with over 8 million flowers, get ready for lots of pictures!

Aidan and Liam excited to be seeing the tulips!

Liam doing some "karate" moves as he waits for his snack

  

Sharing a gofre before we set out

The first of many flower pictures you will see on this entry.  I loved the red tulips poking thru!

 

Aidan is still excited - though we've only just begun

Brotherly love...for now

He posed all on his own

Such a great picture of them, I only wish there had been more flowers in the background!

The first of many tulip field pictures

And another view

And yet another, this with some red and purple - love it!!

Trying to get a picture of the boys with the field in the background but people were pushing and shoving us out of the way - apparently it was a popular view!

More fields

Fields with trees in the front

Posing near the water preventing us from frolicking in the fields

Cool maze

View of the fields from the middle of the maze where there was a treehouse type area

We always love the zip line!

And Liam is now old enough to enjoy it too!

Aidan posing with the fields

Yup, more views of the fields

Are you sick of it yet?

We did not even bother going up to the top of the windmill - waaayyyy too crowded though I bet the view would have been spectacular!

Stay away from my Pringles!!

Chilling with daddy!

Make sure you read the descriptions!

The last one on the right is cut off but it is for the smugglers - to give misdirection the toes point in a different direction - love it!

Cool chairs made from pitchforks!

Aidan wanted to stay in this tree all day!

Bridge over the water that HAD to be climbed several times

More pretty flowers

And more!

Yup you guessed it, more flowers - Love this one and think I did a puzzle very close to this a few times... wonder if it was a picture from here??

Such pretty colors

Aidan seems to be taking advantage of Liam's stroller a lot lately

Actually maybe this was the puzzle...hmmmm

Same flower fields, different angle

Zoomed in a little

Absolutely in love with these colors!

Ok and these

Why can't my yard look this pretty?

Must eat every crumb

Playground - finally!

Fun with daddy!

Attempting to get Liam into a picture with me!

After visiting the tulips for a chunk of the day we headed back to the city where Aidan told us it was his turn to do something fun.  And that something fun was the paddle boats along the canal.  We were hoping for all 4 of us to go on a ride but Liam decided at the last moment that he just wasn't ready.  So he and I had a drink at a nearby cafe.  Then Aidan decided that I needed to go with him.  I'm not quite as good with steering a paddle boat as I am with steering a car or a bike, and will admit, I might have tapped a houseboat as I was paddling up the canal...shhhhhh... don't tell Josh!

Leaving the dock

Off they go!

We had a lovely dinner at a nearby cafe and met some great people that actually were from the States and Canada.  However, apparently the owners of the restaurant were not huge fans because they told us that the kitchen was too busy to serve us dessert...hmmm, I think there were only 10 tables in the whole place and you can't make us an ice cream sundae?  Sketchy... and not the greatest impression on us.  But dinner itself was yummy.

Liam pooped after dinner

Since Liam was so tired and we missed dessert, Aidan and I went on a mission for ice cream.  We ended up at Sara's again where we had those great pancake/crepes.  And I hate to say it but we ran into a family that would define "ugly" American.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm proud to be an American but there is no doubt in my mind why it is that at times people can't stand us.  And this family was the epitome of that stereotype.  They were loud, rude and yelling at the waiter.  I told Aidan to be super nice to the waiter since he was trying really hard and going as fast as he could.  He and I had a great mommy and son night out and it was the perfect end to a fantastic day!

Aidan and I on the way back to the houseboat - couldn't resist a picture with the canal all lit up!

Julie