Well, what can we say, Amsterdam is one of our favourite European destinations. Obviously things were different travelling with the little man in tow but it still rates highly. We decided to rent an apartment on the outskirts of the centre - close to parks, good cafes and restaurants. We spent our days walking the streets and canals, watching the autumn leaves fall and stopping regularly for food, coffee and beer. We ventured into the centre once, which was also the only day where Jed developed a little cold. He had the runny nose, red eye look going on, blending in quite well with all those seedy coffee shop punters.
Vondelpark was a real treat. Massive, beautiful, parklands that takes hours to walk around with a great cafe (although we got attacked by pigeons - much to Jed's amusement). We definitely relaxed but it wasn't too long until we were back on a plane, heading to London for the weekend before the flight home.
It was definitely not as smooth sailing as the flight over. I have a little tradition at Heathrow. Every time I'm there, I head to the seafood bar for a glass of bubbles, some of the freshest salmon around and sit back and recap on my fabulous holiday. And this is exactly what we did. Jed was asleep in the pram, we drank, ate, reminisced and possibly got ourselves a little too relaxed before the flight home. We had to wake Jed up to board, only to be delayed for 2 hours. Just like his parents, the little man does not like a delay. And this was only the beginning. We were pretty much delayed every leg of the trip, totalling around an extra 6 hours of travel. Jed managed to sleep for about 8hrs of the total 28hrs travel time - he was exhausted the poor little tacker. To add to his crankness, I had not packed much food for him for the flight. On the way over, I had brought all his meals on board, but he was supplied with a delicious array of fine canned and jarred baby foods which came with the price of the ticket. So I thought I might have overkilled on the pre-packed food and decided only to bring a few jars - big mistake. After waking from his night-time sleep, when we were all enjoying a not so delicious eggs and mini sausage breakfast, Jed was supplied with a can of chicken hot pot and a can of chocolate egg custard - both of these things he had never tasted before and was certainly not interested in doing so at breakfast time on a plane.
Upon arriving in Melbourne and waiting 1 1/2hrs for our luggage, we headed home - delirious and kinda wide awake. It took us all around a week to get back our southern hemisphere body clock but it was certainly worth it. What a wonderful, fun filled, sometimes challenging holiday we just had! Thank you to all who so generously looked after us. We hope we can do the same to you if you're ever in Melbourne.
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