A WEEKEND IN AMSTERDAM IJBURG

This weekend I drove Toby my grandson, meanwhile 6 1/2 home to Amsterdam to keep him company while the parents were working. It was the first time we were alone together the whole day long. And it worked perfectly, we understood each other very well and had a lot of fun and laughter ! It started already in the car.



When I arrived I discovered a Lego "shop" in a corner of the living room ! I have no idea how many were there,  but it seemed to me as if there were thousands ! Toby loves Legos and that everyone can see. He is also very good in building the most complicated things.

But now after our Dinosaur exhibition in Brussels he is more into dinos now.



With Mama's  plants he created a jungle for me and I added a few "pyramids" it looked very nice. I also had brought two dino eggs out of which when you put them into water after half a day came little baby dinos ! That was really very cute even for me !

Toby is member of a library and I had to go with him to pick up new books. He reads already very well and I was very surprised how fluent he was.

As I didn't know at all where we were, he played my little GPS and walked me from home to the library explaining everything he knew about the canals and that he wanted a boat to go along the whole town. I certainly would come with him !

Where my son lives is not the classical Amsterdam with the old little streets and historical buildings but it is in an area where Amsterdam had stolen ground from the sea ! It is called Ijburg a brand new part  of Amsterdam, the first people moved in the new houses in 2003 and it is still expending.  IJburg consists of 6 artificial islands built in the IJ Lake.




The buildings are very modern the houses narrow and high with several floors. The kitchen and entrance sit on the sidewalk. Most of the people have no curtains so that I could see inside. As I am not curious it was very interesting !



Then we arrived at the library and I was really startled I had never seen such a modern library. There were hundreds of books for all ages, DVD's, tablets and computers ! At the entrance Toby scanned his card (I felt like a child) put a number in and told me that he can now take 8 books. The one he gave back he scanned and laid it aside. As it was raining outside we stayed a bit there and he was busy with tablets and computers. Then he choose his 8 books, went to the exit, put his number in and scanned all eight books. There was only one lady there in this huge library in case that there was a problem. Then we went off to the habour.




The way led us along the lake and even with this bad weather a nice walk to do ! Toby's school is here and from the windows they can look over the lake.

Then we arrived at the habour.



I love the Dutch pancakes and Toby took me to the pancake restaurant at the habour. A pity that we couldn't sit outside it was too cold. We both had our pancake with cheese and ham and it was excellent. It was very big, but he ate it all just left a little piece which I ate !

For supper we returned there, this time all together in a very nice restaurant, where I had fish and mussels. It was very good. 



Of course the dinos had to come too, after all they also were hungry.

The next day we drove all together to Sprookjeswonderland a theme park in Enkhuizen



Toby had a lot of fun and we too, and after an ice cream we went into the little town.



Enkhuizen was very busy with tourists and we enjoyed to sit outside and had a drink while watching
the people.

The days went by so quickly and Sunday afternoon I returned home. I had to drive very slowly buckets of water fell down and you could hardly see. At one moment all cars stopped. But finally I arrived home without problem.

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