Happy (Hot!!!) Birthday, James!
June 25, 2019
It’s hot as balls in Amsterdam right now. There’s a big heat wave sweeping Europe and it’s not fun. We’re used to hot weather coming from Northern Virginia, but there we enjoyed the modern comforts of Air Conditioning. There’s almost no AC here. Houses, schools, businesses, trams, trains, and buses simply don’t have it. Furthermore, buildings are designed to keep heat in, not out, so when it gets this hot there’s just no way to deal with it. Last summer we moved here on the last day of an unprecedented heat wave and it was awful, but we only had one day of suffering. We learned then that all of Europe sells out of fans, so we planned ahead and made sure we bought some good, industrial sized fans which are going full blast right now. The heat is supposed to break tomorrow, so we’ve just got one more day of survival.
Despite the heat, we celebrated James’s birthday yesterday. We rode our bikes to dinner at Bar Fis in the Pijp. We got the chef’s tasting menu and it was awesome. So much good seafood, prepared in creative and delicious ways. After dinner we biked home and had cake and ice cream and James opened his presents. We gave him the Driving Experience at the Formula One racetrack. He’s psyched.
In other summer fun news we’ve been loving our time on The Shrimp Whisker. We got take out pizza from the restaurant on the bridge one night. I didn’t have cash so James and JW had to hold the boat in place while I climbed through the restaurant window to use the pin card machine. The pizza was kinda crappy but it’s a fun experience. There’s all kinds of shenanigans on the water. It’s a perpetual party. We were stuck in the traffic jam waiting for the locks to open to head out to the lake and we were surrounded by boats full of people doing nitrous balloons. Quite a scene.
We’re so excited for Brooke, Kevin, Luna, and Kai to arrive later this week! We have soooo much cool stuff planned. Fortunately, the heat wave is supposed to break the day before they arrive, so we’ll have some nice weather, but it’s going to get hot again later on in their visit so we’ll have to see how it goes…