TBT! The Netherlands...a make-believe place where Peter Pan and Tinkerbell come from. (Jaffe-tastic Holidays part 2)

Happy Throwback Thursday, friends! The last few months have been so crazy with travel and getting settled back in the US. As a result, we've fallen way behind on our blog...but that's what pop culture acronyms as an excuse for procrastination are for! Wahoo!

So now we bring you the continuation of Jaffe-tastic Holidays...in Amsterdam!

After bumming around London with Brett & Jen for a few days, they galavanted off to Paris for some time away from us crazy Helminskis, and we met up with them a few days later in Amsterdam. Upon arrival, we came across this:

Because of course this bird sits on the car. Apparently it does this every day. We were off to a perfect start! Of course, we were warned "don't touch it" by some local lady several times. Apparently, American tourists really like to touch giant birds. Go fig.

Amsterdam is unique place. Outside of tulips and the color orange, it's probably most well known for its canals,

bikes,

The entire city is covered with bike parking like this

 and "leisure" activities.

We partook in one of those things.

Canals! We went on the canals. Sheesh. As all good tourists do, we took a lovely canal cruise.

Gloria is very excited to go on a boat!

There's something enchanting about the canals in Amsterdam. Yes it's a bit cheesy, but we really enjoyed cruising along and just enjoying the ride and the scenery. And scenery there is. Amsterdam is a very beautiful city, and it has some pretty unique features. Obviously the canals are the big one, but the buildings also have their own "feature".

Notice how the buildings in the middle look distinctly uneven? That's because they are. We were told that many of these buildings were built on wooden stilts to protect them from the water. One problem: the stilts rot and the buildings start to lean over. All over the city you see buildings that are leaning this way and that. It's really pretty neat looking.

We also noticed a lot of this style of building (dark brick and off-white accents):

They're all over the place.

 Another one! They look really cool!

One really distinct feature of the houses along the canal is that they not only appear to lean out towards you, they actually do! And notice what those arms that stick out from the top? Those are hooks to bring furniture and other large items up to the top floors. Because homes were so tall and skinny, so were the staircases, making it impossible to move anything bigger than your body up to the higher floors of your house. So as people needed to hoist furniture up, they built their houses to lean out to avoid furniture/home collision. Safety first!

In addition to the funky building lean and the cool colors, Amsterdam is simply a beautiful place.

But not only that; it also very much has a funky side. For example, it really seems to embrace a wide variety of cultures, and prominently features a Chinese style building in the harbor.

Or this one (which is my personal favorite). An old, classic looking church, with a head shop built right next to it. Only in Amsterdam.

Confess your sins, and commit a few more right outside!

Also, we can't leave out the most infamous part of Amsterdam: the sex industry.

Nothing goes better with the pasta bar than some good ol' fashioned sex history

While we did walk through the red light district, cameras are "frowned upon" there, so I don't have any pictures. The above picture is just a random place with a sex museum. Good times!

The red light district is pretty crazy. First, there are tons of coffee shops nearby, which for the uninitiated does not mean coffee. For that you go to a cafe. Coffee shops sell marijuana. Don't ask me to explain that one.

I'll have a non-fat, soy, cannabis latte please.

Anyway, all around the red light district are tons of coffee shops, and then you turn a corner and bam: women in windows. It's really kind of odd. These ladies stand/dance/sit in their windows waiting for customers. It was one of those situations where you feel like you should look or stare, but the women are in windows so you can see them. Definitely a strange experience. Moving on...

We also took a trip to the Anne Frank house. It's the actual house where her family hid during the World War II. No photos were allowed inside the house, so I don't have any. All I will say is this: do not miss this if you're in Amsterdam. It was one of those historic places where you can feel the intensity of the experience. It's a solemn place for reflection and respect and while not "fun" it's definitely worth seeing to understand the history and put some real meaning behind it.

Now, back to the fun stuff!

Obligatory I amsterdam photo.

For those who haven't seen it, there are huge sculpture of the words "I amsterdam" all over the city. So we made a point to pose in front of one. Just for funsies.

One funny thing we noticed: there are a shocking number of grown men climbing around on the letters. Seriously. More grown men than children. Awesome.

Jen and Brett waiting for the grown-ups to finish playing

Posing with "S" in remembrance of Jen's Mom Sue

So, with all it's quirkiness Amsterdam really was a lot of fun. No, fun isn't the right word. Pleasant. Amsterdam is really pleasant. Throughout our time there, we kept commenting that it really was an enjoyable place. Nothing demonstrates that quite as well as our day we spent strolling through the city, eventually ending up at Vondelpark.

It's this beautiful park in the middle of the city, with nice walking paths,

 and lots of waterways,

Jen even found a little friend in the park.

Jen & Brett have two french bulldogs at home so this was food for Jen's soul.

Lovely ladies on the bridge

 We even got to take a break for a mini picnic on one of the bridges.

 And we capped it all off with a bonus Kovick sighting!

Jeff (classmate from Fuqua) and his wife Tricia live in Amsterdam and met us out for a quick drink.

Amsterdam was great. We really enjoyed our weekend here and we highly recommend it. Perhaps nothing can capture the spirit of the city better than this last picture.

We were just walking down the street, and this kid suddenly comes up to us and says: "Wait! I will breakdance for a small fee!" Of course we immediately agreed and he busted out some moves right there in front of us. Best money we spent the whole trip.

So with that, I'll close by saying that we loved our time in Amsterdam. We had some long overdue bonding time with Jen and Brett (which was awesome), and Amsterdam exceeded our expectations. If you've never been, do yourself a favor and go visit. You'll enjoy it. 

Three Weeks in the Homeland

Hello

FlyingHelminskis here

And we would like to share with you this blog about our life

This post

Has thoughts of being home

Its a blog about America

Over the past few weeks

We hope

It has some awesome parts

You simply won't believe
How much we've got to catch up on

But first

We'll cover these three weeks

Before we get back to our fun
Over in London town

You're all

Probably getting bored
So I'll get to the blog

before I butcher this song more

If you haven't figured it out by now, we love Book of Mormon. If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and go. It's hysterically funny and completely worth it. Now, on to the blog!

A lot has happened over the past couple months. Seriously. A whole lot. We'll get to it all in the next few posts, but first we're going to cover our move back to the USA. Or more specifically, our impressions of being back in good ol' America. 

In your face, dictators!

Three weeks ago, Gloria and I moved back to the USA. For the last few weeks before the move, we'd been thinking a lot about what it would be like we got back. In particular we were wondering if it would seem weird to be back home. We had heard from many friends who had lived overseas and they all pretty much said there would be things we'd find strange or things we just didn't get (pop culture references, etc). So, how has it been for us? In all honesty, it's been pretty normal. Maybe it's because we lived in Philly before and we kind of fell right back into life here (though we haven't been to Tony Luke's or had a proper cheesesteak yet, so we're not REALLY back into Philly life just yet).

I have noticed that I don't get some pop culture references, but that isn't odd, because I'm old and out of touch with pop culture...

See, even my jokes about not getting pop culture are 17 years old. Sheesh...

All joking aside, there actually have been a few things we've noticed. For example, portion sizes. Mother of God do we have huge portions here!

Seriously. We went out to a sushi joint one night and it was a good example of the difference between portions here vs the rest of the world. In London, when you order a piece of sushi, you get a piece. One piece. It would look something like this:

Here in America? We go big. One order of sushi=two pieces (which is awesome!), and our sushi looks something like this:

It's epic. And we love it.

Another thing (we really love this) is the American standard of service. In particular I'm talking about the speed of service. It's so amazing. In most places here, when you finish a drink the server comes over and asks if you'd like another. Also when you order something, there's actually some sense of urgency to get it to you quickly. We got used to the European and Southeast Asian style of "you'll get your food when we're ready to bring it to you" service, so it's been a really nice surprise to see just how much quicker things really are here. It's definitely one of those things we didn't recognize before we left, but we really appreciate much more now.

Speaking of service, next on our list is tipping. In most of the rest of the world, tipping isn't really required, and often times a service charge is included in your bill. It's been a bit of an adjustment getting back into calculating percentages on our bill.

Ah yes, the old "Math" tip. You can't put a price on that.

Oh, also sales tax. Or in the case of the US, the lack of tax included in the price of things. Why do we do this? Why!!??? I must say that the European and Asian style of pricing things what they actually cost is really nice. For those not familiar with it, in those places the prices as shown (in stores, at restaurants...everywhere) include tax. So if it says it costs $20, it's $20. Not $20 plus tax. It makes things so much simpler and I wish the US did this. I know there are various economic implications involved, but it's so much nicer seeing the price and knowing that's what it costs. Damn these first world struggles!

Lastly, we come to my favorite: slightly "off" pronunciations. Or more specifically, hearing Gloria try to say "respiratory" like an American. You see, while we were in London, one of the areas in which Gloria worked was respiratory. But, those silly Brits emphasize different syllables and pronounce it like res-SPEAR-atry. Whereas, us American say it the right way, RESP-ir-a-tory. A few times since we've been back I've heard Gloria on work calls and seen her really thinking about how to pronounce the words depending on her audience. It cracks me up. Yes, it's silly and a bit childish, but then again so am I. Anyway, that's probably the mildest of all the UK vs US mixups, and it doesn't hold a candle to everyone's favorite: Football

Much like the question of the chicken & the egg, this is a debate that will never be resolved. 

That's about it for our coming home oddities. Pretty weak really. In the coming weeks we'll be catching up on all our adventures from our last few weeks in the UK. There's a ton to cover, so the posts will keep coming. Until then, I'd just like to say that I am proudly a fan of both handegg and soccer. Boom!