Monday, April 25

Today was all about flexibility! Our original plan of biking from our hotel in Amsterdam to the tulip fields and Keukenhof was derailed by a cold, steady drizzle that wasn’t forecast until yesterday. So with needing to choose between biking in the drizzle to stick with the plan, or taking a train to Leiden and postponing a day, we made what proved to be the right choice by heading straight to Leiden.

We managed to figure out how to get our bikes on a train at a station near our hotel, then arrived in Leiden and biked to our new Hilton Garden Inn on the western edge of the city (but only a 10 minute bike ride. We were able to check in early, then headed out to explore Leiden a bit, get coffee and sandwiches, and follow a suggestion to go to the Naturalis museum – which ended up becoming a highlight of our trip.

The recently-expanded museum (with stunning buildings) included several exhibits about the stages of life and the diversity in nature. We all loved it. It turns the traditional organization of museums upside down by mixing animals in displays regardless of where they originate or their order-class-family. Mammals, marsupials, and birds from any continent all could be in the same exhibit. It was very cool and modern. To top it off, Noah’s interest in gemstones was satiated by a great exhibit.

After a rough trip back to the hotel, involving multiple missed buses in the rain, none of us had the energy to head out again. So I figured out how to order Dominos delivery, which (of course) came by bike! We ate in the hotel lobby, then discovered a ping-pong table that might be Noah’s lasting memory of this trip! He and I played for quite a white, before a mom and her daughter, only 7 months older than Noah, showed up – and the rest of our visit to Leiden became all about ping pong and Noah’s new friend Juliette. They were inseparable for a couple hours of ping pong and laughter (which continued the next day), and we all went to bed feeling grateful at the unexpected joys that came from our rain day.