Meet the Muir Family: Amsterdam Bound

Our time has come to travel to Amsterdam for the KPMG's Global New Partner Meeting.

Here we are below getting ready for our flight. We enjoyed the free food in the business class lounge and even ran into (literally) Diane Keaton.

This happy baby is ready for our flight.

She already fell asleep and stayed that way the entire flight! Our seats were declining ones that turned into beds and there was even a massage feature.

Our first walk around Amsterdam while waiting for our suite to get cleaned. First thing we noticed were the bikes. They were EVERYWHERE!

There are approximately 800,000 people living in Amsterdam and over 20 million bikes!

Jamie in front of the Amstel River. The only natural waterway in Amsterdam.

We were just amazed at how expensive gas was. Here are the prices in Euros and Liters. It's the equivalent of $8 to $9 per gallon back here in the states.

The hotel we stayed at Hotel Okura Amsterdam.

The hotel was completely filled with KPMG Partners. We had multiple choices for hotels to stay at and chose the one where all the meetings were being held at.

Some meat (for me) and cheese for lunch at this old school butcher shop and merchantile store.

The crosswalks were ridiculous and very dangerous! They had lanes for cars, bikes and railway/trolleys and then they had lights for all three and multiple signals and signs. It was overwhelming and much more dangerous than crossing the street in NYC. We felt as though we were putting our life in our hands each time we crossed!

Dinner the first light was at a famous Indian restaurant in the Red Light District. My oh my, how I have not seen shops like the ones in this district before. Very risque. We didn't quite feel comfortable walking here with a newborn but dinner with old and new friends was worth it!

All of us out to dinner from all over the US. There were about 20 of us total!

Next up was a tour of Amsterdam by boat of course. Before you scroll through the insane amount of pictures below (it's not even all of them) of different sites and buildings (I'm a sucker for architecture) here's some facts we learned while on our tour.

700 years ago Amsterdam started as a fishing village
40% of Amsterdam is below sea level
The highest point is 20 feet high
Dams were built to protect the village from floods but the dams stopped boats from entering and thus turned into a trade center
In the 15th century the first city walls were built
1200 bridges in total due to as many canals in Amsterdam
Everything is parallel due to the different walls built as the city expanded
The City was built on swampy land so canals were dug and the water flowed and filled up the canals.
The sand is 12 meters deep
All houses in the city are standing on wooden posts
Approximately 5 million posts in total
houses on the canal start at 1 million euros
The canals are over flowing and are clogged with house boats. There will never be any more house boats in the canals as there are now. The city is not giving out any more licenses to have houseboats.
Older house boats need to go to the yard to get cleaned every 5 years
In the past permission to get a house boat starts at 150,000 Euros
Amsterdam has on average the tallest men and women in all of Europe
At night you can tell where the native live because they don't have any window coverings on their windows and the light shines out into the darkness. The native want you to see inside their homes to show off their wealth. Also the bigger the windows the more wealthy you are considered to be.
One more thing - In almost every picture you'll notice that it was overcast and rainy. In the 5 days we spent in this city, we saw the sun only once and for about 15 minutes. It was very dreary and we were in desperate need of some sun!!

I was amazed that there was only a little rain to keep the cars from going into the canal.

Hooks on the tops of homes were so the traders could hoist their belonging up to the top room each night and lower every morning for sale.

An example of a house boat.

The Ann Frank House - with the blacked out windows.

Our group of friends on the tour with us, Jim and Kelly, Jason and Heather, Jack and Jen, Heather and Larry and Scott and I.

a Parking garage filled with bikes. A first for me!

Heather taking a picture of me taking a picture of her.

Over 2 million bikes alone under this awing. I'm not sure how one every finds there bike here.

Our lovely and informative tour guide telling us lots of interesting tidbits abot the city.

A famous museum build to represent a blue whale.

Original fishing boats.

The Scheepvaart Museum - Where we spent a lovely evening enjoying the Welcome Reception that was planned for all partners and their spouses.

The biggest Chinese restaurant I've ever seen and on the water too!

National Opera and Ballet Building

This building and most others like it have 2 ground floors. A lower ground floor and upper ground floor. The servants lived and cooked in the lower level and the upper level was for formal entertaining.

Reicht Museum- We'll see inside this beauty in picture below.

Finally after a 3 hour boat ride we made it back to our hotel right on the water!

Beautiful sunset view from our hotel room.

Drinks and apps. before we head onto our next event.

The Amsterdam Marathon. This was so fun and such a treat to run into.

The race course took runners directly under the Reicht Museum.

Inside the museum.

Playing tourist with Emily.

The men taking pictures of us. We'll trying to figure out the cameras.

The boys posing as though they were in a magazine shoot.

Scott enjoyed this delicious apple pie which was nothing like the overly sweet apple pie served here. It was more savory he said!

Leaving for another event by boat!

Another shot of the Anne Frank House. There was an option given to us to see this museum but there was so much going on and so few hours in the day that we had to carefully pick and choose what we did. Also having a 2 month old and working around her schedule made things even more difficult.

Pictures from our evening at the Welcome Reception at the Scheepvaart Museum, which is the National Maritime Museum of the Netherlands.There were multiple food stations set up where we were able to sample various cuisines that Amsterdam and the Neatherlands are know for. Fresh food from the sea, Indian Food, Delicious sweet treats (my favorite were the freshly made waffles sandwiched together with a sweet caramel filling).

70 % of the worlds flower output comes from the Netherlands so it's a very traditional gift to give flowers, which we all received upon exiting for the evening.

The inside and ceilings were just amazing and all original.

Hand shucked oysters. He's a sucker for them.

A band playing traditional music for the evening.

Our flowers.

We came home to a sleeping baby. All is good!

The following day while Scott was in meetings, Jamie, Emily and I played tourist by walking to the Reicht Museum and drooling over a million items on display. It was a bit overwhelming and I wish we could have spent more hours, actually we could have spent a few days here soaking everything in. This museum houses famous works by Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Vermeer.

The Famous Waterloo painting by Rembrandt. There was so much to look at in the painting and so beautiful. No picture could do it justice. You have to go there yourself to see it!

A beautiful painting of a traditional windmill found all over the Netherlands countryside.

A self portrait by Van Gogh.

The Night Watch - Rembrandt

Fishing for Souls

We had a good mix of educating ourselves on famous paintings and works of art with some downtime spent giggling and cuddling with Emily.

The smiles begin.

My girl and I.

We were the only ones at our table for our Explore Amsterdam Race so we joined another group to begin.

We spent 5 hours walking about 9 miles all over the city of Amsterdam. No one can say that we didn't see all there was to see including Dam Square and the Royal Palace. Our feet tell a different story. After answering 10 plus questions that would be pinged to us on our tablet once we reached our next destination we only had 90 minutes to prepare for the Celebration Gala that evening. It was one heck of a day but filled with memories!

Answering a question with our group on the streets of Amsterdam. If you answered correctly and in the shortest amount of time the more points you got. The team with the most points one. I think there were over 200 teams.

On our tour with the Reicht Museum behind us and the Van Gogh museum in front of us.

A typical view in Amsterdam.

The First English Reformed Church.

The English Reform Church is one of the oldest buildings in the city and situated in the centre of the city.You can read more about it (HERE).

Inside the church.

Courtyard in the city centre. Reminded us of Boston.

Yet another clue!

Another clue in front of the Ferris Wheel.

We spot Jen and Jack on their tour! We were in a similar boat!

We spent an over an hour freezing while trying to finish up our tour by navigating the canals in Amsterdam by ourselves while trying to make our way back to our hotel to get ready for our evening.

But there were lots of sites to see and enjoy along the way!

An amazing evening at the Concertgebouw- one of the most renowned concert halls in the world where we enjoyed a short musical performance. The sound was quite astounding and crisp and clear from anywhere in the room.

Photos from the Celebration Gala follow.

Jen and I.

Live performances, dinner and dancing. So much fun!

Lots of flowers and lots of drinks.

So interesting story. One of the main performers and entertainers of the evening approached me as I was looking for the rest of the KPMG'ers I knew and literally held my hand up high and walked me around the entire building calling out for them. It was quite embarrassing for someone like myself who doesn't like a lot of attention but it's quite a memorable story for me! We got to talking and he has an infant at home too.! I even got a personal serenade from him.

Since I was so busy attending all these events I spent a morning relaxing with Emily while Jamie took my spot and toured the Dutch Countryside via bike while tasting exotic cheeses and going clogging with the other KPMG wives. A win for both of us!

Lots more snuggles with this beauty! I'm so glad and thankful that my sister was able to join us for this trip and help watch and care for Emily so I could enjoy the festivities.

Good Morning!

Grocery shopping for food! Turn styles in a grocery store?! It was interesting to see the packaing for various products we were familiar with back home.