One of the greatest parts about living in Europe is just how easy it is to travel from country to country. In less time than it would take to drive or take a train from Washington DC to NYC, we were able to zip up to Amsterdam for our first weekend away sans-baby.
But more than that, this would also be our last weekend away before a bit of an expansion.
1) There’s Peanut 2 on the way!
First, it’s probably time for a bit of an announcement of sorts. Though, perhaps not for all of you. For those that joined The Girl and me on the Facebook Live session we did back in late July, you might have caught a short note to an expansion of the DCR Durability Testing Team. This team is currently lead by The Peanut, who likes to chew on every watch or action camera I get. As long as she doesn’t break it – it’s durable!
But coming this fall…we’ll be expanding that team to P2: Peanut 2.
Yes, that’s actually what we call her for now.
Yes, her.
I’m going to be severely outnumbered now, especially if you count Lucy the dog!
Others of you that follow The Girl on Instagram (her personal account, not the bakery’s account) may have noticed the watermelon accessory she has.
I’m super excited for another little one, and she’ll be here before you know it – later this fall. Once I return from my trip to the US & Canada for Interbike and the ANT+ Symposium on October 1st, there will be no more intercontinental travel for me till P2 is here. Fun times and more sleepless nights ahead!
2) Taking the train up to Amsterdam
With another impending baby about to arrive, we decided to take our very first weekend away from The Peanut. While we’ve both individually had weekends, away, we hadn’t actually done a single getaway night or weekend together since she was born last summer. So it was time to change that.
After the handoff of The Peanut to the babysitter for the weekend, we boarded the high speed Thalys train up to Amsterdam. When I said high speed, I mean – high speed and most importantly blissfully quiet. 🙂
It’s about a three hour ride up there, stopping along the way in Brussels and Rotterdam. Mostly we just relaxed and enjoyed the dial-up style high speed internet now offered on the train (we also roamed on our phone, but that’s wonky at times on the high speed trains as you cross countries, poor coverage areas, etc…).
We got in on Friday evening, just in time to head to our tiny little studio AirBNB rooftop spot and get a glimpse of sunset before a rainstorm drenched everything and everyone.
A good start to the weekend!
3) So much good food!!!
We didn’t have a set agenda for Amsterdam. Both of us have been numerous times before and done many of the core tourist items. We just really like the city, especially in the spring and fall when it’s a little less hectic.
In fact, we made it a general goal to largely avoid the central core of Amsterdam (e.g. roughly from the flower market to Central Station). Instead, we wanted to enjoy the neighborhoods, small restaurants and general ambiance of the areas further out – like De Pijp and to the south/southwest of that. There’s so many awesome little restaurants here, many of them new.
For example – one of our favs – Bakers and Roasters. For the record, that’s pulled pork in that dish. Brilliant breakfast food!
And then there’s Harewood Bakery. Serious danger right there!
Of course, not everything works out as well as we’d hoped. We tried a little trendy Italian place that just failed on multiple levels (namely service and over-thought food).
But there were more often than not great examples of awesome food. Another being breakfast the next day at Dignita:
Let’s be honest, these pancakes could have easily passed for dessert.
Mmmm… I loves me some breakfast!
4) A Vondelpark Morning Run
After all this food, I need to get in some running, in addition to all the walking we were doing. So I headed out Sunday morning for about a 10KM long run. This would be more time-focused than distance, with me trying to get back by a certain time.
I wandered through Vondelpark first one direction, heading out to a canal before looping back towards the Rijksmuseum and the famed I Amsterdam sign.
Then I topped off a loop in the park before doing zipping back over to the AirBNB spot.
The weather was perfect on this morning, just the right temperature for running with broken sun/clouds. So perfect. Tons of groups out in the park as well doing various workouts.
And plenty of runners and casual cyclists out and about on the park loop. Of course, as I found out that morning, some 40,000 runners were out running the Dam to Dam run, a 10-miler. But alas we only planned our trip a few days prior, and only learned of the race that morning. Looks like an awesome race though!
5) A lot of walking, and back home we go
In our continued efforts to make headway against those darn donut shops, we walked a crapton. I ended Sunday with more than 30,000 steps that day, plus nearly another ~27,000 steps the day before on Saturday. Boom!
The weather was mostly nice the rest of Sunday, but occasionally it blitzed us with rain. Still, we enjoyed just wandering around aimlessly, stopping in on little spots as we found them.
For example, this running store even has a short track in it for gait and pressure point analysis:
Later that evening we’d jump back on the swift Thalys train to Paris!
Our little peanut was in bed already. And unfortunately, I had a bunch of packing to do well past midnight to get ready for a crazy and packed two week US trip that started at 6AM the following morning. Interbike, ANT+ Symposium, and some other stops along the way. It’s gonna be a busy product release cycle, that’s for sure! My suitcase and bags are packed with gizmos.
With that – thanks for reading!
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Congrats DC family…
Congratulations to both!
congrats!
Congrats! I’ve got two girls, makes it easier to escape on long bike rides!
Congrats!
I too have 2 girls and a girl dog, and my two are ~2 years apart (currently 1 and 3). Daughters are the best!
Uhhh.. Cervelo would like to have a word with you…
Congratulations Ray! You must all be delighted 🙂
Congratulations
Congratulations to you and The Girl!
If N+1 is the ideal number of bikes then what is the ideal number of children? Bearing in mind that, theoretically, we love our children more than our bikes. THEORETICALLY.
Incidentally, having a child nominally called ‘peanut’ is likely to get her banned from every school in the UK. Certainly at meal times. You’ll have to stay in France. Thought you’d like to know.
Ps. Of course…congratulations.
Congratulations!
Congratulations, on enlarging your device testing base. The Peanut will enjoy having an assistant, even if she doesn’t know it yet. Although, now she may get some competition in the cuteness race.
Congratulations!
Wouuuuuuhouuu congrat’s for peanut #2 !!
Congratulations!
Congratulations to both of you!
Caio Ray,
Congratulations to all the family!
Aww congrats, we have another little girl peanut on the way in our family across the pond in the UK here too!
“another impeding baby”
Although it might impede, it is impending.
OK; I just stopped reading after the first stretch.
Many congrats, all the best to you and your better half.
Congratulations to all of you!
We expanded from one girl to two earlier this year, it’s been a challenge but we’ve loved every second.
Only drawback is the second has started crawling and seems to be devouring our entire weekly shop at 6 months old.
Congratulations with P2!
Congrats Ray and The Girl. I guess Peanut (the original) will not be a Peanut for much longer… probably something bigger. Will you change her alias to maybe something like the Bunny or similar, size-wise? Pls do keep in mind that just “P1” is already taken by the pedal firm! Maybe you can pre-empt them with “P2” for the incoming addition!
félicitations pour cacahuète numéro 2!
Seems like you might need to move soon(ish) Good Luck with everything 🙂
Congratulations both. We had our first at a similar time to you and also have no. 2 en route! 🙂
Congratulations !!!!
Congrats on P2!!! Or P2.0 🙂
Congrats guys!
congratulations on Peanut 2!
Congratulations on the expansion!
Also looking forward to knowing what’s in those bags.
Cheers!
you have to read to the peanut 2 so he or her can carry on the reviews, have fun. I have three all grown up.
Congratulations!!
Way to rock the cup holder! Congrats, and best wishes.
Congratulations!
Your kids should know that through this website you make the world a better place.
Congrats on P2!
Ray, & The Girl B.
Congratulations on P2.
P2 going to be handful and sleepless nights.
But bless you.
Ray will need to cut down on flights, not to leave -the girls- behind too much.
Congratulations to the whole family.
Glad you had a good time in my former Hometown.
A’dam is awesome to meander around. check out Jordaan next time.
Best of luck,
Cheers,
Ken (from Hong Kong)
Ray, congratulations to this alien inside… Why “nut” calling her walnut or hazelnut, P2 sounds humiliating… Cool beans.
Dear Garmin,
Since Ray has banned intercontinental travels, it is time to move the yearly Connect IQ/API conference to EU. In that case I might be joining as well…
Congrats!
3 vs 1 that’s my situation too 😀 Congratulations!
Congrats!
AHHHHHHHHH!!!!
I’m more of the silent reader of your blog but this time I do need to post!
Congrats on the little one, all the best for you lot, you deserve it 🙂
Can’t wait to see some videos of you running with him on your back. (New niche market idea?)
Congratulations first of all.
I too have two girls and they play together so well now.
I was actually just thinking how hard it must be for you not to have family close so you can spend time together (as a couple).
I hope your lady is keeping well, each pregnancy is different and has its own challenges. All the best
Congratulations. Amazing news.
Congratulations!
Troll-ol-olo…
A blonde city girl named Sandra marries a Colorado rancher.
One morning, on his way out to check on the cows, the rancher says to Sandra,
‘The insemination man is coming over to impregnate one of our cows today, so I drove a nail into the 2 by 4 just above where the cow’s stall is in the barn. Please show him where the cow is when he gets here, OK?’
The rancher leaves for the fields. After a while, Dr.Ogumen arrives and knocks on the front door.
Sandra takes him down to the barn. They walk along the row of cows and when Sandra sees the nail, she tells him, ‘This is the one right here.’
The man, assuming he is dealing with an air head blonde, asks, ‘Tell me lady, ’cause I’m dying to know; how would YOU know that this is the right cow to be bred?’
‘That’s simple she said, by the nail that’s over its stall,’ she explains very confidently.
Laughing rudely at her, Dr.Ogumen says, ‘And what, pray tell, is the nail for?’
Sandra turns to walk away and says sweetly over her shoulder,
‘I guess it’s to hang your pants on.’ !!!
Ray and The Girl, congratulations on baby #2!
Best wishes to you and the Girl, meeting you in person I can testify the three of you are really awesome.
love love lover Amsterdam!
Huge congrats to you both! I hope things go as well with P2 as they have with P1! 😀
We’re due our first P1 here (due date is in 2 days and no sign… yet). We’ve done the gender trick here too but in reverse, baby boy arriving & boy dog (who’s 5 going on 50).
I can see me taking up some running (rather than riding) to be more inclusive of our P1 at these early stages, at least until I can convince the revenue protection officer that I need a full sus to pull the ‘bean wagon’ I intending on purchasing and not my road bike…! Will be revisiting your’s and the Girl’s gadgets&new arrival posts for some inspiration! 🙂
Congrats, hopefully you don’t get any trouble on the naming with Powertap.
We are at P3, definitely woth it 🙂
Congrats on the next addition!
Awright !
Congrats guys !
Plenty more happiness !
Ok, late to the party, but: Congratulations with Peanut 2! I’ll enjoy the DC-site as much as I can until the baby comes – you can probably forget about typing anything for the next couple of years 🙂 Maybe there’s still enough time to start teaching us an adapted form of shorthand? E.g. a new review would be much faster to write like this:
Garmin FR(newest)
Hi, me here. Reviewing above. Disclaimer one [which will be how you return your stuff etc].
Unwrapping: P2 did it. Pretty!
Specs: the usual + improved everything. Also: music.
HR Accuracy: follows [reference model], fucks up on the hilly intervals like everything else.
durability: X hours of P1 chewing, droolproof IPX8
GPS accuracy: great except that bit in Paris near the bridge. And trees.
Comparison table: skipped that. Lot’s of X’s. DIY.
All done!
I mean, maybe you should insert a joke here and there and get P2 to take a pic once she can hold a device. And I’m sure some readers will abandon the site, but then you’ll know who your real reader friends are, right?
Anyway, congrats again! Great to read you enjoyed Amsterdam. In case you’re visiting Berlin this weekend: marathon warning! 😉
Wow congratulations, I missed this news from last week.
Hey Ray,
Congrats on expected number 2!
And most of all GOOD LUCK!!
I also have a 15 month old girl (who by the way also gets called Peanut!)
but I also have an 8 week Girl! So have a bit of a head start on you! (No nickname has stuck yet…)
What I can say is #2 is easier Mentally, but more difficult Physically.
My training these days is 30-45mins on Zwift 3 x per week, at 8pm at night. (Once kids are asleep and bottles are washed!)
It is an ADVENTURE!