Fun & Famous

MAYS X-MAS

With the risk that you might find me a degenerate mother, I share my Christmas adventure. I really spent two days with my nose in the hair of my girls. And when I say: the whole day, then it is indeed the whole day, because there was a yawning gap between my desired hours of sleep and what I actually managed to scrape together. So when I put them to bed, I never came downstairs again. Wonderful, but cozy is another story.
When I received an offer to spend a night in the Christmas-themed room of the INK Hotel on the Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal in Amsterdam, I knew what I had to do. Look at my parents long and lovingly, cuddle my girls, and before I knew it, I was in the car with my husband. Singing along loudly with ‘Fantastic’ by Wham! to appropriately memorialize George Michael. Or talking. Because how nice is it to occasionally finish a sentence without someone interrupting with ‘mama’?
The hotel was too nice. Luxurious, but not too fancy and with a thousand details. In our room was a record player with, of course, a Christmas record (James Last, can it get any better?), there were two checked Christmas pajamas on the bed, there were fresh cookies and, bonus points: Bigelow bath products.

Lazy as we were (or are), we wanted to take as few steps as possible, so we headed straight to the bar. The cocktail boys were exactly how you want them. Hendrick’s with Indian Fever Tree for him in a long drink glass. Same recipe, but with cucumber (in slender rolls on a cocktail stick) and pepper in a gin glass.
Main course (with old-fashioned delicious bread on the side) and a cocktail for in the room. There awaited us such a dangerously delicious bed that this cocktail still wafted untouched into my nose this morning and my Fitbit tracker told me that I had clocked 10 hours and 30 minutes of sleep. I can tell you: that was a while ago.
If you are looking for an (affordable) hotel in the capital or just really want to drink cocktails at the bar: INK Hotel is where you need to be. It is the old printing house of De Tijd, so you will find all kinds of printing history that is both interesting and très instagrammable.