Hey. This is AmsterDads. The weekly newsletter for spontaneous international Dads living in Amsterdam.
It’s for Dads who want to keep having adventures. With their kids. Plus: tips for escaping them sometimes!
In this week’s email:
🎟 Weekend Events: SoundLAB & more
⛳️ Activities: Art or Snow?
🚗 Day Trips: Legoland or Lightshow?
and…
👩❤️👨 Date Night Tips: Authentic Mexican & more
🍻 Man Time: 🪓-time?
🎟 Weekend Events
It’s hard to keep up with kid-friendly happenings in Amsterdam. You’re busy during the week. Most event websites are crap. And in Dutch.
Don’t worry - I spend the whole week scouring, so you don't have to…
💁🏻♂️ My Top Kids+Dads Events in Amsterdam this weekend:
This weekend looks to be on the cold side, so I looked for fun events happening indoors:
😸 Black Cat Theatre. The MEADOW is an interactive show for kids 1-3 years old. Your little ones can enjoy their first theatre experience, while freely exploring a cosy and safe space, find hidden surprises, and listen to live music. In company of their parents (who are also encouraged to participate). Sat 19 Nov, 2pm. Tickets here
🔊 SoundLAB. A music workshop for kids (7+) and their parents. Go on a musical journey using all kinds of crazy instruments. Make your own piece of music. Sounds a fun and unique experience (being able to play an instrument not necessary). Sun 20 Nov, 1pm. Tickets here
🎅 Sinterklaas take two. Miss his arrival last weekend? You can catch Sint & Piet again at Gelderlandplein shopping centre this weekend. Saturday’s edition featuring Sinterklaas, acrobatic Pieten, Pieten on stilts and a Pieten-Orchestra, does sound like a ‘Sinterklaas party for young and old’! Sat & Sun 12.30pm – 4.30pm
⛳️ Activities
Tired of the same old playground? Too cold to go this weekend anyway? Here’s some other fun things to do with your kids:
🖼 Family Art Tour. The 'How well do you know your family tour' at the Stedelijk Museum is a fun way for your family to discover the museum, modern art, and learn more about each other in the process. Family Guided Tours on every Saturday, 11.30am – 12.30pm
👩🎨 Art Sitters. Rather stay in? Art Sitters offers creative lessons from experts for kids in the comfort of your own home. From art to music to dance. Pretty neat concept.
⛷ Snow World. Winter is coming. Rumour has it that it might even snow this weekend! You can’t do that much in Amsterdam when it snows. So why not ski or snowboard indoors instead with the kids at SnowWorld? Albert Heijn has a handy discount at the moment too:
🚗 Day Trips
It’s good to escape Amsterdam every now and then.
🧱 LEGOLAND Scheveningen. I had no idea this even existed until today. ‘The ultimate indoor lego playground’ in The Hague. Say no more! More: with a ton of attractions, including Miniland, 4D Cinema, Duplo park & Ninjago Training Zone.
🌟 GLOW Eindhoven. The world’s largest international light art festival GLOW is a feast for the eyes (and kids’ imaginations). With light artworks, installations and projections around Eindhoven. Friday & Saturday, 6.30pm – 11pm (late for little ones, so you might want to consider staying the night)
🚂 Both are accessible by train. 🚘 Prefer to drive, but don’t own a car? Try MyWheels. Convenient and affordable car sharing. If you book your first trip with my link, you’ll get €25 off.
👩❤️👨 Date Night Tips
🍷 Drinks. At Glou Glou, a hip wine bar in De Pijp. They serve only ‘natural’ / organic wine. Forget the kids for a night, and pretend you’re one of the cool cats there!
🇲🇽 Dinner. Authentic Mexican is hard to come by in Amsterdam. Thankfully there’s a new (Mexican) kid on the block that delivers the goods: La Condesa. It’s run by Mexicans… for Mexicans? (I had to ask the waiters to switch from Spanish to English when we were there 😅)
🎷 A Show. Super-Sonic Jazz at Paradiso is where it’s at. With bunch of shows this weekend that blend jazz with hip-hop, funk, R&B and electronic music. Sounds a fun date night.
👀 No one to watch your kids? We use Sitly to find good babysitters.
🍻 Man Time
You need downtime with mates too!
🪓 Throw an Axe! Seriously. At The Axe Effect, the only axe throwing joint in Amsterdam.
⚽️ Stay tuned for next week, when I’ll share the best places in Amsterdam to watch the big World Cup matches next weekend.
😁 Meme of the week
🤣
Thanks for reading AmsterDads!
If you enjoyed it - be great if you could share it with other Amsterdam Dads you know. 🙏
Have a great weekend!
Cheers,
Dan
Thanks to for sharing this great idea after last edition: "Great stuff Dan! Not sure how easy it would be but perhaps we can crowd source a list of helpful resources /links as well. I’m thinking plumbers, handy men, mechanics etc." Definitely going to explore this. Keep the feedback and ideas coming guys!
Lovely stuff, Dan. Never knew about Legoland either. Keep it coming!