Holland

Travels

We took advantage of yet another Monday holiday here to take a weekend trip and add a new entry to our list of places visited. Chizzy had been to the Netherlands a couple times before but this was my first time to the country. We had an especially good trip because we had a personal tour guide thanks to a friend of Chizzy’s that she has known since her study abroad trip to Finland and Russia back in the day. Some of you may remember Richard from a few years back when he and a friend visited Seattle. He was the one who got into the Karaoke mood at Ozzie’s. We knew we were in for the full star treatment when he and his boyfriend, Ronnie, actually picked us up from the airport in Amsterdam. The first stop was Amsterdam city center to check into our hotel and see a bit of the sights that first evening.

A view from the fifth floor of Richard’s hotel. Chizzy and I were staying around the corner at a different place (with no view).

A bicycle parking garage near the main train station. Everybody owns a bike in the Netherlands. Seriously. It is amazing.

Friday night around 10pm in Amsterdam.

Fun fact: In the Netherlands, even cats and dogs are required to use wooden shoes.

Burgers from a vending machine anyone?

We stopped for dinner at an Argentinean restaurant near the main plaza and had a nice meal. We were in the mood for beer so we ordered a few large ones. After they arrived, Richard told us such large mugs of beer were unusual for the Dutch people and they normally would just drink them out of tiny little glass. Ridiculous. We also learned that getting the check after dinner was just as difficult here as everywhere else. People really need to get on board with tipping. There is just no incentive for them to bring you the damn check.

Now that darkness had finally fallen over the city it was time to make the trip to the famous Red Light district and see the ladies in the windows. It really is quite a sight. The area is more touristy than seedy in the sense that the streets were filled with all kinds of people. There was no visible separation from the normal area of town and the Red Light area. You just turn the corner and all of the sudden the store fronts simply change from displaying clothes and souvenirs to displaying prostitutes in lingerie. In my mind I envisioned the ladies would just be standing in the windows of larger buildings like a brothel or strip club or something. In reality, each woman actually has her own street level kiosk-style room with clear door to stand behind. A dude would just step through the door, a brief conversation would take place, the curtains would be drawn, and the oldest profession in the world lives on with another taker. Ronnie informed me that most of the ladies were not even Dutch and that most came from Eastern Europe looking to make some cash. I really couldn’t tell if he was proud or upset about that fact. I didn’t get a photo, but it was actually very similar to the burger vending machine picture up above if you were struggling with a visual.

The next morning we hooked up with Richard and Ronnie for breakfast and then jumped on a boat for a tour of the city. Yes, a boat. They call Amsterdam the Venice of the North because of the canals that crisscross the entire city. It is no wonder the Dutch were brought in as consultants to New Orleans after the Katrina disaster. Amsterdam is also a city that lies below sea level and the canals are simply amazing.

The gang. Ronnie, Richard, and Carmen San Diego

One of THOUSANDS of house boats along the canals. Most of them actually were boats and not this type of structure, but for some inexplicable reason I didn’t get a single photo of that type.

I think I heard the tour audio say there were 2,500 bridges in the city. This is what they were referring to.

That was pretty much it for Amsterdam on the trip. Looking through my pictures, I see I didn’t really capture the city very well but we both really thought it was a fantastic place. I’d like to go back again and spend some more time there. But for this trip we took advantage of having Richard as our guide and hopped in his car to see more of the country.

Yes, I realize I named this post Holland and that is considered bad form since it is only one Province of the Netherlands, but the Dutch themselves seem to have no problem whatsoever in abusing the term. Richard doesn’t even live in Holland, but he was using it when talking about his country. When I asked about it, he said he was using that term because he was speaking English and that is what they think the English term for the Netherlands is.

Our next stop was the ‘village’ of Volendam. (I’m putting village in quotes because Richard was calling every city that we went to other than Amsterdam a village. I think they like that term because it is meant to invoke the idea of a close-knit community of people that share the same traditions. People in Europe seem to care a great deal about tradition and pretty much don’t like outsiders. Anyway, it isn’t that the towns themselves were out on some dirt road where people are living in huts, which is what I think of when I hear the word village.) It was about a 30 minute drive north of Amsterdam. They said the large body of water that it sat on was a lake, but if you look at a map it looks like it should really be a huge ocean bay. They claim that all contact with the sea has been cut off by the use of dikes and it is now a large body of fresh water. The Dutch truly are master water manipulators.

The town was very cool. The main draw was the boardwalk that ran along the dike and featured a ton of cool shops, cafes, and restaurants.

The Dutch are crazy for their herring. You can buy it right on the street the way you would buy a hot dog in the States. The traditional way to eat it is to just tilt your head back and lower the entire fillet into your mouth. We decided to go sandwich style with the herring in a little roll with some onions and a pickle. The fish is eaten totally raw, by the way.

The other advantage of having people with us was that we got a few more pictures of ourselves than we usually do. This is one such photo.

Just behind the boardwalk of Volendam was a massive maze of private houses. They were packed in really tight and just kind of co-existed among the canals, shops, and markets in the street. It looked like it would be a really unique place to live. There was no practical reason that we could see for why this was a draw-bridge.

The next stop was Kinderdyke to see the windmills. These babies were not just for show. I never knew that windmills were used for reasons other than grinding up stuff. These windmills are used to keep the water in the canals flowing away from lowlands and back toward the dikes. If these windmills were not used, the water would eventually collect and flood the town. It was a fantastic area and the windmills are really impressive when seen up close.

It looked like living in the windmill came with a fair amount of responsibility. The entire top portion on which the arms are connected can be rotated. This is obviously so that the windmill can be adjusted to work when the direction of the wind changes. This guy was in the process of changing the direction of the windmill. I asked Richard if the people got paid to keep the windmills going, but he didn’t know. Maybe keeping the windmill going is just the price you have to pay for getting to live inside one in such a beautiful place.

They were really cool.

Our last stop was to head to Eindhoven and chill out at Richard and Ronnie’s house for the next couple nights. It was not a total coincidence that our trip fell on the dates that it did. We received an invitation to their house warming party in the mail a month or so ago and figured it was great timing. We were tired after the long day and just chilled out that night with a movie.

They had a really cool place with a really unique layout.

Taking shape. They were really smart and had the food taken care of by a catering company. They showed up in the morning with all the salads, bread, meat, plates, silverware, and two grills. They would return in a couple days to pick everything up.

The yard was all enclosed. It was a nice feature for a party.

These guys were pretty funny. They were some friends of theirs who volunteered to take care of the grill duties. They also ended up staying until the very end of the night and cleaning the entire house. Seemed like good friends to have.

The party also happen to fall on a day with TWO Dutch soccer matches and the entire country was already reaching fever pitch with the World Cup starting up next week. You have never seen so much orange in your life. For the record, the national team tied Australia in their friendly and the under 21 team crushed Ukraine 3-0 to win the championship.

The party was actually a two-stage ordeal with family rolling in during the afternoon and friends coming by later. I never really captured the full spectacle in photo, but it was a really good time and I think the hosts had fun.

We got up fairly early the next day, got a ride to the Eindhoven train station, and then off to the Amsterdam airport. All in all, another great trip.