Touristic Weekend

Well, I guess every weekend is touristic for us, and this last one was no different. Saturday afternoon, we went for a stroll in the Jordaan. This is the western part of central Amsterdam and is quite picturesque and elegant. People were sitting on chairs at their stoops drinking wine and chatting with friends an neighbors. There were even a few minibarbecues with flames lit on the sidewalks.

On our way there, we happened to pass by the Amsterdam Crowne Plaza. Back in 1995, Melinda (my sister), our friend Arthur and I stayed there while visiting. It was one of the only places available to stay at since the city was flooded with people there to watch the Ajax (Amsterdam's soccer team) play the European Cup. You can see Centraal Station in the background. It was a great place to stay. The Ajax ended up winning, so the fans came out en masse. The next day we passed by the crowds that flooded the Museumplein, but we decided not to get caught up in the hoopla. As I recall, the following day, the Rolling Stones gave a free outdoor concert on Museumplein, which we did not go to either.

I will probably reflect more about the '95 trip to Amsterdam in this blog so, for now, back to the Jordaan: We headed to the Poezenboot, which is a cat refuge on a boat docked in the canal. It was closed at the time. We couldn't hear any cats meowing.

Nearby, I noticed the Rokerij Coffeeshop. I have heard that this is the namesake of the Rokerij Steakhouse in Phoenix. I think "rokerij" means "smokery" or "smokehouse."

Continuing down, we passed a historical house built in 1622 with carved heads that represent the classical gods Apollo, Ceres, Mars, Minerva, Diana, and Bacchus. We think it's Bacchus on the left.

We then came along to the Anne Frank House, where Anne and her family hid during WWII. A postcard from Anne recently surfaced here in Amsterdam. Dan and I plan to visit again.

A great flower parade also took place on Saturday. The Bloemencorso lasts for 40km (24 miles) and ended in nearby Haarlem. The floats remained on display in Haarlem Sunday, so that's when we drove out to see them. Along the way, the girls fell asleep, so we took a detour through the nearby town of Zaandvoort to get a look at the beach.

The girls awoke at about the time we made it to Haarlem (there was significant beach traffic). As we entered the main square, we were happened upon a carnival. Liliane rode on the carousel in a helicopter.

We were at the beginning of the line of floats and one of the police officers struck up conversation with me. I had bought a new camera before leaving the US and so we talked about different lenses. He had his camera kit with him and let me try his Sigma 10-20mm lens. Since he works security on the side, he often gets great vantage points for his photos at concerts and sporting events. As with the Keukenhof, the scent of flowers wafted through the air. Fittingly, several of the floats had been hauled by New Holland tractors.

Photo on left is with police officer's lens, photo at right with standard lens

Here are the rest of the photos:

The Girls

Amelie
Liliane

Amelie has recently hit some milestones. Last Sunday, the 20th, we noticed that her first tooth started to break through. She also has started pulling herself up on objects, such as the drum pictured. In addition, she enjoys beating on the drum. I brought her in for her 7 1/2 month old checkup and she weighs 8.695k (19 lbs) and is 72 cm (28 in).

Liliane is doing well. She is able to climb the ladder to the playground slide with ease, although not without problems. The other day, her *head* got caught between the rungs as she went up. It was terrifying, and another parent helped me get her out. Afterwards, some nice little girls at the playground saw her crying and offered her part of their cookies. Liliane has a lot more hair than before and now likes to play make believe with her dolls. She also likes simple, one-piece puzzle.

the Pi'd Pi'per of Amsterdam

One day, on one of my regular walks to Hema, I noticed some graffiti written on boards that were attached to scaffolding and bearing the following messages: "Purchasing Milosevic," "Pining for a World that Will Not Explode," and "Shirley Likes it Mundane." Above each of these messages, written in script, was "Laser 3.14."


I thought this was pretty random until I noticed a message, in the same form (on a board) at the Albert Heijn supermarket at Museumplein that said, "She Never Showed the Need to Clip my Wings." I started to wonder if there was some riddle for people to solve.




Last week, we went shopping by the American Book Center in downtown Amsterdam. A postcard of a hooded person writing a message on a board caught my attention. I asked the clerk about it and it ends up that Laser, a graffiti artist, was having an exposition at the American Book Center's Treehouse, which is a sort of annex. to the shop. According to the clerk, Laser always puts the number of pi after his name on his "work." The clerk also alluded that Laser's messages tend to have a political bent.


Then Tuesday, as I took the tram to my Dutch class, I caught sight of another Laser oeuvre. This one said, "Severence my dear Coca Cola." Here's a link to pictures on the web of Laser's messages.


Here's the link to the map that covers where I went. You'll need to cut and paste it into a different window. I was having problems setting a link directly from the page. http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=113083164752241475047.00044ba4499595d1e406b&ll=52.359353,4.888144&spn=0.023011,0.079994&z=14

Hodge-Podge of Odds & Ins (is that redundant?)

So I was thinking, there were a few things from our trip to England that I forgot to include. One was the breakfast food. A traditional English breakfast usually consists of eggs, beans, toast, sausauge, and a stewed tomato (I think this is it, correct me if I'm wrong). At our daily buffet breakfast in Swindon, there were some new additions, both of which I tried. The first one was deep-fried toast. It basically melted once it hit my tongue. I did not like it too much and wondered, since it was so brittle, how anyone could spread anything on it. The other was black pudding. Anything with pudding must be good, right? Right. It was indeed tasty. However, I couldn't keep eating it because I kept thinking too much about it. Black pudding is made from pig's blood and flour and sort of heated up and swirled around in a pan and then, possibly, put into small molds to make perfect-sized breakfast puddings. I love blood sausage, but somehow I couldn't refraing from thinkging about where the good flavor comes from in black pudding, so I just couldn't finish it. Maybe it was the array of other breakfast items, I don't know.

The UK is known for being an expensive place to visit, particularly for Americans due to the dollar's drastic decline. Anyway, one of the surprisingly cheap things I discovered there were spices! We bought up a bunch of them because the price for them was, at most, 50p ($1)!

I also had a comment about the roundabouts in Swindon. During much of the driving, I would come to an intersection where two streets cut each other to make four right angles. Despite this, there would be some circles in the middle of the intersection, simulating a roundabout. It was bizarre, since the street would otherwise be a conventional intersection. I'm not sure why they couldn't install stop signs or another traffic signal, or make a rule as it is here in Amsterdam - where there are some intersections without stop signs, priority simply goes to who is at right.

I know it must seem like I go to McDonald's a lot, and here is another McDonald's observation. One day while in France, both the girls fell asleep in the car. I used the handy navigational system to bring me to the nearest McDrive so I could get a coffee and read a book until they woke up. While in line, I noticed an item from the McDonald's breakfast menu. It was a pancake with melted emmenthal cheese and bacon. Doesn't that sound good? I never got to try it, but will when I've got the chance. It makes me think of the McDonald's pancakes that I often ate while in Buenos Aires - covered with dulce de leche!

A Placid Sunday

The weather in Amsterdam has been getting better and better. When we first arrived, the daily temperature seemed to be between 40 and 45 degrees. A few weeks ago, when the highs started edging toward 50, I was really glad because it meant less outdoor clothing. Suddenly, starting Sunday, all the highs are projected to be about 60!


Sunday morning, we went to Vondelpark for brunch at the Filmmuseum. The Filmmuseum is in a magnificent building that borders Vondelpark's main path. We were able to sit outside in the sunshine and enjoy tostis (grilled sandwiches - chorizo & cheese, ham & cheese) and coffee while watching people stroll, rollerblade, and cycle by.

The Filmmuseum.


Below is a picture of Leidseplein, a main square. Now that the weather is more agreeable, it is starting to fill with buskers, artists, and street vendors. Between the two vehicles (one's a rickshaw, the other is a car for which no license is needed (a glorified golf cart)), there is a person who is selling a tennis ball on a string. You hit the ball with your racket and it comes right back.




Dan met up with some friends at a sportsbar to watch the Ajax play in a final round of soccer. Even though the Ajax won and played a fine, they were out of the tournament. Afterwards, the girls and I met Dan and our friends and we all had dinner at a delicious Mexican restaurant. Since we were so busy preparing to leave before coming here, it had been months since we had Mexican. We had chips and salsa, margaritas on the rocks, and wonderful meals. We cut through Vondelpark on the way home (after 8PM) and there were still people spread out on blankets enjoying the balmy weather. Here is a picture of the sunset.

a tiptoe through the tulips

Saturday morning, we woke up and the sky was clear. We decided to take advantage of this and head out to the famous Keukenhof Gardens. Keukenhof is about 35 minutes away and there are millions of bulbed flowers set out in a huge garden. It's sort of one of those places to which tourists flock and the locals avoid, not because it's a bad place, it's just a place to which one *could* always go.

Walking in, we were greeted with the smell of hyacinth, which is one of my favorite flowers. It seemed like there were rivers of flowers weaving their way through the garden. Our first stop was a walk along simulated lily pads in a pond.

We continued to wend our way through and in the distance, we could hear strains from the Grease soundtrack. Eventually, we ended up by another entrance to the gardens where there was what I want to call a calliope, for lack of the correct word. It was a beautiful machine and everyone seemed intrigued by it. We sat before it for about 15 minutes and at a fresh waffle with whipped cream. Inside the waffle, there were literally nuggets of granulated sugar, which made it supertasty. If you click on the video below, you will hear part of its tune.

We walked through additional gardens and came upon a small knoll containing giant chess pieces and littered people lounging on giant brown, orange, and white pillows, known as Fatboys. We decided to join them and lay down for a rest. The Fatboys seemed like modern versions of the giant pillows that my father used to make. These were made from an industrial, seeming untearable fiber and had straps with which you could adjust the shape.

As everyone knows, the 2008 Olympics will be held in Beijing. Because of this, the Keukenhof featured a garden with Chinese elements. We actually missed this garden, but got other exposure to the Olympics spirit.

There were other water obstacles like the lilies, a playground for kids, and plenty of places to rest. The place was accessible with strollers and the food was reasonably priced, so all in all, it is a nice way to spend an afternoon. Below are some other pictures from the gardens.

The Trip Back to Amsterdam

Amelie, Dora, and Liliane ready to go!

The trip back ended up taking exactly 12 hours. I left at 8:06AM, with everything ready. Our timing had been good throughout France. I took two breaks during the first seven hours of the trip, which lasted an hour. I had about two and a half hours left when we approached Antwerp. At that point we stopped on the road for 10 minutes due to traffic. We got closer to Antwerp and there we sat in unmoving traffic for 35 minutes. I couldn't understand what the traffic issue was since I still don't understand Dutch/Flemish; I could only make out on the radio that they kept mentioning the Kennedy Tunnel which I knew to be on our route.

I was finally able to pull out into a lane that seemed to be moving and figured that it couldn't hurt to go there since I was not making any progress where we were. Mercifully, after a few minutes I saw a sign for Rotterdam. Since Rotterdam is only an hour from Amsterdam and Belgium is not that small, I figured it could not be that far away. The GPS system figured it out and rerouted us through Rotterdam. Everything went well. We got stuck on a drawbridge in Rotterdam for 10 minutes while a massive tanker went through, but that was the only thing that slowed us down. By that time, we took another short break and made it home. Dan was waiting on a bench outside for us, so he was a good sight for sore eyes!

Here were some remarkable things along the route:


The Belgian road scarecrow. For this most intriguing thing, I was not able to take a picture. What it was was a scarecrow-style thing with an arm that bobbed up and down with the wind. It was used to direct traffic over for merges caused by construction. Next time I'm over there, I will try to get a pic.

Truck Stop Bathrooms - a squat toilet and a children's toilet







Apparently a "new" Citroen 2CV a la "New Beetle." A picture of the classic is on the right.




A relic from a bordered Europe. Now this checkpoint between France and Belgium just gathers dust.







Generally, I felt the driving was much easier than in the US. This is primarily due to the fact that all the semis must drive at a much lower speed - 90 kph or about 55mph. They have stickers on the back of the truck that state how fast they can drive. Because of this, there was no anxiety about passing them, or them passing me. You can also see the safety bars between the wheels of the semis, so cars do not get caught under them.