June 16 - June 21

Tuesday, June 17

This was our last night of Dutch class. We're hoping to resume in the fall... Our teacher, Jonathon, has been great. He has a dry sense of humor and actually teaches at the high school that's a block from our home. Our classmates were really friendly and we hope to see them again. We'd been eating Indonesian takeout from a little place around the corner from our class, so I'll definitely be missing that.

Jonathon let us out a little early and so we were able to watch the quarterfinals. We went to a neighborhood restaurant to order some beer and watch the game, since our babysitters had agreed to stay a little later. We ran into a local barfly who ended up buying us drinks. He was very interesting - an architecht who first visited the US in the early 60s with the Experiment in International Living. He later lived in Houston for 20 years before moving back to Holland. Holland handily beat France. As we were about to leave, we looked out the window and saw that the police had pulled over two Welpies on motorcycles. Welpie (pronounced "vel - pee") is the Netherlands mascot and the motorists had the giant mascot heads on while they were driving. As we continued to watch, the police let them go, so they continued on, heads and all!

Clicke here to hear a Welpie song.

In more testament to Laser's ubiquity, here are some more messages I came across:

Wednesday, June 18

We needed the car on this day, so as Dan and I were leaving, who should we see walking along our sidewalk coffee mug in hand, but Jonathon! He had told us that he had a daily walk at 7:50 with a colleague, but we had never seen him. It was the last week of school, so we won't see him for a few months. By now, he must be in Thailand, where he spends his summers.

Speaking of school being out, the apparent custom here when one graduates is putting out a flag and hanging a purse or school bag upon it. I haven't spoken with anyone to confirm this, but such things were a common site at that time of June.

Friday, June 20

Our wonderful babysitter Liselotte arrived at the crack of dawn so that Dan and I could go be tourists at the flower auction. All the action takes place between 7 and 11 in the morning, so that's basically the only worthwhile time to go. Liselotte arrived at 7:30 and we took off. The flower auction (bloemenveiling) is held in Aalsmeer, which is about a 15 minute drive from our home.

I have never seen such a vast building. From the outside, it looks as if extends over several acres. We entered the building and the warehouse floor was easily visible from the catwalks that we traversed to see the spectacle. As we approached the first trading room, I was expecting total mayhem, a la the pre-computerized Chicago Board of Trade (that's the place where Eddie Murphy and Dan Akroyd shorted the orange juice shares in Trading Places). Instead, it was more akin to a college classroom, complete with screens, laptops and orderly desks. The flowers went through the floor where a lectern would be via conveyer and everything else appeared to be silent. Later, Dan read in the guide that the bidding can be done from anywhere in the world via computer.

The warehouse was enormous with at least three bidding rooms and a a cafeteria, all above the floor. On the floor were interesting things for the workers, such as a vishandel (fish merchant), convenience stand, and, inexplicably, a postal center.

The smell of fresh flowers wafted throughout the tour and it was altogether a pleasant place to visit, though not as raucous as I had expected.

I dropped Dan off at work and then headed up to Alkmaar. Alkmaar is famous for its cheese market, which takes place on Fridays during the summer. There is a whole ritual to the cheese-trading and there are basically four teams (distinguished by different uniform colors) that race to see who can bring the cheese to the transportation the fastest. Alkmaar is also home to the Dutch brand Oilily, and so I wanted to check out the outlet that was there.

I was lucky enough to meet a family friend named Patsy. She has known my cousins since the 1970s when they began vacationing in Maui. She lives a romantic life. She used to crochet bikinis on the beach, which is how my family met her. She opened up bikini shops in luxury hotels before morphing into a realtor. Today, she is based in Mexico where she is an international realtor. Patsy was in Amsterdam for the month of June and so we met in front of the Oilily shop at the town square. Coincidentally, we were both wearing orange t-shirts. We went shopping and then on a canal tour. The bridges were quite low and we often had to duck our heads. The shortest distance between water and bridge was only 80 centimeters (31 inches). Our guide was fun and the tour was relaxing. We had lunch and then parted ways. In another coincidence, she was also leaving for Spain for vacation that weekend.

Saturday, June 21

This afternoon, we headed to the Oude Kerk in downtown Amsterdam. The World Press 2007 photos were on display, showing everything from animals to refugees in the woods of Calais, France, to war photos. The exhibition was really interesting and in a beautiful setting. Along the street, everyone was very excited about the soccer match in the hopes that Holland would make it to the semifinals. Sadly, it was not to be.

Some friends had joined us, so afterwards we got coffee at a cool place called the Ceracafe, that abuts a small canal. To top off our evening, Dan and I went for drinks at an ice bar called XtraCold. We donned heavy coats and gloves and were greeted with an ice cold vodka welcome drink. I ended up getting a Heineken Ice beer in an ice mug, which tasted okay and was incredibly cheap for this town (2.35). There were ice statues of Thai kickboxers and other sport-types that had seen better days. We then had a dinner of doner kebabs.