Holland - Part 2 (Oct. 6-8, 2012)

For our third day in Holland we decided to go to Delft, which is where they famously make all of the blue painted pottery and where the book "Girl with a Pearl Earring" is set.  Again we had a stormy day, but we never got rained on except while we were driving.  Since it was Saturday, we lucked out and discovered it was market day in Delft.  The entire town square was taken up by a textiles market, and all of the side streets were also full of various vendors selling anything from food to antiques.  As per usual, Ryan and I just enjoyed wandering around and enjoyed the interesting scenery.

  

One food that is very Dutch is the stroopwafel.  As you can see in the picture, they're two thin, soft cookies, stuck together with syrup.  Usually they just sell the small ones, but we found a street vendor making massive, fresh, warm ones.  Soooo yummy!

For lunch we stopped at one of the cafes surrounding the market and had a traditional Dutch meal of croquettes (deep fried balls of mashed up and spiced meat) and a cheese and salami platter.  Luckily the sun came out just long enough for us to sit outside and enjoy the atmosphere.

Next we headed just down the road to Den Haag, where we visited Madurodam (which I think just means something like "miniature village").  I had been there when I visited Holland as a kid, but we thought it would be a fun place to visit again.  It has all sorts of famous buildings from all over Holland, but of course they are miniature.  There was also a bunch of interactive games, movies, and questions, but it was really hard to get a turn because there were so many kids everywhere.  One of the games was to load a ship in the water with a bunch of cargo blocks.  You had to load it evenly, or the ship would tip over.  I decided to race this little Dutch girl, but when we got to the end she was missing a block (so I won, muah ha ha!)  I tried to help her and found that the missing block was actually lodged under her ship, but when I tried to get it out, I tipped over her ship.  Of course she couldn't understand my English (I doubt she even knew we were racing), but she just gave me the most devastated look so Ryan and I ran away.  Seriously, kids do not like me!

The tulip fields.

Ryan at a mini-rave.  I love the persspective on this, since that stage is actually only a few feet away, and evenly level with the ledge Ryan is on.

The Alkmaar Cheese Market that we were hoping to see when we went to Alkmaar.

After a fun but exhausting day, we went back to Hilversum and went through more old pictures with my Aunt Els.  She worked on a cruise ship when she was young, so she had lots of interesting stories to share from her travels all over the world.  It was also neat to see pictures of my grandparents (her brother) when they had just come to Canada to settle on a farm, and hear stories of how my grandparents met.

The next day, Sunday, we finally headed to Amsterdam.  Unfortunately, we had quite a few problems with the transportation that day.  We walked to the train station, but found out that the ticket machines don't take bills or credit cards.  Since we didn't have enough money in coins, we had to head back to Els's house and got her to pay for our tickets with her debit card.  When we eventually got there, we had a wonderful day.

First we just wandered around one of the quieter neighbourhoods that isn't a touristy part of Amsterdam.  It was nice to see abandoned streets and kids playing in the parks on a Sunday morning, and just take in the serenity of the city.

After that, though, we headed back to the main part of Amsterdam to walk through the hustle and bustle of the touristy areas.  We found a neat little restaurant for lunch, and enjoyed a short rest from all of our walking.  There isn't much to tell about our morning, since it was really nice but also uneventful.  Canals, old buildings, bicycles...you know, the usual.

Upon Ryan's request, that afternoon we did a tour of the Heineken brewery.  Surprisingly, it was really fun and highly interactive so I really enjoyed it too.

After walking around the stuff you would expect to see (history of Heineken, the giant vats and kegs, the brewing process, etc.) we did "the Heineken experience", which was hilarious.  They corralled a group of us into a small room, and made us stand on a platform facing a movie screen, holding on to some brace bars.  Then they played a video of the brewing process, where we were supposed to be the beer.  The platform jiggled around, they sprayed us with water, and warmed us with heat lamps.  After that, they sent us into this bar room where we learned "how to drink a Heineken".  The guide asked a bunch of questions, and when I yelled out the answer to the first one, I got a free beer!  I let someone else answer the second one, but when no one got the third answer I yelled it out and won another beer!

To end off the tour, we could have had 2 free beers, or we could get lessons on how to pour the perfect Heineken.  Since I had already had way too much to drink, we did the lessons.  Ryan was absolutely convinced that he could pour a better beer than me, so he made me go first.  I immediately messed up, but quickly recovered and then poured 2 perfect beers.  Of course then he tried, but he didn't quite have the mad beer pouring skills that I have (from years of practice at my dad's brew your own beer store). 

By the time we finished our beers, it was getting late and we had to get back to Hilversum for dinner reservations with Els.  We walked the "scenic" way to the train station through the Red Light District and some other sleezy areas, and finally made it to the train.  We quickly checked the board, then went to the platform and waited for the train.  Stupidly, we never double checked the train details, and we ended up getting on a direct train to a town past Hilversum.  We ended up way to far away, and then we got confused about which train to take back home.  If we had been slightly quicker we would have caught it back immediately, but we hesitated too much and missed it by about one minute.  Late for dinner, with no way to contact my aunt, we waited it out and showed up very late.  She had just started to worry, but everything worked out fine.  In the end we still got into the restaurant, and had an amazing dinner at a really nice fancy meal in Hilversum.  It was a wonderful way to end a great day, and an awesome trip to Holland.

The next day we didn't do much of anything, except drink tea and look at old pictures.  In the early afternoon we headed off to the airport to start the final bit of our journey around the world - a relaxing vacation in Thailand!

Holland - Part 1 (Oct. 4-5, 2012)

After what seemed like a really short flight compared to our other flights, we transferred in Montreal and Zurich and quickly arrived in Amsterdam.  Picking up our car was a bit of a fiasco since it wasn't at the airport, but we finally got it and then I had to quickly adjust to driving on Dutch roads.  I guess they're not that different from Canada, but their signage is different, and the highway lanes work a little bit differently, too.  Luckily we rented a GPS, so between the three of us we figured it out and made it to Hilversum.

The reason we went to Holland in the first place was to visit my Great Aunt Els.  I've visited her a few times before, but we all know you can never visit Europe too many times!  It was absolutely wonderful to see her again.  She thinks her English is getting worse, and she's slowing down, but I think she's doing great.

After a quick catch up and lunch (breakfast?), we decided to get right into sightseeing.  There was an M.C. Escher exhibition at the local palace (Paleis Soestdijk) so we decided to go there to check it out.  Escher is known for his "never ending staircase" drawing, but I didn't recognize much else.  We weren't allowed to take any pictures at all inside the palace, and we weren't even allowed to bring our jackets, so I only have pictures of the outside.

The gardens around the palace were beautiful, but the weather started to turn so we went inside and had hot drinks instead.

After that, Ryan and I were definitely ready to relax.  Our jetlag eventually hit us, so Els made dinner, we looked at maps for our next few days of excursions, and we went to bed really early.  That night, though, the residence was having their monthly meeting, so the common room outside of our guest room was quite busy.  Els told us to put up some signs and a folding screen once everyone had left to make sure no one disturbed us, but we were so exhausted we went right to bed before they all left.  Sure enough, just when we got settled, a few crazy Dutch ladies opened our bedroom door, started LAUGHING, and then put the screen up for us!  We made sure to keep the door locked after that, but I think Els will be hearing about that for awhile.

After a much needed sleep, I dragged Ryan out of bed for breakfast with Els.  It was rough at first, but then he remembered that the Dutch are famous for cheese, so he recovered.  Our first destination for the day was Alkmaar, which is typically where there is a giant cheese market each week.  After barely navigating the small streets and cyclists, we found a parking spot and didn't dare move again.  Luckily it was right next to the town square!  There was no cheese market since the season had passed, but it was so fun to just wander around the town. 

The statue in the town square.

The weather wasn't great for the whole time we were in Holland, but it never once rained on us, and the sun always came out just in time for us to enjoy lunches on patios.  So after a brief snack at a pub (I think we had fries and mayo, and probably croquettes), we left Alkmaar and went to Hoorn. 

Hoorn is more known as a typical Dutch fishing village, with lots of ships and old buildings to look at.  Again, there was nothing in particular we wanted to see, so we just wandered around the town and snacked whenever we saw something we liked.

We thought this sign was hilarious coming from Australia - someone put a spider picture on the "Local Traffic Only" sign!  (I only just looked that up, but it was funny before too)

Next, on our way to Marken we decided to stop in Monnickendam Noord since it looked neat.  It was pretty typically Dutch, with lots of ships and little shops.  The coolest one was a shop that sold doll houses and all of the pieces for inside.  It was exactly how you imagine they were before Barbie's Dream House.  They even had electrical wiring for the chandeliers!

And since we still had a bit of time left in the day, we did eventually get to Marken, which is actually a little island joined to the main land by a long dyke/bridge.  What we didn't know, though, was that there aren't any cars allowed past the main parking lot of the island, and all tourists have to pay to park and then walk around.  Since we were only planning on staying for about an hour we were a bit reluctant, but we did it anyway.  It wasn't really our thing, though, since it was very touristy.  There was a wooden shoe making shop, lots of souvenir shops, and a few tour busses on guided tours.  The houses were neat, though, because they were quintessential fishing village houses.

We explored for awhile, but the real adventure was when we went to the grocery store!  We were making dinner that night, and we had already picked up some marinated chicken at a shop in Alkmaar, so we just needed some vegetables to go with it.  It was really strange though, because almost all of the produce was pre-cut and packaged!  You can get any kind of mix you want, but it's already prepared for you.  Then, the things that we bought by the pound, we actually had to weigh and tag ourselves.  We didn't realize that, so it caused quite the kafuffle at the checkout.

Just as a funny conclusion to the day, on the way home we encountered a cow crossing.  It was very reminiscent of the sheep crossing in New Zealand.

 That evening after a delicious dinner, Ryan and I were absolutely exhausted.  We looked through some old slides with Els, and then happily went to bed very early.  This time there was no trouble with the Dutch ladies!