Like in a Painting

On many trips in Holland, I've more than once felt like I was looking at a painting. Saturday was no different in this regard.

The Eternal Moonwalk

This has only a marginal connection with the topics of our blog, but it's too cool not to post. Go visit the Michael Jackson Eternal Moonwalk, where you can see videos of people from all over the world doing [mostly terrible] moonwalks.

There are tons from the Netherlands: just search for Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Delft, Utrecht, Eindhoven, or any of the other big cities. My personal Netherlands favorite is the bike moonwalk (#910) in front of the I amsterdam sign on the Museumplein in Amsterdam. Don't forget to add sound effects with the SDFJKL keys!

Amsterdam

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Matt and I goofing around in the Amsterdam letters set-up by the city tourist department.

The Heineken Experience

From the moment one first steps foot in the Netherlands, there's never any doubt that the "King of Beers" here is Heineken. Its roots are in Amsterdam, where in December 1863 Gerard Adriaan Heineken bought an old brewery in town and started the Heineken company. Like any good global beer brand in today's age, Heineken has a very nice propaganda experience in one of their original brewery buildings. It's entitled The Heineken Experience.





The experience was a mix of historical information, old brewery equipment, multimedia presentations, and beer drinking. Below you see Laura getting a good look at the inside of a "copper," which is where wort (the liquid that results from mixing barley and water) is boiled with hops.



Another cool part of the visit was the Brew You Ride, in which you see the brewing process from the beer's vantage point. This was less of a ride than a cool multimedia movie that participants watch from a shaker platform. So today Laura and I have been roasted, boiled, fermented, bottled, and poured. At the end of the ride, we emerged from a Heineken box on a warm, sunny beach somewhere that I'm guessing was not the Netherlands.

Maybe the coolest things - from a technology perspective, anyway - were the tables at the Heineken bar. They were digital screens that produced virtual coasters whenever a beer was set down. Better yet, the entire room gave a 360° view of several selected cityscapes and the tables displayed accompanying world maps. The map was interactive, but it would only respond to the Heineken glasses being placed in the right spots. Below you see the table and virtual coasters. Very cool.

The rest of our pictures from the Amsterdam outing can be found here.

Posted by Matt

Seal Island

When Matt and I visit Texel Island last fall, we stopped at Ecomare, a seal and bird rehabilitation center. We knew the injured and orphaned seals came from the Wadden Sea area, but we did not have an opportunity to see any seals in the wild.

On Monday, we took a boat tour from the harbor in Nes to Seal Island. Once again the narrative was in only Dutch and German, but the very friendly captain came up to us before we embarked and explained everything to us in English. It took about 45 minutes to reach the island; along the way the captain explained the tide patterns, pointed out the ecological systems of the sand flats, and shared interesting tidbits about the islands.


View Ameland in a larger map

When we reached the island, we were greeted by two large groups of seals sunning themselves on the sand. It was a lot of fun to watch the babies playing with each other and the adults. The seals were much more active than we expected them to be and were constantly moving around and tussling with each other.




More photos can be found here.

Bike Ride Around the Island

On Saturday morning, we headed out with our packed lunches to bike around the island. The ride started (and ended) at the red and white striped lighthouse, just outside the city of Hollum. The first 27 or so kilometers were down the west coast of the island through the sand dunes. The dunes are beautiful, wide, and grassy; the perfect habitat for the various birds and large jackrabbits we passed along the way.When we reached the other end of the island, we hopped off our bikes for a while and took a four kilometer hike through a nature preserve. The hike took us through a low land area that was mainly covered with sand and tall grasses.



The ride along the east side of the island was next to the dyke and through farmland. Of course, we stopped multiple times to pet the baby lambs. We also passed colonies of nesting geese and other water birds.




The complete loop around the island and a few detours totaled 60 kilometers for the day. We were happy to spend the rest of the afternoon reading in the sunshine at the hostel, waiting for dinner.

Wadden Sea Excursion

After taking a quick bike ride around the hostel and through the town of Hollum, we biked out to our first activity of the weekend: A Wadden Sea Excursion. The walk through the mudflats of the Wadden Sea was lead by a ranger from the Wadden Sea Foundation. I donned my wellies and was ready to walk through the mud and the mist (apparently brought on by the warm weather)!

Although the walk was narrated only in German and Dutch (few Americans or Britons wander this far into the Netherlands), our guide kindly translated the highlights for us. The walk started on the dyke next a nesting colony of 10,000+ birds. Our guide lead us out on the mudflats (80% of the Wadden Sea is "dry" during low tide) and explained the ecosystem along the way. He started at the bottom and pointed out the plankton in the shallow pools of salt water. He even dug up a few varieties of worms and showed us their egg sacks - green slime ball looking things.


In this map, you can see the shallow waters of the Wadden Sea south of Ameland. (Larger Map)

Then he moved up a rung on the food chain and focused on the shell fish in the area. He taught us how to fish for cockles, explained how over-fishing had killed the local mussel population, and showed us the oyster beds.

It was amazing to think you can walk from the island back to the mainland and only encounter waist-deep water 3 times in an approximately 5 mile walk. We had hoped to complete a full walk from the mainland to the island while in Ameland, but there is only so much time...

The Epic Journey

The next stop on the adventure was to take mom and Tony to the most magical place in Europe - Bruges (or Brugge). Matt and I fell in love with it instantaneously when we where there last fall and I was excited for them to see the fairytale land of canals, Gothic buildings, chocolate, beer, and fries. Hey, even the crappy movie In Bruges did not diminish the beauty and allure of the city.

Unfortunately, we were in Domburg - at the edge of the sea, on a long peninsula - and we needed to get to Bruges - just 50 km south as the crow flies but a 4 hour bus/train ride away. We decided to skip the trains and venture out using buses and ferries. Mind you, this is no easy task because the bus schedules at one stop are only good for that stop and are useless in determining a multi-step journey - not to mention this trip was going to take us across two countries, with two different bus systems. Have I mentioned I forgot my passport at home?

So here's the journey, in all its glory:

1. Walk from Kasteel Westhoven to Domburg Windmill (2.5 km, 25 minutes)
2. Bus from Domburg Windmill to Middelburg Train Station (20 minutes)
3. Train from Middelburg to Vlissingen is running 30 minutes late - hop on a bus from Middlelburg to Vlissingen Center (20 minutes)
4. Bus from Vlissingen Center to Fast Ferry (5 minutes)
5. Ferry from Vlissingen to Breskens (15 minutes + loading and unloading)
6. Bus from Breskens to Brugge (1 hour 20 minutes)
7. Get off bus at first site of Brugge to avoid passing out, since it was at least 100 degrees on the bus (the heat was on and it was about 75 degrees outside)
8. Walk to B&B (3 km, 30 minutes)
   

View Trip to Bruges in a larger map

But then we were there -Brugge! And she was just as magical as I remembered!

Domburg & the Beach

On Thursday morning, before embarking on an epic journey to Bruges, we headed out to the beach to walk along the ocean and pick up sea shells. The beaches in the Netherlands are beautiful - mostly due to the fact that they have not allowed building close to the water or on the dunes. Now if only the water wasn't 60 degrees in the summertime...

Goes to Domburg

Last Wednesday, Mom, Tony, and I met our old neighbor, Myriam, in Goes for lunch. We walked through the city and by the harbor to her house, where she treated us to a wonderful lunch of goat-cheese, honey, and roasted pine nut sandwiches. After lunch, she took us around the peninsula in her car, stopping at interesting sites along the way.

Our first stop was in Yerseke, where we got to see the oyster pits and fishing boats docked in the harbor.
Next we stopped in the picturesque village of Veere. We enjoyed an ice cream cone as we walked along the water and down the main street. Our tour ended in the seaside village of Domburg.
We dropped our bags off at the Kasteel Westhoven, where we would spend the night, and headed into the small village for a bite to eat. After dinner (and a rain storm), we walked back to the castle along the ocean and through the dunes, being very careful not to step on one of the frogs we passed along the way.

Keukenhof Flower Garden

After visiting the flower auction, we headed to Keukenhof to visit the flower bulb garden. Mom, of course, was in heaven among all the flowers.

Here are my favorite photos from the day:









The rest of the pictures can be found here.

FloraHolland Flower Auction

Last Tuesday Mom, Tony, and I traveled to Aalsmeer to visit the largest flower auction in the world, at the largest commercial building in the world. We arrived just before 8am to a flurry of activity - over 125,000 transactions take place there every day.

We watched the Dutch auction on the big screen, as buyers with everything from notepads to multiple computers bid on the day's fresh cut flowers. The going price for a tulip was around €.04 a stem - that even makes my 50 stems for €5 at the market seem like a steep price!

Next we walked around the cat walk over the distribution floor and watched as flowers were moved around in a way that resembled a scene from Ants.

It is amazing that these flowers come from around the world every night, are auctioned off the next morning, and reach the shops in your town the next day!