Delft/Beach

Our final day at our home exchange in amsterdam wasn't even spent in Amsterdam. In an earlier post, we introduced the Strandbeest; it turned that the creator of the Strandbeest was going to show them off at the beach in Schevingen, jst north of The Hague. As it turns out, we had a friend who lives in Schevingen, so we could kill two birds with one stone. Luckily, we managed to get a third bird too by starting the day in Delft. 

Delft, although probably best known for its pottery, has some significant history, including being the home of Johannes Vermeer, Hugo Grotius & van Leeunhouk (an artist, a lawyer and a scientist). Here's the statue of Grotius in the town square

It also hand the hottest canal tour ever:

It had to be over 100 on that boat. Luckily, our next stop was the beach; unfortunately, the heat meant half the country had decamped to the beach & a severe parking shortage. Eventually, we figured out the parking, mainly through our friend Doug, who we were visiting in Schevingen.  After sorting out the parking, he returned to work while we went for a dip in the North Sea. There was no swell, so no surfing, but the water was warm enough to bounce around for awhile. It also had some type of creature that liked Fritz a lot and raised a lot of welts, but they weren't painful & had no real impact. 

Finally, we were ready for the main event & we took off for the Strandbeest demonstration. There wasn't enough wind for it to work perfectly, but it ws fun to see their creator & watch the latest generation in action:

Finally, we had great dinner with Doug at a beach cafe and a late night return to amsterdam. 

Today, we take the train to Bruges for the cycling adventure to begin. 

Final days

Hello! We are now on our final few days here in Amsterdam. Today, so far, we've mostly been tidying up for when it is time to leave the day after tomorrow. We went to a massive flower market, filled with an amazing amount of tulips and other plants, including Venus fly traps and pitcher plants. This market was very interesting to walk through, and we all wish we could have brought some of the plants back, but we can't :.( 

After that fritz and dad went to the museum, which is like a modern art museum. They then went by a candy store, bring back many delicious delicacies! 

Dutch Open Air Museum

Yesterday was another day trip, this time to the Dutch open air museum. Similar to Williamsburg, this is a living history museum, but rather than re-creating a particular era in history, this museum rescues old buildings that would be destroyed & transports them to its site. So, it will have a sheep fold from the southern Netherlands next to a few buildings from a fishing village on the North Sea. 

Here's Karl next to an old beekeeper get-up:

Here are fritz & bill working an old ferry boat :

And a few pictures of trying to ride the penny-farthings:

We thought the boys were too old for playgrounds, but they had a blast getting lost in a maze:

But it all went south when fritz had a few too many spins on the big swing. 

 Hello lunch!

We recovered & Karl got fascinated with the workings of a big wind-driven flour mill:

The day was topped off by a visit with our friend Jeff Littlejohn, who was in town on business:

A long fun day!

The Beautiful Game

One of Fritz' primary goals on this trip was to experience some European football. Unfortunately, the trip was timed dead wrong to catch the season. Instead, we had to content ourselves with stadium tours in England, Italy & germany. Until yesterday. 

Two of the top Dutch teams play an opening game for the "Johan Cruyff Shield," so fritz & I heads out to Amsterdam Arena yesterday evening to see some football. 

We didn't have tickets, but figured we should be able to get into the game somehow. We didn't account for the Dutch ban on scalping; luckily, after an hour of wandering around the stadium, we managed to find someone who had been stood up by his friends & was willing to sell us tickets below face value!  

We scampered into the stadium with enough time to buy a beer (and a fanta) and catch a few songs before the game started:

There were thunderstorms predicted, so the roof stayed closed & it was hot, but it was an exciting game, with Ajax winning 3-2 in extra time.  

Amsterdam

There is such a difference in living in a great city, verses just visiting a great city.  We are living in Amsterdam and loving it.  Our home is in the Jordaan neighborhood, around the corner from the Ann Franke House, a typical skinny, tall, slightly leaning forward building with fabulous large windows.

 5 levels, lots of tiny, circular stairs in the most perfect neighborhood.  

Meanwhile, our hosts are in our house, enjoying the Northwest.  

We are sleeping late, going to the markets, not rushing to sights, biking all over this crazy for bikes city.  We are living in it.  Amsterdam is a mixture of Paris, Venice, Rome and London.  It's international, intellectual, tolerant, fun, beautiful and generally has a wonderful vibrant energy. It helps that it has been sunny and warm and everyone is outside enjoying the 'terrace season.'

  The canals are filled with boats and people having cocktail parties on their little skiffs while putting through the water.  

It's just lovely.....

Our first days we got the feel of the place by biking around.  There are SOOO many bikes and bikers here.  Beautiful women in heels and shorts skirts, young mothers with their infants in the front pack, senior citizens - everyone is on a bike and not a helmet in sight. The boys ride around like old pros.  I have no confidence in any of the other riders, who dart in and out like it's nothing.  Consequently, I'm cautious, slow and I wear my bike helmet!  I'm telling you, between the bikes, the scooters (who can ride in the bike lane), the cars AND the thousands of tourists you really have to be careful.  But amazingly it works and flows on a daily basis. I'm just dying to talk to an ER doc, though, and see what the rate of accidents is.  We have seen so many close calls.   

We've been to the Van Gogh museum - amazing collection, done a city tour - good for getting oriented and history, been to The Hague (Den Hague) to visit my friend Allison and her hubby from SF and high school - lovely to see them and get the expat perspective, and boys went to NEMO - which is like OMSI.  

Yesterday, we drove to the Hoge National Park to see the Kroller-Muller Museum.  World class museum set in a giant park, 2nd largest collection of

VanGoghs and a sculpture garden that is OUT of this world.  

No tourists - just natives - so it doesn't feel crowded or cheesy. The juxtiposition of art and nature in the garden is breathtaking AND they give you bikes to ride around the park in.  

Something for everyone.  It has to be one of my top 5 museum experiences anywhere - ever.  Great day!

Bill and I have enjoyed the night life  ..... boys are happy to be left at home and we go out to dinner, to a terrace, to walk around and to just hang.  

Bill enjoys an ipa. 

Museums Galore

"Museum a day keeps the historian away" -Karl Kabeiseman

Today we plan to avoid the museums and get tickets to Brujges for the bike to Amsterdam from Brujdes. We are also going to nine alleys which is like a shopping district. 

See ya!

Amsterdam

Right now we are in Amsterdam, as you might know. Today, we visited the Krüller-Müller museum, which had quite an impressive collection. Also you could use some bikes they had. There was a massive amount of bikes there, and all for free use within the grounds of the museum, and don't worry, they'd be pretty tough to steal. Anyway, there there was a quite large Van Gogh collection, which was presented in a very different way from the Van Gogh museum we visited yesterday. There they also had many other styles, and artists. Also, there was a large sculpture garden, and it was REALLY big. It had about as many sculptures as there were paintings in the actual museum. It was one of the more impressive collections of art over this trip, and also was a impressive estate. 

We're enjoying ourselves a lot, see you all soon!