Need a vacation?

Beth and I have just signed up for a three week safari in Africa early this summer. We’ll be canoeing the Okanvango Basin, hiking in the Morremi Wildlife Reserve, and camping under the stars while hyenas and elephants try to scavenge food from the camp sites (a special “feature” highlighted in the brochure). Then we’ll spend the last few days in the relative civilization of Livingston (as in “Dr. I presume?”) at the foot of Victoria Falls.

We thought that while we’re out roughing it in the backcountry of Botswana, that we’d offer up our house here in Haarlem for you to use for a holiday of your own. Old friends, new friends, family….anyone we know that’s reading this site is welcome to c’mon over and use the place. Two+ bedrooms, 1 ½ bath, new kitchen, bikes, …the works.

The only string that comes with this offer is cat duty. And if you’re real adverse to that, then all you would need to do is allow our local friend into the house to take care of things.

Give it some thought and send an email for dates. First come, first serve.

Cheers!

Remnants of war

I had heard about an installation of still existing German bunkers near Ijmuiderslag since we first moved to Holland more than two years ago and I've been wanting to check them out ever since. But for one reason or another, I’ve never made it out…until now.

This complex - and it can only be described as a massive complex - was built by the occupying German forces during WWII to protect the North Sea Canal route into Amsterdam. The gunnery installations also provided an additional layer of protection for a submarine base (also still in existence) in the nearby port of Ijmuiden. From what I understand, the Germans thought that this area of coastline would be a prime landing area for the allies when they would try and retake the continent.

The entire area is open to explore and for the most part you can enter into these surface bunkers. This photo only shows a small portion of the complex. The entire ridgeline is pocked with old gun turrets, machine gun nests, and dark entrances into the three story labyrinth that connects it all together deep underground.



Here is a close-up shot of one of the bunkers. I saw a group of people climbing into this one with a few back-packs of party supplies, a few guitars, and a few happy dogs. Hearing their guitars echoing from the bunker walls reminded me of a scene from the 1960’s.


Here is one of the many unmaintained entrances to the labyrinth below. In some cases, there are sheer 30 ft drops down concrete shafts. It's the kind of scene that would cause an American Personal Injury Lawyer to salivate.


Sage goes for the machine gun nest.



This is the only maintained, and official entrance to the historic site. It is from here that they start the occasional guided tour of the underground.

Have you seen me?

Making its second, and final appearance in our dandbhaarlem blog....Beth's bike.

Unfortunately, it was nicked last weekend right out of the front garden. We've actually been pretty lucky so far...three years in the bike theft capital of the world and only our fist bike stolen . Some of our friends have had two or three stolen from them since we've been here. Beth was pretty bummed, mostly because she was the one who forgot to lock it up on a friday evening.

Our friends just laughed when she said that she wanted to put out posters in the parks and bike shops and file a police report. They figure that someone is already enjoying their "new" bike 100's of kilometers away down in Maastricht. Oh well, at least now she gets to buy a(nother) new one.