New Wheels

Well, I finally did it. Now that I'm actually contributing to the financial situation of Dan & Beth Inc., I decided to go out and purchase the new bike. And this isn't just any old run-of-the-mill bike that is designed for doing x, y, and z. Nope. This bike is designed purely for x. And x means trekking.

This bike means business. I've loaded it down with rocks and begun training on all my local routes. It handles like a champ, chugging along with far less effort than the extra weight would lead you to believe possible.

The first trip is planned for this fall when I'll throw the bike onto the train down to Middleburg in South Holland and spend three days biking back up to Haarlem. The big trip will be next spring when I'll tackle the Rhine river route from Noordwijk, NL to Basel, Switzerland. If all goes well, and I find myself some extra time on my hands (wink, wink, nudge, nudge), I'd like to try and continue on and cross the Alps to the Mediterranean. Who knows?

There is only one problem with this baby. Because it is so specialized for trekking, I think that I'll have to go out and buy another bike that is specialized for speed. ( Sue - Does that remind you of anyone? ;-)

Horses grazing in front of castle ruins ... does the scenery from the bike get any better?

Denmark

Typically we avoid all travel in the month of August in Europe. It's just such a hassle with all the traffic and overbooked hotels. This year, we just happened to have a reservation for Sage at the dierenpension for a few days and decided to take a short road trip up to Denmark. The roads were jammed (of course), but we ended up having a great time. Not great enough to ever, ever drive again in August unless absolutely necessary, but all-in-all not so bad.



Our first impulse stop was one of our best. The northern German town of Bremen was very cool. It is a great mix of old and new that had a nice, friendly vibe to it.

Hamburg on the other hand was pretty much a bust. New, brash, and lacking any sense of character, this 2nd largest German city did nothing for us. The only site worth mentioning was this bombed out church, left as it was found after an allied air raid as a reminder of the price of war.

The church must have been massive - this surviving bell tower is still one of the tallest buildings in the inner city - I couldn't capture it on camera.

After Hamburg, we made an early start for Puttgarden where we had a ferry reserved for 13.35. At 13.15 the dark clouds came rolling through and we were still stuck 17 kilometers away in standstill traffic jams. I almost turned the car around to go the land route over to Denmark when the traffic finally dispersed at a local village where there was a large festival underway. We broke out of the crowd and raced for the ferry. We were able to drive right onto the 13.55 boat and found ourselves on the open Baltic 10 minutes later.

Unfortunately, the weather just got worse and the ferry pitched and swayed for the entire 40 minute Baltic Sea crossing. It wasn't quite as bad as the ride over to Catalina Island 10 years ago, but it was pretty bad for such a large boat.

We spent two days on the southern islands of Denmark, hopping around small towns and villages. The western most island of Mon was beautiful. It felt like a trip through The Shire and I kept expecting to see Hobbits crossing the road. Maybe Tolkien got some inspiration here.

But once again, discovering the details was the most interesting part...


...only found in an out-of-the-way corner of an old cobbled street.

On the other hand, the chalk cliffs of Mon were spectacular in their grandeur. The Baltic is a pale blue here because of the influence of the cliffs.


This was a great shot that I had to get out on the edge of the cliff to get. After taking the photo, I looked down at my feet only to see directly through the ground to the sea below! I was on a precipice that was only held together by a tangle of roots. Yikes!


Maybe we'll look into a schooner like this one for our next vacation. I wonder if the scenery in Croatia is this nice?

Then it was on to Copenhagen, where there were classic scenes like this market square...

...and cliche scenes like Nyhavn.

There were a lot of cozy cafe's to sit out the rain and surprisingly, the food actually came close to rivaling Northern Italy.

One of our favorite stops in Copenhagen was the freetown enclave of Christiania. An old hippie colony that operates it's own form of government and has survived more than 30 years of ups and downs. Somehow it still has that feeling that must have permeated the summer of love in Haight-Ashbury. Very cool.

There are some really interesting hand built houses...


...and some houses that were rolled in just to keep out the rain.

The nice thing about Christiana is the fact that they have their own business district. This was one of the little pubs...

...where we sat for a cold beer under the shade of the mascot plant above the door.



Why Denmark now? Because we had a free place to crash at the vacation cottage of our good friends Jan and Marjolein (are we the only ones who do this anymore?). The house was set just off a quite beach north of Assens and had an excellent yard where the guys mopped up at obstacle oriented petenque. A great end to a great (little) holiday. Leuk!


EDITOR'S NOTE: Beth insists that I mention that the guys only mopped up on the first game...the girls did better in games two and three.

Summer Medley

One of our favorite little pubs in the area is a place called Het Hemeltje in Bloemendaal. It's about a 20 minute walk from our house that just happens to take us along one of Sage's favorite canal parks. So naturally, she always comes with us. The waitresses are starting to get to know her and have been known to "accidentally" drop a french fry or two near her on their way to serve other tables. Needless to say, she rather enjoys it.

Speaking of canals, our good friends Patrick and Shiela bought a nice little boat recently and took us out for a cruise around Haarlem. It was a relaxed evening with wine, cheese, olives and lots of laughter.

And we got to see some wild animals in the Hemstede wilderness...

...and some wild plants in the Haarlem wilderness ;-).

And I even got to drive the boat...Beth just calls me Cap'n Dan now!

Uncovering a new custom

Thanks to our good friends Sean and Sandra (and Jill), Beth and I were recently introduced to a kind of cool tradition here in Holland. It seems that licorice sprinkles (blue for boy, pink for girl) on a hard bread biscuit helps to bring good luck and good breast milk while warding off evil spirits when a new baby is born. Known as "little mice", these guys were actually pretty tasty - which must have something to do with the breast part.

I don't see a lot of opportunities on the horizon to take part in this little tradition again (sorry mom), so we'll have to find another excuse to partake in muisjes.

Wishing a happy welcome to Jill! ... and a fast recovery to Sandra.

UIT!

Well, you can't say that we didn't get into the spirit of things when we went into Amsterdam for the big game over the weekend. The Dutch lost, but the French restaurant was delicious!

Orange

Once again, the allure of organized sporting events eludes me. This years Euro cup got off to a great start for the Dutch team with an apparent record breaking win over Italy in their opening match. As you can imagine, it has gotten a bit crazy around here. This is news footage of a Dutch party in Vienna in prep for the game tonight against France.

In the opening minutes of the game, I threw on my orange shirt to show support and went for a nice long run through the city. It's really a pretty cool experience....kind of like a Stephen King novel about a devastating plague or something. There was virtually no one on the streets. I counted 10 people and 5 cars on my entire run. Amazing!

By the way, the Dutch destroyed France 4-1. The crazyness continues....

City Limits

I was just playing around on Google Earth yesterday and it became abundantly clear how different that our lives have become since we moved to Haarlem 4 years ago. These before and after images show just what I mean:

Our woods in Maryland

Our "hood" in Haarlem

But no one ever told us that we couldn't bring a little bit of country life into the city limits with us.

Lekker Vakantie

Another spring brings another trip back to America. This time around our good friend Esther joined us. It was her first trip to the states.

It's hard to bring someone from Europe over to America without a few nights in New York city. Not that Beth and I mind...NYC is quickly becoming one of our favorite US stop-overs.


Can you see a key destination for Beth here on 5th Avenue? Yes, she finally got her I-Touch.

We found a great little apartment in the west village....away from the tourists and in the heart of lived-in lower Manhattan. Kitchen, dining room, living room, full bath and bedroom all for about $75 cheaper than a cramped hotel room. Here we are packing up for the drive west.


...where we visited Pap and Virgette for a "down home" lunch...

...and a walk down memory lane. Look at that hair and those sideburns! Beth was already all leg!
Then it was a stop over in Ligonier to visit with the Glasstetter clan. Sue and Tom were in from New Mexico and we all helped mom and dad finish settling into the new house.

No trip to Ligonier is complete without a breakfast stop at the Fairfield Inn.

Of course we continued on down to Western Maryland, where we did some shootin'...

(Dutch girl with a loaded gun...now THAT is scary!)

...some ATV'n...

...and of course some famous sittin' by the campfire before hopping into the hot tubbin'.

We also went to the new ASCI adventure sports center on top of the mountain to watch some kayakers in the new man-made whitewater course.

And speaking of white water....we also visited Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. Fantastic!

We had traditional American roadside cuisine on the way back east to Delaware...

...where we ate a little bit tastier food - blue fin crabs spiced with 'Ol Bay...Lekker!

A nice walk through downtown Rehoboth...


...and a great bayside visit with the Boyer clan.


All in all a great trip!

Silent eye

Have you encountered these little guys in the US yet? They are becoming more and more common over here and even though I’ve gotten 5 tickets from them now, they really don’t bother me. These mechanical speed cameras are just the same as a police speed trap in the states, except much more predictable. They work best on the smaller side roads where you are entering into a built-up area, catching your attention and slowing you down.

Out on the highways they are virtually useless. Now that I have been driving the same route every day, I have become part of the comical dance around the camera. 95% of the commuting traffic knows exactly where these guys are placed along the highway. The speed limit around Amsterdam is 100 km/hr, but everyone goes 120…until about 300 meters before a camera. There is no braking among the usual commuters. Just a gentle slowing down and moving to the right hand lanes so as not to attract attention. You coast into the camera’s range at 100, then just as you pass the machine everyone pulls back out into the left hand lane and speeds back up. It really interesting social behavior to observe. Almost like ants working a mound in unspoken unison.

Disco Bowling

During the winter months Beth and I often find ourselves in the local bowling alley with friends, 'whooping ass' - so to speak, at this not-invented-in-but-distinctly-American pastime.

Well, just before the time change here in Europe, we went one last time to the lanes. It was a special night at Bison Bowling, because just as we were getting warmed up (frame 3), the lights went out, loud disco music rumbled through the hall, and a laser hit the disco ball sending blades of light across the lane. Disco bowling!

This picture captures the dizzy haze of the flashing lights and dry ice....

...and this one captures how much fun everyone was having. Beth and I both scored the worst games in a long, long time...but we still mopped up against our Dutch friends.