Naptime?

This was not the only person that we saw passed out by 3:00. But most people chose a bit of grass near the music for a nap. This guy (probably a Brit) was lucky not to get tipped into the canal.

Is this really a good idea?

When Beth seems to be the expert reading the map, you know that we're having trouble trying to navigate our way around the jam packed streets of Amsterdam. At least she was wearing "Orange".

Hoorn's inner harbor

The more I saw of Hoorn, the more I fell in love with Holland. What a great city! The Golden Age when Holland ruled the world trade markets is still very evident here. The buildings ooze history and the harbor is so intact from the 1600's that you can almost see the crates of exotic spices and casks of German beer being unloaded onto the quays...you can almost hear the hustle of the traders in one of the worlds busiest ports. What an amazing place to get lost in time in!

Tall Ships of Hoorn

More like classic "schooners", these ships are still very impressive. Most of these boats offer trips out on the Markemeer (1 day to 1 week). The accomodations can go from primative to plush. We saw a group of college kids sprawled amongst their backbacks on the decks of one of these ships. They were laughing, loving, and living it up as we all did back in those carefree days. Ahh to be young again - wandering around Europe with friends, letting each day unfold as it will. I wish that I still had such an opportunity in front of me. ;-)

Flowers!

Incredible! We've never seen anything like it before in our lives. The bulb fields are absolutely beautiful. This was the view from a windmill in the Keukenhof gardens. You can get a sense of scale with the two people walking through the fields. The colors were so brilliant...the camera doesn't do them justice. The next several pictures were from the gardens.

Bulb fields 

Bulb fields and canal 

Water Garden 

Gardens 

Canal Kayaking

On Sunday we took advantage of the sunny, warm weather with a lazy afternoon kayaking the canals of Haarlem. We put in just near the central train station and were able to paddle a 7 km loop through the old canals that criss-cross the heart of the city. The perspective from the water is very different and a bit disorienting. Even though we know the surface streets very well now, we found ourselves questioning where we were at in the boats.

We've spoken with many people who want to take us boating this summer. They tell us about all the great paddling here in The Netherlands - from the famous canals of Amsterdam to the wildlife sanctuaries of the northern polders. Little did we know that we'd have such a nice afternoon route right here in our new home town of Haarlem!

Hooligans!

Haarlem's most wanted!

Security cameras captured this image of an Ajax hooligan "marking" their territory in North Haarlem. "God, they urinate everywhere" said one distraught homeowner who just decorated the sidewalk with these new spring planters. These hooligans are known to be very territorial and should be approached only with extreme caution...especially if you are not wearing any orange on voetball day. Anyone with information on the whereabouts of this particular hooligan, please alert the authorities immediately.

The Fabled Dutch Contract

Congratulations to Beth! She has taken a new job at a huge software application provider founded in Germany. Living as we do in Holland, Beth has joined as a Dutch employee … and Dutch employees are entitled to a “classic” Dutch contract. While all of the EU country contracts have their own special touches, I thought that you might enjoy some of the highlights from a Dutch perspective. These items probably seem both trivial and bizarre to us Americans. We tend to go into a job with the attitude that we are sooooo lucky that the company has granted us the privilege to work for them and any bits and scraps that they happen to throw to us are all icing on the cake. Some will say that these little items are perfect illustrations of the socialistic attitudes of Europe and how their labor practices undermine their capitalist way of life. I would ask that you step back and take a look from a different perspective. I propose that these niceties are more reflective of a balanced life culture – including big business culture. And in the case of Holland they are a perfect example of the striving for “gezellig” in all aspects of society (see discussion under blog posting of Feb. 25).

Basic employment provisions – all employees

• 30 days of vacation (goes up based upon age…not tenure or position…i.e. the secretary and CEO get the same # of days if they are the same age)
• 8% vacation salary allowance (effectively a 13th month of pay to enjoy her holidays with)
• Annual allowance for bicycle
• Annual allowance for bicycle accessories
• Free lunch or lunch allowance if working off site (this is a German thing that is carried over…lunches are a BIG deal to German companies)
• Monthly allowance for fresh flowers
• Monthly allowance for fruit baskets
• Full reimbursement for use of public transportation to/from work
• Use of company properties (chalets) across Europe
• All employees – 1st two airline trips in coach….any company trips above 2 are automatically in business class
  
  Special provisions outlined in the contract – all employees:
• Employee Marriage – flowers + 1 month extra gross salary
• Employee Birthday – flowers + fruit basket
• Birth in family – flowers
• New house – plant + fruit basket
• Illness – hospital admission – flowers, sick at home (after 2 weeks flowers)
• Leaving employment – flowers + vvv vouchers
  

All other discussions aside, this is a big deal for Beth. At only 39, she is now a member of the executive team in a fortune 100 global company. Please send her a congratulations!

Smell the flowers

Too many pictures of snow on our blog! In reality, the snow lasted only about 4 days. This is the same field that we took the snow pictures in about 1 week later covered in flowers. It's so bad that I can't even take Beth there now because she gets upset when Sage and Seb go ripping through the field and knock over some flowers.

Encounter with (gasp!) non Americans!

Somewhere in the untamed wilderness of Europe, where they have just discovered the wheel and 220V electricity (110V won't be invented for another 100 years), we came across this primitive tribe of real Dutch people! And they almost look like us "normal" American's - except maybe skinnier and better dressed than your average Joe cheesburger (sorry Joe). ;-)

But how did Beth manage to talk them into pelting me with snowballs? Must have been that "lazy woman post" on our blog.

It's a good thing that you can't kick snowballs. Instead of throwing the ball for Seb and Sage, Patrick kicks it...with amazing accuracy and distance. With Soccer as the national sport, the Dutch don't have very good throwing arms. It seemed really odd at first...watching them throw is kind of comical. But after realizing that they are not raised on baseball or football, it kind of makes sense. Although of all our freinds in Holland, Sheila here has the best throwing arm that we've seen.

Winter (Spring) wonderland!

We got hammered with snow over the past 2 days. This storm was enough to even impress us "Garrett Countian's"...close to 10 inches (25 cm). It is apparently pretty rare to get this kind of snow here in Haarlem. But oddly enough, everyone brought out sleds and started dragging their little ones around the streets ... remember, this is pancake flat Holland ... the closest sledding hill is in the dunes and the roads were atrocious.

Gangs of "snowball hooligans" were all through the streets and the bikers never seemed to even flinch at pedaling on the icy, snowpacked roads....very impressive.

These views are from our third floor bedroom - front and back. Pretty close quarters...about as different as you can get from our place back in the mountains of Maryland!

The Lazy women of my life

Every morning it's the same story. I get up, then Sage joins Beth in bed for more lounging. Notice the cup of hot coffee that was delivered to her bedside. She won't even wake up enough to grab the remote control until that coffee is delivered. It's a rough life! And look how pleased she is that I'm taking the picture...can't wait to see her face when she see's that I've posted this!

Naarden

Hey wait a minute! Haven't we seen this picture before?

After hearing that a German Shorthaired Pointer won the Westminster Dog Show and was named "Best Breed in America", Sage just couldn't resist putting on a pose for the camera.

We did a little day trip over to Naarden last weekend. It's a very cool village about 30 minutes from us. It's ancient double moated, fortifications have now been converted into walking and biking paths. The town itself is very pleasant....a bit "touristy", but it does have a nice medieval feel to it. We'd like to go back with our Kayaks in the summer time because the village sits on the edge of the Ijsselmeer and is surrounded by large swaths of nature reserves.

Beth says that I am now a full blown Euro-snob because I commented that the word "ancient" wasn't really appropriate. Having been built in the 15th century, the town really isn't that old. I guess that I still have Rome on the brain. It has spoiled me. Maybe we'll have to go to Greece next for it to feel old to me again ;-)

I've also included some photos from the web site www.naarden.nl It gives you a perspective of how large the moats and fortifications are that surround the town. And of course we had to walk the entire circuit. Our champion bred dog would tolerate no less.

Cheers!

Ijsbaan

A favorite winter passtime in Holland. They take their skating very seriously. Nearly every city of any size has an Ijsbaan like this one (which is only about 1/2 kilometer from our house). The heart of the sport is further north in Friesland where they have indoor arenas that seat 30,000 people.

Roma!

As we descended into Leonardo Di Vinci Airport, seeing the Tiber River and ruins of the Colosseum framed by snow capped mountains in the distance on one side of the plane and the glistening Mediterranean with its broad sandy beaches on the other, we knew this would be a trip of a lifetime. I am still dumbfounded as I sit and try to capture our visit to Rome in writing. The city, its history, and culture are simply gargantuan.

I won’t try to explain all of the fantastic things that we saw or regurgitate the specifics of a particular place that is well documented in thousands of guidebooks. There were so many sites, ruins, and churches that spanned millenniums of use and reuse as contradictory functions that we didn’t even know what we were looking at half the time. Artifacts and ruins were literally strewn about the city. Intricately carved marble pillars that would make the A-list of most museums were seen overgrown with weeds on the median strip of a large road. Historic buildings were “restored” at the turn of the 14th century and ancient sacred sites were reconsecrated and renamed under Christianity. It was mind boggling to try and keep track of everything.

So, I’ll focus this little description toward a few key highlights of our adventure, and let the rest to the reader’s imagination.

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It didn’t take long to orient ourselves to the layout of the old city center. Our hotel location was perfect; even though the room itself was little more than a closet. We only paid 90 Euro/night…a bargain in high priced Rome. Two blocks to the west of the hotel was Piazza Navona – a large baroque oval plaza built on the foundation of a 1st century Roman arena. It is now adorned by 3 large Bernini fountains and a host of restaurants. Two blocks to the east was The Pantheon- the world famous temple of all gods. If I had to pick a favorite building in Rome, it would be this one. The setting of the temple was sublime, nestled into a small piazza surrounded by more modern buildings (15th and 16th century). The narrow cobbled streets just give you a teasing glimpse of the imposing, yet simple structure. I always made sure that our evening walks home from the local restaurant or pub somehow managed to pass through here. I couldn’t get enough of it.

The historic center of Rome is a tangled maze of narrow cobble stoned streets lined with colorful stucco buildings. At 75% of the intersections of these winding streets is a piazza. Some piazzas are little more than a wider spot in the street that is taken over by parked cars. Others are huge public gathering spots with grandiose fountains and statues surrounded by restaurants and vendors. Most are somewhere in between these two extremes, but all were fun to explore. I was a bit surprised how much we enjoyed all of the fountains. Even the huge, “bus tour route” Trevi Fountain with its throngs of tourists was worth a visit. Bernini also designed this one. The sunken viewing pit with the ancient building as a backdrop made you feel like you were alone with the charging horses and rushing waves. I guess that the water pressure generated from the aqueducts made such fountains possible.
The manipulation of water by the Romans was astounding. We also visited the Baths of Caracalla – built in 246 AD. This was a complete entertainment complex with hot baths, swimming pools, gymnasiums, cool misting rooms and an opera theater. The entire complex was designed to handle 8000 people per day. Huge water tanks built into the walls allowed for the water to be completely controlled on any of the 4 levels of the main building. At 30 meters high (90 feet) they could also get quit a bit of localized pressure to flush the entire baths. We were amazed that they let you walk on the intricate tile work, which was still in place in many of the rooms. The sheer size of this complex, along with the imagined social interactions that must have taken place here over the course of the 300 years it operated, made this one of our favorite ruins to explore.

Back in the city center, we were starting to get comfortable with the odd interaction between motorized vehicle and pedestrian. The traffic in Rome is atrocious. There are plenty of cars and busses clogging up the broader avenues, blatantly disregarding any concept of traffic rules. But scooters are the true rulers of the streets here, much the same way that bicycles rule the streets of Amsterdam. The advantage of a scooter is that you can zip around the very narrow side streets and also weave your way to the head of the pack on the larger main roads. As a pedestrian, they are your sworn enemy. On the back streets they constantly bob and weave through crowds of pedestrians. It took us a while to figure out that in order to cross a street, you simple have to step out into traffic. If you wait for the cars to stop, you will be there all day. When you step into the road, some vehicles actually race their motor in a threatening manner, but if you have a determined composure they will give way. They will come close. Very, very close, but they will stop and let you cross. Once we got the hang of it, it stopped feeling like you were a 10-point target for some maniacal driver every time you stepped off the curb.

At one spot, we think we saw the Italian president…or maybe the pope. Not that we would know either of them if they were seated beside us eating cabernari and drinking red wine. But it must have been someone important. As we walked toward the Roman Forum, we tried to cross a large piazza to ascend the capital steps. Traffic was hopelessly snarled and we had to shimmy our way through the stuck cars. When we reached the source of the clog, armed guards with Uzi’s stopped us from proceeding with a very stern look. Sirens wailed in the distance and a procession of speeding Mercedes with Italian flags raced by. It felt like a motocross when the 20 or 30 scooters that had managed to squeeze to the front of the traffic jam, buzzed out across the circle after the armed guards gave the “all clear” sign.

Free from the chaos of the streets, we climbed the steps to capital hill and admired the view of the city sprawled out in front of us. In the distance we could see the dome of St. Peters Basilica. We milled around the museums on the top of the hill, but the weather was so nice that we decided to cross the piazza and head for the larger ruins on the other side of Capital hill. As we rounded the hill to a viewing point where we hoped to get a glimpse of the colosseum in the distance, both of our jaws dropped in awe.

“Oh my god”, Beth said. I could barely reply and only mustered a faint “Holy shit” at the view that greeted us.

There before us lay the Forum…the heart of political and social life of ancient Rome. It stretched for 2 kilometers in front of us, a mass of buildings, arches, pillars and ruins. To the right and covering the original of the 7 Roman hills were the sprawling ruined palaces of the Palentine – where Remus and Romulus were raised by the she-wolf. And towering over it all in the distance was the colosseum. A massive archeological site that encompassed an area 3 times the size of the capital mall in Washington D.C. All protected from modern intrusion….all available for us to wander through. This view is the picture that I have included in the posting. You have to pick out the people down on the sacred road to get a full appreciation of the scale. It was enormous. We spent the entire day here.

Elsewhere on our sojourns around the city we encountered a huge colony of feral cats that had taken up residence in a small, but remarkably well-preserved set of temple ruins. We stopped counting at 50 the number of cats that we saw prowling the site. The Rome humane society seemed to be caring for them. There were several signs stating that they were well fed and if you wanted to help to please donate to the society for sterilization programs.

We also really enjoyed Castel St. Angelo. It started out as Hadrian’s mausoleum, but a castle and fortifications where built over top of it during the rise of Christianity. It was the only place to withstand the many sackings of Rome during the fall of the empire. The views from the very top of the tower were the best in the city.

Piazza del Popolo, with it’s massive stolen Egyptian Obelisk (when the Romans sacked Egypt) was another favorite.

We still didn’t quite “get” the Italians. Our experience here was much better than our trip to Tuscany 10 years ago, although the food and wine don’t even come close to superb quality found near Florence. But the Italians themselves were just as we remembered. I’m sure that the big city population of Rome, overrun with millions of tourists, is a bit more standoffish, but there is still a lingering sense of unfriendliness about Italians for me. We always presented ourselves as Netherlanders and even conversed in Dutch with an Italian waiter, but I don’t think it has anything to do with nationality. It’s more of a machismo thing…like Spain, or Mexico but more pronounced. As I said, maybe we just don’t get them.

There are too many other sites and experiences to mention. Suffice it say that I would highly recommend Rome. It’s big, crowded, dirty, and expensive. But it’s also one of the most fantastic places that I’ve ever been. All it takes is a little attitude.

Scroll down to the next postings for more pictures.

Piazza Navona

The Colosseum 

The Pantheon

Saint Peters Square - this one's for you mom! 

Cold, but happy. 

City View - enough churches for you? 

Antwerpen

Graffiti Art Park - Some of our European friends would be rolling their eyes that after spending two days in Antwerpen these are the photo's that I decided to post. In truth, Antwerpen is a beautiful city with a great blend of old architecture, cobblestoned streets, and ultra modern office buildings. We had a wonderful time exploring. There were so many restaurants to choose from that we decided to "graze around" and just ate appetizers at 5 different places one evening for dinner.

Of course, Beth and I are always trying our best to get off the beaten path and see how the locals really live. We discovered this little park just south of the historic center....not on any tourist map. It's set in a mix of older buildings and looks like it is actually formed over a demolished building site. It did have grass, but there were many brick foundations scattered about. The city must encourage graffiti here, because every square inch was painted. We spent nearly an hour wandering around the murals and trying to figure out each artists message. Some of this work was incredible! I took a particular interest in the bottom painting. Something about the futility of the snowmen trying to cross the water to be with the woman, and her apparent lack of fear or encouragement hit home for me....Beth - can you explain that one for our readers ? ;-)