SMS

Didn’t that used to have something to do with whips and chains? These guys can crack off an SMS message in about 30 seconds. I think it took me about five minutes to muck around with the keypad and get the text that I was after, but I am finally getting with the times and learning how to use some of this basic technology. I don’t have a cell phone yet, but when I do get one, I’ll know how to send SMS messages. Of course Barry had to record this historic event.

Sail Amsterdam

Last week was “Sail Amsterdam 2005”. This huge boating festival was started in 1975 to celebrate the 700 year anniversary of the founding of Amsterdam. But because the city is still a Maritime hub and Amsterdamers are always looking for an excuse to throw a large street party, the festival now runs every 5 years. It all starts with a “Sail-In” parade from the North Sea. The ships gather in Ijmuiden then work their way through the sea canal to Amsterdam. Beth and I thought that this would be a great way to have a picnic lunch and watch the ships go by. We biked up the week before the parade and found a perfect spot to view the ships.

A few people that we mentioned our plans to said that we should probably leave for the parade a bit early to get our spot because it “might” be crowded. On the day of the parade we awoke to beautiful blue skies and comfortable warm temperatures. I talked Beth into playing hooky from work for few hours and we packed up our picnic basket and headed for the Sea Canal around 11:00 AM….it’s about a 15 minute bike ride.

Damn!!!! It started getting busy on the bike trails only 100 meters from our house. By the time that we reached the small village of Spaarndam, the halfway point, we were stuck in the worst traffic jam I’ve ever seen (all bicycles of course). It took us about 45 minutes to get to the canal and we had to park our bikes 2 kilometers away and walk in the last bit. There were several HUNDRED THOUSAND people lining the banks of the waterway to watch the parade. Needless to say, our little picnic spot was already taken.

But also “needless to say”, we had a great time! We pushed and squeezed our way to the banks of the dyke, using all those valuable skills learned while navigating our way through bars and flooded fraternity houses back at IUP (Lambdi Chi for our fellow IUPers). Our timing was impeccable. We found a beautiful spot that was just vacated by a family whose cherubic little kids were throwing temper tantrums and being dragged screaming from the festival. We spread our blanket, opened our bottle of wine, ate our cheese sandwiches and chatted with our picnicking Dutch neighbors, who had lived in America for 10 years and were very grateful to be rid of their earlier neighbors. They’ve been coming to the festival since it started in 1975 and gave us a great deal of history on the event and the ships that we were seeing.

As always, the pictures don’t really capture the magnificence of the event, but I’ve posted a few for you to get a feel for it. For those who may be interested, there are some better aerial photos on the official web site http://www.sail.nl/

Haarlem Jazz? This is a huge street party in our own little town of Haarlem that also took place last week. I don’t have any photos, and you’ve probably already read your limit with the Sail-In description above. So I’ll keep it brief and just tell you that the night started out meeting a group of friends at a great little watering hole called “Fidel’s”….as in Castro…and ended up 6 hours later listening to Disco-Jazz on one of 7 stages set up around the city. Of course there was a lot of other music and maybe “a few” drinks in between. But no evening out is ever really complete without the late night bike ride home through the quiet streets of North Haarlem. The only sound is the creaking of your bike, muffled slightly by the damp sea air gliding coolly past your face. Gezellig.

Swiss

A beatiful boat, this ship was one of our favorites.

Climbing the mast

Can you see all the guys climbing this mast? It helps to show the scale.

Train

A classic example of "Dutchness". Put a train car on a barge...something big where you can get a lot of people into it for a party....and float it in the sail parade.

Schooner 

Military

Not all tall ships of course, but this military boat was huge...and impressive.

Caribbean Blue

It's been a long week here in Holland and we are completely burned-out from enjoying too many beautiful days, attending too many outdoor concerts and shows, running too many long marathon training runs, and spending way too many late nights out with friends. It's Sunday night and there is a lot to tell of the week, but in all honesty I'm too tired to tell it. I'll try to get organized enough later in the week to post some pictures of Sail-In Amsterdam 2005 and give you a story or two from the Haarlem Jazz 3-day street party. For now, I'll leave you with this picture that I took on Wednesday on a bike trip out to the North Sea. I realized that all of the pictures that I've posted of the beaches around here were from the winter and fall - scenic, but always a little bit grey. This photo is proof that the sun really does shine here in Holland and also reveals a more playful side of the North Sea.

Ligonier?

Beth, Sage, and I drove to the other side of Amsterdam last evening to visit the little village of Muiden. The main attraction of the town is the old Muiderslot castle that was commissioned in the 15th century, but we were pleasantly surprised to find that the whole town had a very nice, cozy feel. It is close enough to Amsterdam to attract weekenders coming out to have dinner at one of the many canal side restaurants. The town really reminded us of a Dutch version of Ligonier on the water. It has a fort, is very quaint and picturesque, and even though it attracts a lot of money out from the city (yachts in Muiden’s case), it still has a solid rural population base. We met some nice folks while walking the old dykes above the town. One farmer was walking another short-haired pointer and believe it or not, we actually had a good discussion on hunting. Following are a few pictures of het dorp.

Muiderslot

The castle is a bit in the background here, but look at the size of the yacht that is parked in the harbor compared to it. It goes to show just how far we've come as a civilization.

Fort

Part of the ramparts of the local fort. These forts are a bit different that what you see in the mountains or other parts of Europe. There are many embankments and ramparts scattered around strategically protecting the canals and waterways. None of them are connected by a single wall because land based assault via the surrounding swamps was next to impossible.

A sophisticated diner

Yes, Sage sat with us at this canal side cafe while we enjoyed a beer and watched the boats come by. She was pretty well behaved, but she did not approach the etiquette and calmness of this labrador sitting IN the chair at the neighbors table. Is that Dick Cheney? Didn't he buy a place in Ligonier as well?

Klompen

We saw this guy wearing traditional wooden shoes while we were waiting for a drawbridge. You don't see it much in the cities, but people in the countryside really still do wear these.

A long row to hoe

Beth and I are currently training for the Amsterdam Marathon in October and there are plenty of places nearby to get in a long run. Aside from the National Dunes Park, this trail complex is my favorite. It's very close to home and has a bunch of different lenght loop options...and Sage can come along because there isn't much road frontage and a good portion of it is "loslooplaats"...dogs run free.

It was one of the first trails that we found when we moved to Haarlem last August. I remember looking across the polder at the trees in the distance and thinking - "One of these days I want to run the whole way around there." Now, I have to go around more than once for one of my longer training runs.

BTW - it's also the same polder that the infamous "tipped" sheep was found on.

Nog een jaar!

Today marks our 1 year anniversary of living in Holland. When we talked with the Americans who rented our house the previous year, they spoke of all the great places that they had seen in Europe during their one year stay. Now that our first year here is over, we can’t imagine how they could have possibly crammed in everything that they did in only one year.

Beth and I have taken a somewhat different approach. As you all know, we love to travel and want to see everything that Europe has to offer, but we’re also really immersing ourselves in the enjoyment of daily life here in Haarlem. And we are making what feel like life long new friends in the process.

To celebrate our 1 year anniversary, we went camping with some of these new friends in the Ardennes Mountains in Belgium. It was Sages first time camping and the weather forecast was not good – thunderstorms and rain. It was also “Black Weekend” here in Holland. This is the weekend that marks the beginning of the August holiday season when what seems like 90% of the 16,000,000 Dutch people pack up caravans (campers) and head for Belgium, France, and Spain for the entire month. The roads are typically jammed for 3 solid days. Think 4th of July beach traffic on steroids – “Here come da Dutch!”

With all this stacked against us, it was with more than a little apprehension that we packed up the cars and headed for a campground along the banks of the Ourthe river just outside the medieval village of La Roche.

But, as we rolled out of Haarlem on Saturday morning, the weather broke and while the traffic was certainly heavy, it never backed up and in fact thinned to “normal” as we approached the Belgium border.

I’ve posted some pictures from the weekend.

Cheers!

Look familiar? The Ardennes really reminded us of the Appalachians.

La Roche

La Roche is a quaint little river village nestled into the mountains. This isn't the best picture of the village, but you can just see the 11th century ruins in the background and of course the Sherman tank in the foreground. La Roche was occupied by the Germans for most of WWII - a lot of "Battle of the Bulge" history is close by.

La Roche-river

The Ourthe river through La Roche - it's a kayaker mecca down stream and a canoer mecca up stream.

Navigator?

How does she always end up with the map?

Camping spot

Not exactly the Sawtooth wilderness backcountry, but not bad.

Morning walk

Bundled up for a cool morning walk with the dogs.

Hiking

The trails were very well marked and you often had to get onto these small little forest roads to make a trail connection. BTW - it was mountain biker heaven in the Ardennes!

Provocative

Do you remember the Bickey Burger sign that I posted from Antwerpen? You thought I was kidding about the provocative Belgium signs....this was our campground....a good choice!

Balancing Act

For such a small country The Netherlands packs quite an economic punch. Its pretty amazing to see how they balance the needs of industry with their love of open space and nature - you are never far from either.

To date, none of our visitors have taken me up on the offer to drive to the beach at Wijk aan Zee. They see the large factories, powerplants, and aluminum smelters on the horizon and kind of turn up their nose a bit. In reality, the industry is very well integrated into a quant little beach resort town - strange, but true. A drive past the smelter even reveals an outdoor industrial mondern art garden. Very cool! I'll hit it on the bike one of these days with the camera and post some pics - along with the WWII Nazi submarine base that still exists in the channel harbor.

Three country chicks

We had a little vacation back in the US in July and met up with Katie and Jody on the property in Western Maryland. A good 'ol country time was had by all - 4-wheelin', Kabota'n, Schmoorin' by the fire, and swimming in the river. Yeeeeehaaawww!

Special thanks to Wynona for the pictures ;-)

They all drive like this

Jody and Beth

Katie and Beth

Weeds on the randweg

"Why don't they ever cut those weeds on the side of the road?"

The Randweg is Haarlem's little bypass road that runs along a canal not too far from our house. This spring, the median strip of the randweg and the banks of the canal were filled with tulips and daffodils. It was a beautiful route that we went out of our way to see anytime that we found ourselves in the car. But as the summer heat and sun wilted those flowers, they were slowly overgrown with towering thistles and thickets of tangled "weeds". The once scenic roadway started looking more than a little shabby.

It seems there was a slight change while we were on holiday in the states because this was the scene that greeted us on our bike ride yesterday. We should have known better than to question the Dutch on anything to do with flowers. The "weeds" are now bursting with color and the randweg is again one of the most scenic drives in Haarlem.

Tough Day

A rare moment of relaxation after a busy day in Holland.

Now that the mid-summer heat is in full swing and it's been 3 months since I semi-retired, some of you have asked what a typical day in "The Summer of Dan" looks like. So I put together this little journal. Remember, these are "typical" activities. They vary pretty wildly and no two days seem to be the same.

07:00 AM – Wake-up at first alarm. Make coffee. Let animals out. Do exercises. Read email.
07:30 AM – Take coffee up to wake up Beth. Do dishes, clean kitchen.
08:00 AM – Eat breakfast with Beth.
08:15 AM – Walk to Zannenpark with Sage. Play with Nikos, Roxie, Max, etc.
Talk politics, work (theirs, not mine), etc. with friends in park.
09:00 AM Return to house. Write the great American/Dutch novel.
11:00 AM Get on the “cruiser bike” and do some grocery shopping. If it’s Monday or Thursday, go to open air market in the city center.
11:45 AM Lunch.
12:15 PM Drive to Caprera and do the rounds with Sage in the doggy park….rain or shine.
01:00 PM Stretch, put water, towel, and book into the backpack, load the MP3 Player and head to the dunes on the mountain bike for some hard riding.
02:00 PM Spread towel on the beach at Bloemendale. Catch some rays. Watch people. Read book. Listen to surf or MP3.
03:30 PM Hard bike ride home. This time on the bikelanes of the zeeweg….a faster route.
04:00 PM Check email. Do homework for Dutch lessons. Lessons are Monday and Wednesday, so schedule changes on those days.
05:00 PM Clean the house and backyard for a BBQ that we are having with friends tomorrow evening. We entertain, or are entertained at least twice a week. Adjust schedule accordingly.
05:45 PM Check in on Beth. Start dinner.
06:30 PM Eat dinner with Beth.
07:15 PM Beth and I walk with Sage to Zannenpark. Play with Diesel, Herda, Jolie. Talk with friends.
08:30 PM Drive to Bloemendale and run on the trails through the dunes with Beth. Sage isn't allowed in dunes...she stays home.
09:45 PM Back home. Have a beer in the back yard on the patio. (Remember, it’s still light out in Holland at 9:45 in July!)
10:00 PM Shower, put on jammies.
10:30 PM Open bottle of wine. Sit and talk.
11:15 PM Walk Sage.
11:30 PM Pet treats and Bedtime.

Repeat until April 1, 2007.

Paris

The "Left Bank". This was the area of the city that Hemmingway and other noted writers haunted. Les Deux Maggots is just around the corner in this photo.

I can’t believe that we’ve lived in Europe for almost a year and have only recently taken the high speed train down to Paris. After 4 nights in the heart of the French capital, I can understand the allure and energy that has drawn so many artists, writers, intellectuals, and free thinkers here to sit with like-minded compatriots in a sidewalk café on a quiet square tucked into an hopelessly picturesque quarter of the city.

While I didn’t enjoy the standard tourist sites (I rarely do), I found exploring the less tour-bus trammeled areas of Paris fascinating and beautiful. The following pictures are from our visit. Hope you enjoy!

Sacre Coeur

Another favorite area of the city. Once you got away from the throngs of tourists, "real" scenes like this quickly emerged.

Picnic on the banks of the Seine

With Notre Dame framed by the setting sun, Parisians flock to the banks of the Seine with a bottle of wine, a baquette of bread and a chunk of cheese to enjoy the cool evening.

Office view

Beth's office in Paris overlooks this ornate church. It's a tough gig!