What city were we in again? I thought that I'd either post this or the warnings for Dengue Fever, but I'm not sure that mom would appreciate that one.

Happy Birthday Johnny – Euro Style

Our good friend Johnathan Kenny invited a few folks out for a night on the town to celebrate his birthday. I don’t usually take my camera to these kind of events, so when Barry whipped out his camera and started taking pictures I thought that I’d grab a copy and post them to our blog for you to enjoy. Barry even hired a street magician to come in and provide a bit of entertainment. We were a little worried when he said that he met the guy at a late night (3:00 AM) dance club in Amsterdam, but the magician turned out to be really good and kept us all laughing with his humor and performance.

The happy crew pictured below is comprised of Dutch, British, Irish, American, and Romanians….quite the lineup. Look how cool Beth is in this shot. I think she felt like a movie star with the wind machine that we set up to make her hair "poofie". ;-)

Thanks to Barry for the pictures!

Ooopa!

The sound of breaking glass and the familiar call to dance from a party of older Greek men tossing their plates to the floor brought everyone to their feet for a few times around the restaurant.

You couldn’t have scripted this better for a movie. It was one of those great story events that most people don’t believe actually occurs outside the confines of the trailer park.

Greek Dancing

One more round!

Fidels

Pre and Post dinner watering hole - Fidels

You can see the pubs namesake pictured over my shoulder.

"Hey, that guy's a commie!!!"

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.