Changes

We just returned from the annual fall pilgrimage back to America. This year seemed to be full of changes, starting with the house in Maryland.

We’ve decided to rent the place out to vacationers to offset some of the absurd taxes that we pay in Garrett County. Even with the down economy, the rental season was a resounding success. We had visitors from as far away as Los Angeles and Chicago and it was really fun reading through their comments in our guest book. The place held up well and except for one broken vase, we noticed no theft or damage. Our rental manager did tell us about a bizarre situation when a young couple (mid twenties) arrived from Pittsburgh very late on Friday night. They called him at 1:00 AM threatening to sue for ruining their vacation because the driveway was too bumpy and too long. They ended up at the police station with the women on the phone with her lawyer. The officers were able to calm the situation down, and then the couple was escorted by the rental manager out to the house. After they got over their apparent fear of the dark, they enjoyed the place, wrote very nice comments, and promised to return next year. Only in America…I swear, you can’t make this stuff up.

We blazed a new trail to the river and added the “Crooked Butt Bench” for next year’s guests. Beth and I always loved this spot on the land, but have called it by a different name that isn’t appropriate for our family-oriented renters.

We’ve also begun construction on a Celtic stone circle just below the house, inspired by our recent visit to the Drombeg circle in Ireland. It’s a smaller version, not aligned to the stars like the original. And I’m sure that the ancient Celts didn’t use a John Deere 790 to set the stones.

My parents are selling the old hillbilly homestead up in Ligonier. Lots of memories in this place and we’re all sad to see it go.

But living in downtown within walking distance to the village square is also very nice.

We hit the fall colors after peak, but they did seem a little brighter down in West Virginia. The hiking around Seneca Rocks was spectacular…

…as was the view from the top.

Drukte

It’s been a busy two weeks over here in Holland. Actually, Beth hasn’t been around much. Business is picking up at her company and the travel budget is starting to flow again. She’s had back-to-back trips to America and has a few others already scheduled down to mecca in Germany. She’s missed the travel and is not complaining. Besides, after the rude awakening of not being able to use the premier lounge in the airport on our last vacation, she’s happy to be building up her status miles again.

I, on the other hand, have been doing a lot of in-country travel, capped by an intensive training in Arnhem where I was subjected to an intensive 4-hour, rotating interrogation (the interrogators rotated, I didn’t). The training was being observed by a group of students, and the entire exercise was in Dutch. I held up ok during the session, but my brain completely ceased to function as soon as I got back in the car and autopiloted home to Haarlem. It was one of my most grueling days in a long, long time.

I figured what I really needed was some good, old-fashioned physical labor, so I finally set aside a few days and replaced the roof on our shed. This was a lot more harrowing than you would think. The roof decking is 1/8 inch plywood and barely holds the weight of a heavy cat (like clyde), let alone me. There is only one supporting beam between each wall and the peak, so I had to make a few jigs out of 1 inch boards that I could walk on (see just above ladder in this picture). I then had to slide the jigs along as I worked. Can we all say “major pain in the ass?” To top it all off, you are under constant surveillance from your neighbors when you do this kind of work. It was the second time in a week that I felt like I was in a fishbowl and it didn't do much to help relieve my mental fatigue.

But, as luck would have it, Beth was home over the weekend, and we had a chance to finally let off a little of the steam at the Bok Bier Festival here in Haarlem. Bok bier is a bit on the heavy side and comes in at 6.5% alcohol, so the tastings quickly hit home with us. Each glass was like eating a loaf of alcohol soaked bread. But Ilona wanted to keep going. There was a gang of bikers on the route in front of us, and she kept pushing us to get caught up with them. I think she had her eye on the one with the long beard and skull tattoo on his cheek.

We're headed off to America to shut down the house for winter. Next posting in November.

Cheers!

Chop Shop

One only need look at this massive bike parking garage in Amsterdam to understand how ubiquitous the bicycle is to Dutch culture. And even though you see all sorts of bikes on the streets, from high-end 5000 euro racing bikes to 5 euro beat-up granny fiets, they take each and every one very seriously. It is no coincidence that we frequently hear from the older generations that one of the things that they remember the most about the Nazi occupation back in 1942 was the confiscation of their bicycles.

But as Americans, it was never a particularly big concern to us that Beth has already had two bikes stolen in the last five years. She knows that she asked for it both times, once leaving it unlocked in the front garden and another time leaving it at the central rail station over a weekend. We always chuckled when our friends gave us great condolences on each loss, as if it were a child, and spoke about how those awful people (bike thieves) should be tarred, feathered, and strung up on the city square like in the good old days.

So with that background now given for context, you will understand that it was with great trepidation, and genuine fear, that I undertook a covert operation last month to get Beth a new bike. Here’s how it went down…

After her last bike was stolen, we decided to buy her a used piece-o-shit that we thought no one could ever possibly want to steal. After all, I have left mine unlocked overnight at the train station on more than one occasion and no one has shown any interest in nicking it. My bike is an extremely ugly sucker, with torn saddle bags, chipped paint, and duck-tapped fenders.

So we went the to the used bike shop and she tried out a few. We were in a hurry because of a dinner engagement, so she just chose the ugliest bike she could find. The problem was that, unlike my comfortable piece-o-shit, her ugly bike turned out to be a real lemon. The gears didn’t work properly, the front rim had sharp spot that punctured three tires in four days and she could barely keep up with me even on a simple grocery run. All this luxury for only 175 euros. And to top it off, there was no warranty or guarantee on used bikes. We had been screwed.

About three weeks (and numerous inner-tubes) later, I noticed a bike pushed into the weeds in the local dog park – where I walk every day, twice a day and know just about everyone else who walks there. At first, I thought that some kids had left it there while they were running around the park. But on the second day when I saw that the bike was still there, I nonchalantly walked over toward the weeds, pretending to pick up a mess left by Sage. As I got closer to the bike, I could see that it was a nice one. I scanned the park-- no one was watching me, so I took a chance and lifted the bike up to get a better look at it. It was in perfect condition! None of the frame was bent and the tires even still had air in them. And it looked about Beth’s size. The bike was locked, so it was pretty obvious that some drunken teen-agers had stolen it over the weekend, locked it, ditched it in the weeds and flung the key into the pond.

A Dutch person would have come to this same conclusion. But their reaction would have been very different. They would have called the police who would have come, reviewed the “scene” then taken the bike back to the station for cataloging. If by chance someone could claim it (by serial number), they would get their bike back. If not, well then it would go up for auction with the 100’s of others every month and the police would make a little profit.

I saw it differently. For me, it was an opportunity to score Beth a new bike.

On the third day, the bike was still there. So I stayed up later than usual and walked by myself to the park after dark. It was 23.30 on a weeknight, so the chances of seeing anyone were minimal. It’s Haarlem, not Amsteram. I snuck over to the weeds and pulled the bike out. For those of you who don’t know, the bike locks here in Holland are attached to the back forks and then engage around the back tire between the spokes. This keeps the bike from moving. So in order to get the thing home, I had to lift the back of the bike and half carry it the four blocks to my house. Not something that can really be done without being pretty obvious about your intentions. The only excuse is “I lost my key” which I kept running through my head in Dutch in case I had to say it.

Just as I was exiting the park, I ran into an older man walking his two Jack Russels. I didn’t know him well, but we have exchanged many pleasantries in the park. He recognized me immediately and asked where Sage was, eyeing me cautiously with the obviously locked bike. My heart was racing and I was sure that I’d get an accusatory question about the bike, but luckily, he let me off after I said that Sage was sick…never underestimate the sympathy of other dog lovers. I was able to get the thing home without further encounter and secreted into my back yard where I hid it under the outdoor table. I didn’t sleep very well that night as I kept dreaming of people pounding on my door and envisioning tomorrow’s headlines – “Citizen alert! Foreign scumbag caught in North Haarlem as mastermind for huge bike theft ring!”

The next day, I set to the task of getting the lock off the bike. The thick steel half-circle locking component would take me hours to hack through with my little saw, so I started with the thinner, metal plated lock housing. It only took about 10 minutes before I had cut enough to jam a stout screw driver into the slot and bend the housing out around the frame. Five minutes later, the wheel was spinning freely.

But the bike still looked stolen (even though, technically, I wasn’t the one who stole it). So I started breaking down components from Beth’s old bike – Seat, saddle bags, lights and moving them over the new bike. I finished it off with a few rounds of duck-tape to hide the brand name and some of the coloring. The yard looked like a chop shop, with bike parts and tools scattered everywhere. But at 13.00 in the afternoon, it was finally reassembled and I was feeling confident enough to have Beth give it a test run. It fit her surprisingly well, everything worked perfectly, and it was completely unrecognizable. She loved it!

Maybe I’ve finally found my true calling…

Eire

A friend of ours has a family vacation home right on the coast in West Cork, Ireland and has been offering for us to stay there for a few years now. So when Sue and Tom suggested meeting up somewhere in Europe for a fall holiday, we finally took Jonathan up on his offer. The weather was perfect and the scenery was spectacular. Here are a few pictures from the trip, with a special thanks to Jonathan, John, and Mary!


The beautiful cottage in Union Hall that we called home for the week.


We had a great time on the sunny terrace in the mornings or exploring the local hidden coves…

…and crawling on the seaside rocks to check out the tidal pools.


There was plenty of hiking with incredible mountaintop views...


...and loads of cool, forgotten ruins around every corner.


You can almost imagine the sharks circling below these cliffs, waiting for one of these sheep to fall. Mmmm….mutton, lekker.


The trail into Mizen Head with the rusty bridge-o-death as Beth called it.


This ancient Celtic stone circle was amazing. I wonder what curse she is conjuring up for me now!

The original port of Baltimore.


There were loads of authentic Irish pubs with great music in the evenings. This was our local hangout just down the street from the cottage.


But I thought this was a great one in Dingle. An Irish pub with a German beer garden -- the real Glasstetter heritage -- my grandfathers would be proud!


Isn't she a sweetheart? I’m sure that I never said anything to provoke such a reaction.

Which one of these kids is thinking, ”I keep feeling like I’m forgetting something…”

Festivals, firepots and fall

I know, I know. It’s still the last day of August for crying out loud. But fall is my favorite season, and just like the long cool dusks of mid-September, I like to draw this season out as much as possible. Now, as I sit in our sunny back garden to write this week’s blog entry, a crisp, salty breeze is pushing in from the North Sea, expressing agreement with me for the change of season.


Seeing this guy out in the dunes on my last bike ride didn’t help matters much. The photo is fuzzy because I was so far zoomed in and couldn’t hold the camera steady (Can we all say buck fever!) Look at that rack! Of all the things that I miss from America, the fall hunting has to top the list. I still debate whether I’d enjoy a wild boar hunt down in Belgium. For me it’s more about the ritual and the camaraderie than the kill. I’m just not sure if I’d get that from a guided hunt.



We wrapped up the last of the summer festivals this weekend with a bike ride up to Ijmuiden for their annual Havenfeest (Port Festival). Ijmuiden is one of the largest trawler ports in North Holland and is known for roughneck dockworkers and fishermen. It’s a great place to come for unpretentious, fresh fish restaurants- the kind with newspaper tablecloths and cold beer. The festival was jammed on a sunny day, but we had a good time wandering around and sampling the local port culture and food (of course).


Dutch women in traditional garb. Also note the funky crane in the background. The guy operating this was a master at his work. He put on several demonstrations where he’d pick up buckets of water, swing them around like a lifeguard with a whistle, then fling them at passing boats. It was really cool to watch this massive arm moving with such suppleness, like a huge Transformer robot.


While not our taste, this one-woman folk opera performance of “The Flying Dutchman” was interesting.


Ride the bull? Not in a Haven’s festival! See the guy controlling the surfboard in the back? He’d let the kids build a little confidence before he’d really try to throw them off. This little girl was incredible. She held on for almost four minutes…better than any of the little tough guys we saw trying to surf.

And after the bike ride home we broke out the firepot for one of those beautiful, cool, long dusks that I mentioned. Somehow the wine always tastes better in front of a firepot.

Dorpsfeest

Beth and I recently hit the dorpsfeest (village party) up in Santpoort. It was the 250th anniversary of the festival and I was a bit surprised to find out that after going up there for food, drinks, dancing, and general rabble-rousing over the last 5 years that the most famous event at the festival is a horse race through the village streets. We had never seen, nor heard of this before.

They dumped sand onto the only street that extended the 300 meters needed for the race. It was a very hot day and the streets were lined with rowdy people, placing bets, smoking cigars and drinking cold, cold beer. I had no idea what I was watching, so I didn’t place any bets and I quit smoking years ago...but the beer sure was good.

Later that evening we decided to go through the “Hotel of Traps” that was set up in the main village square. It was a great walk-through funhouse with all kinds of moving stairs, spiraling walkways, and blasting air canons. There was a conveyer belt floor that whisked you along at surprising speed and dumped you into wall of rotating punching bags that squeezed you (especially us adults) into a rubber net. Very cool! I haven’t had this much fun in a funhouse since Noah’s Arc in Kennywood…does that one even still exist?

Psychedelic groovy man.

This three story tight spiral slide was the most treacherous part of the whole funhouse. All of the adults that we saw walking through with their kids avoided this slide by opting to climb down a moving stairway. We decided to go for it. I went first, but since I was wearing short pants I laid mostly on my back and tucked my knees up so that I would go as fast as possible. Big mistake! The tube was too small for me and spirals were too tight. I did go bloody fast, but my right knee and right elbow were driven into and dragged along the the wall of the spiral and when I popped out the other side I had some of the deepest, nastiest brush burns that I’ve had since the time that I wiped-out on my skateboard at the bottom of Barkley Street when I was nine years old. My knee is still scabby today after two weeks!

At 30 kilo’s lighter and 20 centimeters shorter, Beth fared much better and came through the spirals unscathed.

The fun continues tonight with our favorite street festival in Haarlem. One last hoorah for summer!

Chateau'ing

In English we can make a verb out of almost any word by adding "ing", right? Therefore, the definition of chateau'ing would be to tour one or more chateaux while on vacation.

And if that's the definition, then last week we went chateau'ing. We were in France on a short holiday that included the Loire Valley - famous for its many chateaux and world renowned white wine. This beautiful valley is where the French elite of yesteryear lived and played. After seeing the fantastic landscape, pristine trout-filled rivers, and endless vineyards, it is easy to see why the wealthy decided to build their chateaux here. And after seeing the decadent extravagance of these chateaux, it is equally easy to see why the French revolted against their monarchs and ended up hauling a bunch of these folks back to Paris where they were paraded in front of the peasants before having their heads lopped off to shouts of glee. But this is supposed to be a pleasant blog post so I won’t dwell on that dark (yet somewhat interesting) historical aspect of the trip. My camera was giving me grief, so I didn’t get that many good shots, but I’ve posted a few that should give you a good impression of this short holiday down in France.

We rolled out of Haarlem early on Saturday in order to beat the crush of traffic moving south toward the sun for summer holiday. One radio report put the wait to get into the tunnels under the Alps at 6 hours! But we avoided the worst of it by cutting across the Delta Works in Zeeland, dropping through a tunnel under the port of Antwerp and cruising out across rural Belgium before stopping for our first night in Rouen, the capital of Normandy. The city was MUCH bigger than we expected and getting the car into the medieval center via tiny pedestrianized streets was truly a challenge. But once parked in an equally tiny parking garage under the hotel (I had to do a three point turn just to round a corner), we settled in for a great evening of exploration. Rouen is famous for two things – the church often painted by Claude Monet and the square where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake in 1431...great stuff!

Joan of Arc was burned at the stake in this square more than 500 years ago. A new church and monument was just erected in the past 30 years to mark the fateful event. It’s designed to look like flames, and the stark contrast against the other medieval buildings in the square made it really work. A produce market is also built under the flames...go figure.

Does this look familiar? This is not a painted picture, but Claude Monet's favorite cathedral itself at night with a fantastic light show of his paintings projected onto it. The square in front of the cathedral was packed with people-- even in the rain-- to see this very cool light show.

The same cathedral during the day. The black was caused by fire during a WWII air raid.

This shop was one of many on the cities “bargain street”. With such a prosperous city full of name-brand shops, we could only guess that the rents on this street are subsidized to allow small eccentric shopkeepers to be able to stay in business. You couldn’t move in this light store, but I bet if you needed a little gizmo for your antique 1935 art deco lamp, he’d probably be able to dig it out of there for you.

As with most European cities, Rouen had a vibrant, lived-in center. This lucky dog had a great view of the main square from his third floor window.

This administration building has been restored since 1945, but they decided to leave the pock marks of the fighting to serve as a reminder of the devastation of war. Rouen serves as a major transportation hub and was heavily defended by the Germans after the D-Day invasion. The allies ended up bombing the hell out of the city in order to liberate it, but there was also house-to-house fighting. From the looks of it, there must have been a machine gun nest in one of these windows that took heavy fire (including what looked like a bazooka blast just around the corner) to get past.

When in Normandy, any geeky American World War II buff is obligated to take a short side trip up to the channel coast and visit the D-Day beach landings. Now a seaside resort, they have also decided to leave the wreckage of the war in the water as a reminder of the price paid. I have to admit that it was a little creepy seeing kids playing in the water next to this stuff.

It’s a shame what happened here in the past because the Normandy coastline was fantastic! Beth and I hiked up over the top of the ridge and were given the beautiful view across the horizon.

Then it was on to Mont Saint Michel. This place is so famous that I won’t go into any detail here, but it never ceases to amaze me how easy it is to get away from the crowds by walking 50 yards (or less) off the main path. We found a perfect solitary spot to sit on the river at sunset, drink a glass or two of wine, and read a good book (in this case the final, edited version of Going Dutch).

Spectacular at night!

We hit the abbey on top of the rock early the next morning and had the place to ourselves before the tour bus crowds arrived (Thanks for the tip Steve and Grace!!!). This ingenious medieval dumb-waiter was powered by a massive wheel that three people would get into (like gerbils) and walk on to bring goods up to the abbey.

The view from the top across the tidal pools was awesome. This lonely sailboat was marooned on the sand by the receding tide.

We then headed for Angers, another beautiful city where we toured our first chateau. I also have to mention the apocalypse tapestry museum in this town. Don’t laugh; I turned my nose up at it at first as well. But these 12th/13th century tapestries were amazing. They were so intricate and told some really bizarre religious stories of what people thought in those days. It is really worth seeing - one of the highlights of the trip, but understandably, no photographs allowed.

The French countryside was exploding with sunflowers, a truly spectacular drive. How do they get the flowers to all face the same direction? Plant the seeds really, really carefully...

We also stopped at a troglodyte village (cave dwellers) that was very well preserved and interesting to walk around. They were still living here as late as 1967. Another J.R. Tolkien inspiration?

And then it was on to Ambois for 3 nights where we visited a few more chateaux, ate at a lot of great restaurants (except for the Welsh pie...ugh!), and drank entirely too much white wine. Gezellig! This photo is from my cell phone, thus the poor quality.

Beth and I hired a local French chef for Gloria’s birthday. Beth and Paul relaxed while Gloria and I took the cooking lessons. We then got to eat everything that we created…delicious!

We also rented bikes one day to see more of the French countryside up-close and personal. Beth and I have been looking to buy a place in France as an investment, but we’ve been a bit surprised that the real estate prices haven’t come down much with the bad economy. We did find this "fixer upper" that we could afford. Nothing wrong with a little sweat equity, right? What do you think Sue and Tom…is this what you had in mind when you said you wanted to go halvsies? Maybe we could at least get it habitable for your horse…

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We stopped in Amiens on the way back up to Holland. It was also a great city with a lot of modern infrastructure mixed into the medieval core, but unfortunately my camera was completely hosed by then so we didn't get any pictures. We were thinking of either a boat tour through the remenants of ancient Roman water gardens or a tour of the largest WWI battlefield . Needless to say, my ass ended up on a boat in the rain looking at flowers...it seems like Beth always wins these "discussions". But after driving across the beautiful Somme, even she was convinced to come back with the bikes and visit this area in more depth, and hit a battlefield or two....but that will have to wait till next year.

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I’m off to America next week to visit family and was thinking of taking a holiday from blogging for a few weeks to wrap up one writing project and begin a few others. So the next post might not be until late August. Cheers! And enjoy the rest of the summer.

Michelin Stars

Beth and I don’t really place much value on labels or rankings. Things like “Top 10 vacation spots” or “Best 25 places to live” can be so skewed based upon the survey questions or opinions of the surveyor themselves that they are nothing more than a passing point of interest. On the other hand, we find the hotel star rankings pretty good because they are based upon more concrete data and observation. Three star = good. Two star = have a look before reserving to make sure that it’s clean. 1 star = only out of desperation.

It was with this foundation that we signed up for the Taste of Amsterdam food festival with Johnny and Sandra and were thus more concerned with a night in the park with friends than the fact that there would be several Michelin star ranked restaurants there. We’ve never eaten at one of these ranked places, since they are always expensive and usually rather pretentious…not our style at all. But after tasting some dishes from a three-star establishment, now at least I know what all the fuss is about! The lamb chops from one of these places melted in our mouths and the pasta from Jamie Oliver’s restaurant was nothing short of outstanding. I still enjoy the ribs from our local eetcafe more than anything, but I now think that I’ll occasionally spring a few extra bucks for these culinary wizards. It was THAT good!