Scooter'n

Beth and I have a very open, honest relationship with each other. It’s a "you only live once" type of agreement that works really well between us. Gotta dream? Go for it! Got an idea? Explore it! However, there is one, hard and fast constraint that she has set out for me. No motorcycles!  I initially thought about challenging this rule until we took a road trip to the mountains of Quebec shortly after our marriage.  It was a beautiful, clear blue day when we rounded a sharp curve and found ourselves the first on the scene of a brutal motorcycle accident (too gruesome to describe in this light-hearted blog entry).  As we drove away after the ambulance arrived, I knew that my motorcycle days were over. It was a tough pill to swallow for someone who grew up on dirt bikes, but it’s all about give and take, right?

However, it didn’t take much convincing to get Beth onto these scooters for a weekend ride through the polders north of Amsterdam. Quiet, clean, and only able to obtain 25KM/hour, this was a great compromise!

These were brand new, state-of-the-art electric scooters.   They were whisper quiet, could go 70-90 kilometers between charges, and were well equipped with horns, turn signals, and really nice headlights.

We hit many small villages in the polder, but Broek en Waterland was our favorite.  It was crisscrossed with little canals lined with beautiful old wooden buildings.

This was a great terrace to sit on for lunch and look out over the polder.   You can see the dyke beyond the house in the distance.  Without the dyke, we’d be under a meter of water!

A typical view from my scooter…Beth eating dust!

Cosmic Relaxation Center

We had the rare opportunity a few weeks back to witness an early performance of a rising star - Caro Emerald.   She’s got a very unique style of sultry voice overlaying a hopped up 1930’s rhythm.  It’s great music that seems to work for almost any occasion, from an afternoon basking on sunny terrace with a cool glass of wine to a hot blurry night in an underground urban club.  Two songs that will probably start getting airtime outside of NL - Back it up (great example of a Dutch "brown cafe" in the video) and A night like this.

But what made the evening really special was the venue in which we saw her – Paradiso.  This is the place of legend – a converted church in the heart of Amsterdam with a standing room capacity of only 1500 people.  With the stained glass windows behind the stage, excellent acoustics designed for the pulpit, and ornate woodwork of the two-tiered balconies, it offers an intimacy that I’ve never experienced anywhere else, including the famous back alley clubs of lower Manhattan.  Paradiso tends to cater to new talent, but it also attracts huge bands like The Rolling Stones, U2, and The Police because of the unique atmosphere it offers.

If you are ever in A’dam and have any affinity for music, this is a must-do evening, regardless of what band is playing.

Pain in the ash

Our annual spring trek back to America to open the house for summer rentals was supposed to be a quick in-and-out this year. With me starting a new job and Beth smack in the middle of a major rollout at her work, we thought that we'd save our vacation days for a more exotic excursion this fall.  But our plans were summarily dashed by the the volcanic ash cloud that engulfed Europe for the past two weeks.  We haven't felt so helpless since being snowed in by a 4 1/2 foot dumping six years ago that stranded us for a week in our house in Maryland.  Then, like now, there simply was nothing within our power that we could do to get out, so  after a few frantic hours of trying to get everything under control (dog, cats, flights, etc.), we settled in and made the best of a bad situation.  Here are a few pics from the adventure this time around.

On the lonely/lovely roads of western Maryland.

Our first order of business at the house was to FINALLY get the garage sided.  White Tyvek flapping in the breeze just doesn't cut it with an upscale rental market.  Between Beth's natural bossy tendency and my stubbornness, this little endeavor was an adventure in itself.

Even my parents were up for a little adventure this time around!

The night that our flight was canceled found us tucked in by a warm fire with snow flurries outside.  Many others, stuck in airports across the globe, weren't so lucky.

We decided to take advantage of our extra time by driving down to Cumberland, MD and renting some bikes for a romp on the Allegheny Highland trail to Frostburg.

This is a really fantastic converted rail-trail (loaded with redbud in the spring) that I would recommend to anyone passing through Cumberland.

The cliffs of The Narrows.

Scenic views from the trail.

With such a great trail, and such an inviting city, we thought that we'd explore a bit more...

...and discovered some of the best architecture we've seen in America.

But even with such charm, the city -- like most others, was completely gutted by surrounding strip plaza's and malls.  It was completely dead....such a shame, just like the Greensburg of my youth.  I really don't get it.   

Sitting on a terrace along the Potomac River with big grins on our faces when we heard the news that the first flights were finally resuming in Europe - Holland was the first to open up airspace, causing Beth to give a big "whoop" and garner some nasty looks from the locals.

The aftermath of the carnage in Frankfurt airport.  Even with our luck at hearing about the cancellation while still comfortably settled in the mountains, we ended up spending 28 hours "on the road"' to get back to Holland in time to pick up Sage from the kennel.  I can't imagine what the less fortunate folks who had to use these cots for 6 days felt like.

We got back home just in time for the annual flower parade in Haarlem.  The floats this year were extraordinary. 

This one was pretty cool, but I really put it on this blog for our ex-expat comrade Dave who is kicking off his racing season back in Wisconsin - good luck on this year's circuit!  BTW, the float was from Italy, so there's something in there for you too Rene.

Platteland

Spring has finally arrived!  We took advantage of the long weekend and got out into the Dutch countryside for some hiking.  Of course, one can not hike in Holland without first eating broodjes for lunch out of the trunk of your car...some things are sacred.

Then it was a mad dash into the woods!

While the woods were beautiful, the main attraction in this part of the country is the naturally occurring fields of heather.  A little brown this time of year, in August they will be brilliant purples and whites.

After a hearty day of hiking, we decided to take the short drive up to Zwolle, the capital of Gelderland.  This city was part of the Hanseatic League and has some rich history.

But I think that I'm really beginning to be spoiled over here.  Even with all of this history and fantastic architecture, Zwolle left me a bit disappointed.  I can't quite put my finger on it, but it felt een beetje platteland, or backwards/backwoods.  Well, at least the hot chocolate was good.

Word Play

One of my resolutions this year is to read a novel, cover-to-cover, in Dutch.  I’m not much for watching TV, so this seems to be the best way to bring my language skills up to the next level.  I decided to go with an American author that was translated into Dutch so that I would be familiar with the writing style and wouldn’t get tripped up by cultural differences in the approach to storytelling.   I ended up paying dearly for the translation services-- the book cost a whopping 19 euros, but so far I have been very pleased with the results.  With my trusty Dutch dictionary by my side, I am steadily working my way through the novel and learning all kinds of new words.

Dutch is not known for its brevity.  They have a tendency to slam a bunch of different words into a single, monstrous linguistic amalgamation.  It can be quite intimidating when you first encounter words like tweedehogewardwaarstraat, which is the name of a street (imagine putting that on every envelope you send)  or stakingsverbodovereenkomst (non strike agreement).  Then there are plenty of irrationally spelled words like angstschreeuwen (scream of terror) with its mind numbing eight consonants in a row!  I dare you to use that word in a conversation without spitting on someone!

However, I’ve also been discovering some gems of words that cram a mouthful of meaning into a tight little package.  My favorite so far – tevergeef.  The meaning is simple enough – without success.   But its usage is really compact, assisted by its placement in the sentence.  You can simply say ‘Ik was tevergeef op zoek naar iets’, which would roughly translate into ‘I was looking for something but wasn’t able to find it.’   It's funny how I've hung onto that word and filed it away for just the right circumstance.  Whenever I use it for the first time, whoever I'm speaking with is going to think I'm a nut because I'll be smiling ear-to-ear at having remembered the word and used it properly (I hope).

Its always the little things that keep life interesting and I’ve gotta say, as someone who barely paid attention to French classes in high school (or any classes for that matter) and then pissed away a great immersion opportunity for Spanish in college, I’m really enjoying learning a second language.   It’s giving me a whole new perspective on how the world works.

Ski Ardennen

With mud season taking a firm grip on North Holland, we decided to head for the Belgian mountains last weekend for one final romp in the snow.

Our rental cottage...

...was situated in the mountains above our favorite Belgian village of Malmedy...

...with an access point to the provincial forest less than 100 meters away.

There were miles and miles of groomed (and ungroomed) trails right out the front door ...

...with hidden treasures around every corner, like this classic 14th century Belgian castle - Reinhardstein.  This castle is still in private hands and we could hear a woman singing opera from the depths of the stone walls.  Her voice echoed through the narrow valley where our ski trail was.  It brought back memories of San Francisco when we sat overlooking the city and listened to a pianist playing in his Pacific Heights condo just after Beth accepted my marriage proposal - it's been a very interesting 22 years.

We woke up Saturday morning to a fresh 8 inches of snow!  You've gotta love that antique, concrete power pole overgrown by the forest.  This could have been a scene from The Battle of the Bulge where my great uncle fought in these same snowy conditions not far from here.

The Belgian trail system continues to impress us.  It is extremely well marked and is amazing how they can pack so much into such a small country.  Losloopende honden welkom.

Flatlanders enjoying the snow.  Can you believe that she is still smiling after getting SMOKED at seven games of ping pong in a row?

This fuzzy horse at the trailhead freaked Sage out.  She gave him a REALLY wide berth, although it might have been because she was on edge from all of the wild boar scent in the forest. 

Sacrificing a city

The quaint little village of Spaarndam, only a few kilometers northeast of Haarlem, is built atop one of the primary dyke systems in North Holland. The village is world famous for the story of Hans Brinker, the little Dutch boy who supposedly saved a city beyond the dyke by plugging a hole with his finger. We’ve come to learn over the years that the city Hans saved with his chubby little finger was in fact our hometown of Haarlem.

We stop in Spaarndam frequently when we are out riding our bikes because there is a great restaurant that serves some of the best apple tarts in Holland. And on those frequent bike rides we always pass these curious structures out in the fields downstream from the dyke. I knew that there was an old fort built into the wall of the dyke and these concrete pylons looked to be about the same age, but I couldn’t for the life of me ever figure out what their purpose was.

I finally decided to research these things and was pretty surprised at what I learned. The fort and embattlements were created as part of the defenses of Amsterdam. When the country was attacked, the dyke at Spaardam would be broken, flooding the surrounding countryside and creating an impenetrable water-based fortification. In this section the water would be deep enough for boats so these concrete pylons were set to be just below the fortified water surface, making navigating the water with enemy boats extremely hazardous. It's kind of a cool idea and even has made the UNESCO list of world heritage sites, the only down-side being that Haarlem would be left on the wrong side of the defensive fortifications.

So after immortalizing the deeds of good ol’ Hans and his courageous rescue of Haarlem, the government decided that the city really wasn’t all that important and could sacrificed to the enemy in an attempt to slow them down before reaching Amsterdam. Bummer.

Steel Town

I just returned from visiting my family in Pennsylvania where I also had chance to drive through Pittsburgh – something that I haven’t done in many, many years. The city looked to be doing well, continuing its long transition from gritty, blue collar steel town into a more modern and diverse city. There are very few remnants of the massive mills that used to line the banks of the river and dominate the landscape as you dropped out of the Squirrel Hill tunnels and made your approach into downtown. I still remember the smoke billowing out of the stacks and hanging thick with grimy soot in the narrow Mon Valley. As children back in the early seventies, we used to hold our breath when passing the gargantuan structures on the parkway east as we drove into Three Rivers Stadium to see a Pirates game. Even back then the industry was beginning its rapid collapse in America, shipping jobs-- and entire mills-- off to other countries with lower labor costs, cheaper raw materials, and no environmental regulations. Except for the sports teams, Pittsburgh was a very depressing place to be during those years.

All of those memories came flooding back to me, not as I drove along the redeveloped riverfront in Pittsburgh, but yesterday here in Holland. I was dragging with jetlag from the long trans-Atlantic flight out of Chicago, so we decided to walk Sage out by the old German bunkers in Ijmuiden to stretch our legs a little before I crashed hard on the couch for most of the afternoon. The bunkers were built as part of the Atlantic Wall by the Germans to protect the water entry into Amsterdam, 15 miles inland to the east.

As we crested the dunes above the bunkers, the industrious North Sea port of Ijmuiden unfolded in front of us with its fishing fleets, warehouses, and cruise ship docking bays. And on the northern banks of the port was the sprawling Corus steel mill. I’ve never given it much thought until this latest trip through Pittsburgh. The modern, expansive facility here was churning out steel at maximum capacity, on a Sunday, even in this limping economy. Come to think of it, in the six years we’ve lived here, I’ve never seen the stacks quiet.

So, how does The Netherlands pull it off where a powerhouse like Pittsburgh failed? How has this tiny, swampy country with virtually no natural resources, strong labor laws and union influence, high social tax structures, and extensive environmental regulations managed to secure a massive steel production facility where all of the inputs must be shipped in from other countries? It’s a curious situation…

Wall food

Having grown up in the rural countryside surrounding the sleepy little village of Ligonier, I was not accustomed to having many late night options for satisfying the post-party munchies. Town pretty much rolled up the streets and turned off the lights at 10:00PM.

So I distinctly remember the feeling of empowerment when I was shipped off to university in Indiana Pennsylvania. This was a college town and we could order pizza for delivery until 2.00 AM (including the paper towels to mop the grease off the top) and the world famous Sheetz devil dogs (2 for $.99) were available 24-hours-a-day. This was the big time! There was something magical about being able to hop on my bike at 5:30 AM after an all-night bender of drinking-games and dancing on the kitchen stove to pick up bacon and eggs so that I could cook breakfast for some hot chick who only hung around us for the endless pitchers of free beer. She was so impressed by this act of breakfast chivalry that she wrote her phone number on my wall with a thick, black permanent marker and decided to marry me and hang around for the next 20 years. I’m still doing all the cooking and she’s never paid me back for the security deposit that my landlord kept for the marker damage she caused. Go figure.

But those days seem like the dark-ages now. Here in Holland they’ve taken the art of late night snacking to new, technologically advanced heights. Here, they eat from the wall. That’s right…from the wall. They have restaurants (and I use that term very, very loosely) that are set up like giant vending machines that you can get a hot, greasy snack virtually any time of day or night. There is a ‘chef’ who gets each portion fresh from the freezer and carefully prepares them (a.k.a. places into the deep fryer) before reloading the wall for your all-day dining pleasure. And the choices are extraordinary! Just click on this “Assortment” link to see such delicacies as Bami stuffed krokant, chicken corn dog, or this month’s special – Deep Fried Goulash for only 1 Euro! Mmmm….goulash.

The wall ...


...with technologically advanced distribution system.

I ate from the wall once in Amsterdam, just to try it. I plunked in my Euro and selected a wrinkly looking Frikadel. It was, um, how should I say this? Interesting. I'll leave it at that except to say that I wish I still had a stomach of steel like back in college. On a good night, if I had had enough to drink, I could eat 4 devil dogs. Maybe that was my problem with the wall in Amsterdam. I was sober when I tried it.

Holiday remnants

I've just spent a bunch of time catching up my Facebook photo's for the past several years (much to the chagrin of Gracie), so I'm just going to post a few quick memories of the recently expired holiday for this weeks blog entry.

Grote Kerk

Haarlem's quiet market square on Christmas eve.

We had to delay our annual Christmas day hike this year due to miserable weather. But when we finally made it out to the Utrechtse heuvelring (Hills around Utrecht), we were not disappointed. This is a vast forest where you could easily find some privacy. I'm definitely going back with the mountain bike in the spring...there is actually a bit of elevation in Holland! (instead of really, really flat, it was just kind of flat).


The leaning pyramid of Austerlitz, tucked into the forest and marking the high water point of the French occupation of the Netherlands during Napoleon's time.


After the Christmas storm, the weather has been cold, but sunny. Plenty of time for lounging with a good book in between outings.

Battlezone Haarlem - New Year's fireworks. It still amazes me that they let anyone buy (and ignite) this type of firework in the streets of Holland. New Years eve (day) is filled with explosions. Groups of teenagers wander the streets with bags of fireworks, blowing up anything and everything in their wake. The Post Office even has special protective hoods for all their mail boxes and if there is still a plastic public garbage can in a park near you?...well, just forget about it being there by dawn. We're talking M80/M100 quality stuff.

You want to be sure to park your car in the right place for New Year's eve. Generally speaking you should stay away from the corners because people use the intersections for setting off fireworks. But this year our (whacky) neighbor had a new baby and wanted to set off the fireworks right in front of the house so his wife could hold the baby and see them. Ignited incendiary/explosive devices skittering under your car doesn't give me a 'warm fuzzy' feeling, let alone the probable damage to the paint job. But, the red car was his, so I didn't complain...

New Years day on the beach in Zandvoort. Just in time for the annual dunk in the frigid North Sea.

For those who don't use Facebook, here is a short video of the North Sea dunk.