Creative Commuting

 As the tram slowed down and rolled into the Amstel station, I stood at the door on the north side of the carriage and leaned into the window, straining my eyes across the platform to read the overhead display to see if the NS train to Uitgeest was coming into the same station. My monthly pass on the NS doesn’t cover the tram, so I was riding illegally. But because I had missed my own NS connection back at the Bijlmer Station, I knew that I could hop the tram to the Amstel Station where-- if I was lucky, I could dash across platform and catch the Uitgeest train the rest of the way into Amsterdam Centraal without paying the tram fee. However, if I missed the train connection here (Amstel), then I had to still jump off the tram, swipe my OV-Chipcart across the payment post in the middle of the platform and then jump back into the same tram to continue on to Central Station. If I didn’t pay here, then it could get ugly once the tram went underground after Duivendrecht and the line no longer paralleled the NS line. I learned this lesson the hard way the first time that I tried this maneuver and got stuck in the underground at Central Station with an OV-Chipcart that hadn’t paid for the tram ride and I couldn’t get out of the gates. I had to wait for the next tram to unload and squeeze through the gates on the heels of a paying customer-- which still set off the alarm bells, but it was so crowded that the “GVB Cops” didn’t see who had jumped the gate.

Today I was lucky. The fast train to Uitgeest was just pulling into the station and I was able to make the switch without paying. The connection to Haarlem in Central station would be easy. It’s on the main line and there are always trains between the two cities. 

And so it goes. It took me a few months this time around, but I have now solved the dilemma with commuting by public transport to my new job on the other side of Amsterdam – How to come and go whenever I want without being a slave to the public transport schedules.

And the solution doesn’t stop with the trains. I have similar options with the bus system. There is an express bus to Schiphol Airport (300) that stops just outside my office building. That bus happens to stop at Amstelveen Station where I can make the mad dash across the road and jump onto the bus to Haarlem (175). These busses run in a staggered 8 minute pattern, so the maximum wait is 4 minutes (during rush hours). 

With a combination of all of these options, I can leave the office whenever I please and know how to make it back to my bike in Haarlem within 50 minutes with never more than a 9 minute wait on any platform or bus stop. Cool! So now I only use the excuse “Sorry. I have to leave to catch the train!” when I want to avoid that particularly nasty recurring meeting late on Monday afternoon.

Côte d'Azur

This famous playground in Southern France, where the Alps tumble precipitously into the Mediterranean, lives up to every inch of its exaggerated reputation – both good and bad.   An overdeveloped strip along the coast somehow preserves access from old fishing harbors to the uncanny blue water, and the Villa clad hills still manage to offer plenty of wooded hiking trails that meandered between the ancient perched villages, giving you a sense of quiet solitude.

It would be a tough call between “love-it or hate-it” if you didn’t go in with an open acceptance that the Côte d'Azur is one of the top vacation destinations in, and of, the world.   There’s a reason it’s so popular…and a price (not dollars) that has to be paid because of it.

With all of that being said, I’d HIGHLY recommend a visit to this fantastic region.  Here are a few pics from our short holiday with Sue and Tom last week. 

 

 

We rented an apartment in the hilltop village of Vence, halfway up the mountain above Nice.   

Its narrow, winding streets kept us cool during the blazing heat of the day ...

 and cozy-warm for an evening drink at an outdoor café.

There are many medevial villages perched on the mountain cliffs.   That’s one hell of a drop off!

 

 Pockets of pristine nature dot the lower hills, but dominate the mountains further up.

 

 

Of all places on the Cote d’Azur, I was most hesitant about Nice – I didn’t know what to expect other than a very large, crowded city.   It was large…it was crowded…and it was fantastic!  I was very surprised at the vibe in Nice – a great mix between frolicking tourists and lively local fair – similar to Amsterdam.  Nice yacht!

 

 Even the rocky beaches couldn’t detract from the draw of the Med in the heart of the city.

 

 A little mountain in the center of the city is always a good feature...

 ...and once at the top, the views were incredible.

There was plenty of eye-candy for everyone…Beth and Sue enjoyed watching “Jean-Luc” (as they called him), driving the parasailing boat for the tourists...

  ..while I preferred ogling the girls in red shoes...

Night Skate Haarlem

Every summer Haarlem allows the inline skating club to take over the city streets for two evenings a month.  Several hundred skaters typically show up and on a normal evening it's fun to watch them go by, led and followed by a car blaring music from a rooftop sound system.

But, as I'm sure we are all aware, this year is a World Cup year so the music is a bit more provincial and the skaters are a bit more flamboyant.

Sound quality sucks, but I caught a bit on video as well...

Night Skate Haarlem - WK style

Good fun...makes me want to pick up skating again...Hup Holland!

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.