Trip Summary

This isn't really a trip summary but instead it is a place for comments go that have no other home.

First, the disclaimer on everything I've told you. Some facts might be inaccurate, but I've done my best.

We enjoyed a ton of great food, especially in Amsterdam. The hotel concierge team was helpful every evening in pointing us to a new restaurant.  We tried a wide variety including typical Dutch food. Tomato soup and split pea soup are very common items on Dutch restaurant menus. In addition to Dutch food, we had Italian, Indonesian, and Argentinian to name a few.

I think I said it before but we walked a lot every day to try to make up for the delicious food mentioned above.

In The Netherlands there are coffee shops and cafes. One serves coffee, the other does not, but serves up something quite different. Asking yourself what I'm talking about? Look it up. Come on, I've already given you so much information.

On most days,  B and I enjoyed some "game shows" on Dutch TV stations. There were several. We think the shows originate in the UK. On one show contestants had to find a way to combine a set of given numbers using multiplication, division, addition and subtraction to total the answer provided. Sometimes the generator of the numbers would give the contestants an impossible target. In that case the closest contestant won.  Another aspect of the show was where the contestants took turns obtaining random consonants and vowels. A  "card-turner", think Vanna White, would turn the cards over as the contestant said, consonant, another consonant, a vowel, another consonant... you get the picture.Then both contestants would try to make up the longest word using those letters. You could only use each letter once. On this show they even had a couple of "guest" panelists who also tried to outdo the contestants. During the show, the panelists would discuss the origins of an interesting word. Anyway, spelling and math on a TV show!Wow! Fun to watch but the times given the contestants were a little on the short side—I think 30 seconds.  I think this one was called Countdown. There was another one with trivia questions. Contestants could answer the question themselves or send the question to another contestant. Once the starting number of contestants had been reduced to 2, they battled until there was one winner. Each show began with 15 contestants and got one winner at the end. This one might have been called 15 to One.

I saw this state of the art toilet flush mechanism in Amsterdam.

We saw several of these tiny, tiny "cars" in Amsterdam. It must be much easier to park this baby than a regular size car. Not much hauling capacity, however.

There are tons of bridges, roughly 800,000 people in Amsterdam and 600,000 bicycles. Did you notice how many of our photos contained folks on bicycles? We stayed in the Central Station area. This area is highly congested. There are car lanes, bus lanes, tram lanes and bicycle lanes. You must navigate them all to cross the streets. We did need to be very careful because the cyclists do not stop for pedestrians. And there are so many cyclists. You have probably seen cyclists in most of our outdoor photos.

What about OSU Buckeye football while I was away. The first weekend K and I are able to stream it live to my tablet beginning at 9:30pm Amsterdam time. That wasn't too bad. On our return flight from Amsterdam, B and I watched the middle portion of the game (again streaming live) from the airline lounge in the Dubai airport. I believe it was in the middle of the night Dubai time. We missed the beginning and the end because we were on airplanes but got to see more than 50% of the game.

If you are wondering about the difference between Holland and The Netherlands, feel free to do some research on this too.  It's too complicated to fully explain here.

 Yep, we saw a lot! Just some of our passes and tickets. We didn't manage to hang on to all of them. That's the last of the vacation posts.

The Netherlands "Countryside"

On our last full day in Amsterdam, we decided to do a bus tour out into the countryside. We visited Zaanse Schans (picturesque windmill village), Volendam (fishing village), and had a short boat trip to Marken (got to see a wooden clog "factory" and a cheese factory here). Had lunch in Volendam. The entire trip was only 6 hours total so we had plenty of time afterwards back at the hotel to pack for the trip home.

In Zaanse Schans they still have working windmills. The mills are kept operating partly for tourists. However, the large manufacturing plants that produce things like linseed oil help pay to prevent the loss of the traditional methods.  A windmill society was formed in 1925 to preserve the mills. The Society now owns about a dozen windmills and keeps them in good condition. They are operated regularly. We got a demonstration at a windmill but the windmill wasn't working because there was no wind. This was unusual. The area is known for its constant breezes.

Zaanse Schans
This is what you are supposed to see when visiting Zaanse Schans:

 This is what we actually saw:

The guide said she hadn't seen anything like this in at least 3 years. It was pretty cold the night before so that probably explains it. As we were leaving the area, the fog began to lift.

Volendam
So many cows in the Netherlands.

At the cheese factory we enjoyed a lecture on cheese making and got to taste many types of cheese. OMG- fabulous Gouda that had been aged 2 years. Yummy!

Marken 
We took a short boat trip over to Marken.

Visited a wooden clog making factory. There is equipment to assist, but there is a lot of hands-on to create the clogs made this way. I was excited to try clogs but you need to wear them with heavy wool socks (or similar) and that's just not possible here. Also, the neighbors downstairs might object. No clogs were purchased but we got a nice artsy photo.  My Dutch friend says the wooden clogs are still worn on farms and for gardening, etc. Your feet stay dry. Even on ice they work great apparently. You just rough up the bottom and they keep you from slipping.

During our trip we passed Lake Ijsselmeer. Ijsselmeer is the biggest lake in Holland. What is special about the lake is that it used to be the Zuiderzee (South Sea) and was closed off by a man-made dyke, The ecological implications of changing a body of water from saltwater to freshwater boggles the mind.

The Artis Zoo and Micropia

The Zoo
Another metro bus trip and we were there. I think B covered this zoo a couple of times while my buddy and I were taking things a little more slowly. One of the highlights of the zoo was the huge numbers of volunteer grey herons and other birds.

They are all over the place. The zoo has many small water areas and is indeed a zoological garden. In addition to the 700 animal species, the grounds have 200 species of trees, many of which are on the verge of extinction.

Isn't this guy adorable? It's called a common gundi and is native to the semi-deserts of North Africa.

Lemur Land was amazing, perhaps not for the red ruffed lemurs themselves, but the fact that the lemurs are free range. They are free range but seem to stay put in this one area. I did notice one staff member in the area but my mind raced towards teenagers or "bad" adults trying to grab a lemur. Perhaps the teeth would be a deterrent? There were great photo ops especially in the morning when the lemurs were all sunning themselves.

Watusi cow ( African native) was very impressive.

An Egyptian goose and her family! So adorable!

The African Savannah.

And the reptiles were a treat as usual.

Micropia
Next door to the Artis Zoo was the Micropia. This is the first museum about microbes in the world. Really, really interesting. They have artificial (models) of things, but much of the exhibits are live critters and cultures. For me perhaps the best part was the display of glass sculptures of a few microbes. They are gorgeous. Here's Micropia's website: http://www.micropia.nl/en/ . Do visit the site for tons of interesting stuff! Be sure to click on the "menu" on the right to explore.

The common cold

Human Immunodeficiency virus

T4-Bacteriophage

The Bridge

OK, so there are actually a ton of bridges in Amsterdam given the numerous waterways. This bridge is a special one. It's the Torensluis Bridge. Built in 1648 it's the oldest and widest bridge in the city. It was really wide because there was a tower on one end of it until 1829. Now there is a large outdoor cafe on part of it.

Anne Frank House, Maritime Museum & More

Anne Frank House
We tried to get tickets to this highly sought after destination a couple of months before our trip. At that time all available online tickets were sold out. A note on the website suggested that often some tickets become available within a week of your visit. So, naturally, I tried again about a week before our departure. Same deal. There was one ticket available on one day and another ticket available on a different day but that was it. At that point, our only choice was to show up early and hope we could get tickets "on the spot." I researched this method of obtaining tickets and learned from other very helpful travelers that even arriving 30 minutes before the opening was no guarantee of entry. We decided to be in line at 8:00 am for the 9:00 am opening. We were not the first in line but we were way up in the front (B: we were number 15).

Later on the line was lllllllloooooonnnnnnnnggggggg.  We were finished touring the museum by this point. The line got big fast.

 The long line panoramic shot.

This is a very interesting place to visit. The space the families occupied (the upper floors of the rear building annexed to Anne's father's business) is actually much larger than I had imagined. Still, it was two years that 8 people lived here in hiding. They did have access to a radio they listened to at night so they were aware of what was going around them. His office staff knew about those in hiding (and helped) but apparently the warehouse workers on the lower floors did not. Once they were exposed (by someone) they were taken to camps. Only Otto Frank, Anne's father, survived the ordeal. Anne's diaries exist because her father was somehow able to continue replenishing her with new blank books and blank sheets of paper. When all were taken prisoner, an office worker hid the journals for safekeeping. When it was learned that Anne had died, the office worker returned the journals to her father.

Walking distance from the Anne Frank House was a small little spot we wanted to investigate called Begijnhof- a courtyard surrounded by homes and two churches. The site dates to the 14th c. No photos are allowed. Naturally, that did not discourage most of the other visitors to the site. We snapped one photo before entering- of the courtyard door. This was the only "sign" indicating this was the correct place. Just an arch with the name of the place over the door in the middle of an average looking block.

Het Scheepvaart Museum
Later in the day we also visited the Maritime Museum. It was set up in 4 wings. All three of us did three wings then we separated. Two of us went to visit a ship anchored outside.

The third member of our team (me) visited the fourth wing. This was the wing we should have visited first. Absolutely the best. A very large space filled with navigational instruments in a room displaying constellations on the wall and ceiling. Gorgeous. This wing also held a collection of maritime landscape paintings—Dutch Masters.

Battle of Gibralter Between the Dutch and the Spanish Fleet (1622) , Cornelis Claesz van Wieringen

Water as a Landscape (1650) Aert van der Neer. After 1625, a group of maritime artists emerged who no longer used vivid colors but instead used subdued tones of the Dutch climate. Aert van der Neer.

There was also an entire room with comfy chairs and sofas filled with albums of actual photos taken by travelers from long ago. I could have spent hours there.

Fancy mast decorations

Museum Day 2 plus Shopping

This day was not completely filled with museum visits, but starts with a couple. We visited the Dutch Resistance Museum. This was a fascinating place. The museum's collection shows The Netherlands as it was shortly before, during and after WWII. Later, two of us sat down and had coffee and chatted while the third member of our team walked across the street to the Holocaust Museum and came back to meet the coffee drinkers.

One of our stops was at the Hotel Krasnapolsky. I was told by a friend I must have the apple tart served at this hotel. On arrival we were told the apple tart was off-season. I guess we were not far enough into fall for the particular apple that makes this apple tart so special. Disappointed, we sought out a different apple tart which was really very good.

This was the day we visited a hyped shopping spot—Magna Plaza. It was pretty much a waste of time. The 19th c landmark building was once the main post office. It was interesting but the shops weren't much to speak about.

We took a peak in the de Bejenkorf department store.  This place earned more points from our group than Magna Plaza.  It is the city's most fashionable department store and is in a high-profile spot. It sits opposite the Royal Palace. This place had a nice kitchen department.

Museum Day 1

Today was a the first big day of museums. We visited the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum, and the Coster Diamonte Museum. We  dined on Indonesian food at Sama Sebo and spent some lovely time in Vondelpark.

Rijksmuseum

Recently completely renovated, the museum has 80 halls and displays 8,000 pieces of art and history. Much like the Louvre in Paris, it is really tough to see EVERYTHING. This is the home of Rembrandt's "Night Watch" (1692).

 I learned that real title of the painting is "Archers under the Command of Captain Frans Banning Cocq". The "Night Watch" title was added later when it was assumed to be painted to reflect a night scene. Actually the painting just needed to be restored and cleaned. But the name stuck.

Another painting I liked was "Battle at Waterloo" (1824) by Jan Willem Pieneman. It's the largest in the Museum. As you might imagine, there are tons of soldiers in the painting. The Duke of Wellington is on horseback in the middle. On the opposite wall is an identical portrait (head shot)of the same man. It's like a photocopy. Interesting. Maybe the portrait had to be pre-approved, and then it was repainted into the larger painting?

The Five Javanese Court Officials (1820-1850). Note: We live on Java so I found these really interesting. These are not actual portraits but "types" with accurate garments and batik motifs which indicate origin, rank and status. Most likely these were not painted by a Western artist. At that time, paintings like this done by Westerners would have been portrayed in a more negative tone.

I also really liked a diamond on display at the Museum—and I'm not a diamond lover. However,  this is a 36 carat rectangular diamond. The original 70 carat diamond once belonged to Sultan Penembahan Adam van Banjarmasin (South Borneo). The Netherlands seized the Sultanate in 1859 and declared the diamond Dutch property. No one seemed to want to have it at 70 carats so tt was later cut down to the 36 carat stone. Still, no one seemed to want to own it. In person, it is a gorgeous stone.

 The signage under this display explains all.

Still Life with Flowers in a Greek Vase: Allegory of Spring. Georgius Jacobus Johannes van Os (1817). This was a spectacular still life. It's hard to walk away. It's like it's alive!

This Three-door cabinet(1835-1838) is covered with all sorts of polished inlaid stones. There were many pieces of furniture done in the same technique. This cabinet once belonged to King William II.

Diamonte Museum
This is a small museum attached to the Coster Diamond Company where they sell diamonds. The museum had some genuine stones, but many of the "good" ones wee copies. I certainly would have preferred to see the real ones, but I'm sure they are in vaults somewhere.


Van Gogh Museum
Here is where you find the largest Van Gogh collection in the world.- the most visitors, too. The place was packed.  There are also works of art by artists other than Van Gogh in the Van Gogh Museum. This one is entitled, "Field with Irises near Arles" (1888), Van Gogh.

The museum staircase. Impossible not to know what floor you are on.

Vondelpark
This is a beautiful park.  Birds we are certain we saw : grey heron, blue heron, moorhen, common coot, Egyptian goose, wood pigeons, common magpie. There are approximately 120 bird species in the Park including rose-ringed parakeets and a couple of woodpecker species. We didn't see these species. We walked off our lunch—well, we tried. Enjoyed tons of birds and plants.

Hey, Dan: "Packer Nature?"