20km north-east of Amsterdam lies the fishing village of Volendam and, 1/2 hour offshore, the island of Marken. These villages still exude the charm and tradition of yesteryear and feature the original homes used for hundreds of years by its fisherman inhabitants. Once upon a time, the villages were host to men and women dressed in traditional garb - the men in balloon-shaped black woollen trousers and black caps, the women in voluminous black wool skirts and colourful embroidered aprons worn over the top, white cotton-embroidered shirts and white lace caps. Sometimes, depending on the [View Full Entry]

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On Saturday, I took the train again to Rotterdam to see the Fit for Free DJ Parade. There were close to 50 floats, each a large semi truck with an amazing soundsystem on board, dancers, and flamboyant revelry. Here are some pics of the day! Having survived (with luck) a New Orleans Mardi Gras week, the DJ Parade was....cute. Clearly not the winner, even on an outrageous scale, but certainly an interesting take on the parade. But, the interesting difference that made this parade so personal was that crowds could fall in behind these rigs and dance down the route toward [View Full Entry]

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Get to Amsterdam. Yay [View Full Entry]

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Pics from Wassenaar and Amsterdam [View Full Entry]

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Only 2 official days in Amsterdam we had to start right away! We started the night off right with the red light district! That’s what everyone thinks about when they think of Amsterdam but its really not as big a deal or even everywhere…its basically on a few streets & that’s it. So we took our walking tour from a Xerox and headed in the direction. Before we got very far we stopped and got food at a pub & did the Amsterdam style with some sort of meat balls & fries…Katie got a beer of some sort. Then we started [View Full Entry]

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This week has flown by like a seagull with its ass on fire. I sent Julia off on an adventure by herself two nights ago. She finished her program in Amsterdam and came to stay with me in The Hague for two nights. Unfortunately, I had to work, but I did get off early one day to go to the beach with her. And guess what little Jules did at the beach? She trusted her life to a thin bungy rope and leaped from Schevenigen pier into the big blue sea. And just as her fate was to be sealed into [View Full Entry]

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I woke up in the morning at about 6:30 and then got dressed and waited awhile and around 7:30 we got our free breakfast. They had this buffet thing and there was some bread and deli meat and cheese and then there was this good nutty cereal with raisins that I got Cindy to try (without the raisins) and I think she liked it. There was also this good pineapple juice. After breakfast we had to go shopping to get my dad a towel, and Cindy got some sneakers that she liked. Then we came back and dropped our stuff off [View Full Entry]

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Hi everybody, Sarah here. We flew into Amsterdam yesterday at about 6:30 am, which is crazy to think about because we left the US at about that time the day before. Our first flight to Minneapolis was uneventful. The second and longest flight to Amsterdam was slightly more troublesome. We sat right behind a family with two young children...I bet you can guess where this is going. Yes, they screamed the WHOLE time and NO, the parents did nothing about it. It was aggravating. But after some dramamine and a baby bottle of wine, I was in La La Land. Mike...not [View Full Entry]

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It has been a true joy these last few days, seeing my friend Ross and his new place in Eindhoven. Ross and his girlfriend Maruja showed me the utmost hospitality and kindness in letting me stay with them for almost a week. I got to tag along as Ross met his parents (all of whom were in Holland the same time I was!) and showed everyone around Amsterdam for two days. I followed Anne and Eric (Ross's stepmom and dad) around as we walked a good chunk of the city, saw the red light district, and took a canal tour that [View Full Entry]

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So today we went to Utrecht and looked around. I tried straightening my hair this morning and burned a chunk off right in the front. I don't think my voltage converter is working. Also bought a card reader in Utrecht, but of course, it does not work. Argh! Anywho, Urtrecht was cool. It was semi-reminiscent of Amsterdam...lot of canals and cafes and little shops. Very busy. I'm not seeing any clearly defined trends in clothing like I did last time, but needless to say Europeans have a much more colorful style than we do. The jet lag is kicking my butt [View Full Entry]

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