Amsterdam and Windmills

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It was an early morning breakfast in the Lido. Over the PA it was announced that our arrival would be a bit later than planned this morning, due to the overnight helicopter “air rescue” expediting a patient’s transfer to shore during the night. We met some people who were awakened by the helicopter; so, I guess that that is one benefit of having an interior cabin! There are 450 fellow passengers continuing on into the Baltic; but, for most of those that we’ve shared this past week voyage with, they are disembarking today. Their suitcases are all ashore by now, and departing groups are being announced over the PA. There is a lot about the Koningsdam to like as I reflect over our first week on board. The rooms are very well designed and seem to be laid out to optimize functionality. The most notable improvements: Multiple electric outlets at the desk for both US and European plugs, Outlets at both bedside tables for US and USB, Flat screen TV, High force water flow from the shower and our interior cabin had a small refrigerator (that wasn’t mentioned in HAL’s literature for our cabin). In the dining room we noticed other changes which for the most part I haven’t warmed up to yet: The spherical modernistic-looking chrome salt and pepper shakers are functionally inferior to the standard salt and pepper shakers on many levels (the whitish pepper comes out through a single hole but can look like salt, you can’t see if it’s empty, it’s hard to tell which is which); they’ve gotten rid of the pepper grinders on the table (I know Sharon doesn’t care); They’ve gotten rid of the pastry steward who brings around the cruellers and Danish and instead put a bread basket on the table for breakfast; They’ve gotten rid of the juice steward who’d bring around various juices and replaced it with a jug of OJ and empty juice glasses for each setting. The gelato station is great, a serving is $2 (but with our 4-stars we get it for half price) and I enjoy the freshly made waffle cones. Sharon is looking forward to enjoying an outdoor movie on Decks 9 and 10 by the pool.

We waited in the Showroom and one excursion guy was handling everything, making announcements, putting stickers on people, escorting groups to the exit through throngs of those departing with luggage, so he was quite busy. We had our “Passenger In Transit” coupon to help expedite our return when these throngs leaving would be replaced by an additional throng commencing their voyage. Sharon postulated that perhaps on our cruise to the Baltics that we’d be spared the double-announcements over the PA, first in English followed by the Dutch translation. Our cruise to Norway, as well as the previous two-week cruise to different ports in Norway, was heavily promoted in the Netherlands. We encountered one American couple on that cruise, who are currently living in the Netherlands, and they could not resist the last minute deal being offered by Holland America. Sharon suspected that Juip had been serving as the Assistant Cruise Director just to do these PA translations. With our Pink-8 stickers it was time to travel to Edam and find out how cheese is made. Our first stop was outside Edam at a Cheese and Clog Making Factory. We got a presentation of the history of making Gouda Cheese and the variations in quality and price of this cheese when made with cow’s milk, goat’s milk and sheep milk. There is also a variety of “new cheese”, “aged cheese” and “old cheese”. An additional layer of complexity was added with various natural flavorings as well as producing smoked Gouda. I sampled some of each, along with some mustard accompaniments. Sharon was happy that there was a “Chocolate Corner” and we did buy 10 bars of chocolate (various types) as well as a box of various triangular tubes of chocolate wafers.

We walked across to the Clog Showroom with the giant pair of clogs by the door. Once our tour guide showed up, they gave a small talk and demonstration. He said that today the Netherlands produces about 10 million pairs of clogs each year. The Dutch turned to wooden shoes, made to be wide, to make walking on the damp swampy lands in the Netherlands, 70% of which is up to 6 meters below sea level. The speaker admitted, that nine of those ten million clogs are souvenir pairs that are but a few inches long. Half a million are adult size clogs for sale in the Netherlands for everyday use; the remaining half million adult size clogs are sold as souvenirs to tourists.

Our guide then offered to make ours an extended tour since we were returning to the ship to continue our journey, and were not in a post-cruise tour group that then needed to catch a flight home. We stopped in Volendam, a predominately Catholic community that once earned most of its income from the sea through fishing until the fad to make a dam there. Today it is a tourist destination. We watched an overview of the history of the Netherlands and the creation of the Volendam following major flooding in the 1500’s. The land reclamation projects using such primitive excavation and earth moving techniques really does boggle the mind. We walked quite a ways along the dam until we met up the bus.

We drove to Edam; but, had some trouble getting our bus to its destination. We were stopped by a number of police checkpoints. Our bus driver announced, “They are trying to keep soccer agitators away from a soccer game taking place today. The policeman will come in and ask if you are soccer fans. Please say ‘NO’!” And the policeman did pop in and in a heavily accented voice, “Are der sokker fans here?” There was a chorus of “No”. “Hmph!” the officer, and motioned with his head to the driver to continue.

We walked through this quaint Dutch village. We saw a former Catholic Church to was reclaimed by the reformation movement and reopened as a Protestant Lutheran Church. Again, we met the bus, and then went on to see the windmills. This community had been preserved with some buildings dating back to the 1600’s, as did the oldest windmill. It was nice seeing so many windmills in such close proximity. It was my recollection as a boy, that there were examples of these windmills all over the place back in the late 1950’s; but, today they seemed to be preserved only here. We were warned about pick-pockets; but, didn’t notice any problem. We stopped at the “food court” and got a couple of sodas, and shared a fresh baguette and a chocolate cake slice. We truly needed some refreshment. We walked about the preserved community taking pictures of the windmills, buildings and dikes.

Back at the ship our “Passenger In Transit” coupon worked well enough, until they were overflowing passengers with luggage into our line to clear shore-side ship’s security. We got back to our cabin and Sharon went up to the Lido for a quick lunch of carved meat She also needed to get a new Coke-Freestyle cup with a built in RFI chip that needs to be in place before the machine will dispense a beverage. She came back to the cabin as I was working on the blog. I popped up to the Exploration Café in the Crow’s Nest to get a bottle of San Pellegrino; but, there was a lot of congestion of the elevators with oncoming passengers and half of the elevators were reserved for luggage porters.

We thought that this “turn-around” day in Amsterdam would be a good day to have dinner in the Pinnacle Grille, one of our favorites. The amuse bouche was a seared scallop served on a dollop of creamed carrot. It was especially good because I got Sharon’s as well. I got the jumbo shrimp cocktail, and was able to get some extra horseradish for their brandy and horseradish sauce. Their sauce was pretty blasé; but, they brought me fairly strong horseradish, and what I concocted was pretty potent, so I was happy. I also had the crab cake and it too was quite tasty. We both had the filet cooked to order, and they do a superb job with steaks. I had the chocolate volcano cake, and it filled me up. Sharon had her Very cherry Garcia Baked Alaska; but, Sharon sometimes complains that the desserts used to be bigger. We had a great time, eating by a window, and watch as the ship left Amsterdam, travelling down the canal and through the locks and eventually into the North Sea.

For our first session of Team Trivia on the Baltic portion of the cruise, Becka was promising more “reasonable” questions. Joan told her that our only ambition was to improve and get NINE points tonight. Becka assured us that that should not be a problem. Then she started with a question repeated from the previous week. We all looked to Sharon when she asked “What city was Pope John Paul II in when he was shot?” We agree with her that he was in Vatican City. But Becka insisted he was in Rome. What soda was introduced by Coca-Cola in 1982? I suggested New Coke, but that was not around until 1985 (I checked). It was Diet Coke. Many of the next questions were at least guessable, until she asked “What country was first to require a driving test?” Our team was all over the place; but, nobody thought that it was “France”. In the back of my mind I think that I should have known “What city is headquarters to the European Space Program?” We went with Brussels; but, it was Paris. The bonus question was “What countries were the two signatories of the INF Treaty in 1997. We changed our first answer to USA and USSR, and were rewarded, even though we thought it stood for “International Something or Other”. It was the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (I looked that up also). Well we surpassed our declared goal of nine points, wound up with twelve, and were subdued by a team that got thirteen. Looks like we have some work ahead of us on this Baltic portion of the cruise.

We headed down to the Showroom to see the Excursion Coordinator give a presentation on the ports that we would be visiting in the Baltics. She explained that really, only one of the countries is really considered “In the Baltics” and that is Estonia; except, they feel that they really belong to the Nordic countries of Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark. And she also explained how Finland is not a Scandinavian country because their not on the “Scandinavian Peninsula” (Although, Denmark which is also is not part of that peninsula). The presentation gave us a preview of things we should look forward to seeing.

After the Show, Sharon headed back to the cabin and I decided to try my luck at the Blackjack Table. They were just opening up my Fun-21 game and I got to start out playing by myself for a while. I was doing fairly well when another player sat down. My luck changed a bit, and eventually this player ran out of money. I thought I had the table to myself; alas, another player decided to sit down. He almost tapped out a couple of times; but, he kept coming up with the win that he needed to continue. Eventually I had a small win streak of five hands in a row and found myself with a nice profit and decided to call it a night.

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