Blogs from North Holland, Netherlands, Europe - page 10

We wake up to the sound of heavy rain. Issy decides on a morning of domestics so I head out into the downpour alone. Indoor destinations are looking attractive so I make my way towards a couple of interesting looking churches, safe in the knowledge that these wouldn’t have been on any of Issy’s itineraries. I stumble across Rembrandtplein Square which is dominated by a very large cast iron statue of the great master. I read that it was first unveiled here in 1852 which makes it the oldest statue that’s still standing anywhere in Amsterdam. Twenty two bronze statues that represent the characters from Rembrandt’s masterpiece “The Night Watch” stand at the foot of the main statue and have only been added in the last decade or so. I stop to take some happy snaps ... read more

Issy and I realise that neither of us know a single word of Dutch, so we consult the Google oracle to try to learn at least a few rudimentary phrases. We start with “hello”. The oracle tells us that the Dutch word for this is “hallo”. We are very encouraged; we think that we’ve probably got some chance of remembering this. We hope that perhaps all Dutch words will be similar to their English equivalents. Now that we can successfully greet people we need to move on to working out what to say if we want something. The oracle tells us that the Dutch word for “please” is ”alsjeblieft”. This is slightly less encouraging. After further research we decide that the best we can hope for is that if we say “hallo” often enough the locals ... read more

July 17 We now interrupt this blog transmission for a moment of history in our world. Okay who among you reading this blog learned that in the year 1620 the Pilgrims left Plymouth England and headed out to the new world? Well I'm here to tell you there was sooooo much more to the story! Every trip I take I discover astonishing facts about history that didn't make it into our school books, for instance: Most students don’t learn about the time the Pilgrims spent in Holland. They weren't called Pilgrims then, they were called Separatist because they were "separating" from their church and they arrived in Holland from England in about 1609. Seems they quickly learned that they needed more than Holland had to offer and thought their children may be becoming "too Dutch" which ... read more

After the craziness of trying to find our bus, our travel to Amsterdam went smoothly...until we tried to store our luggage. Despite what at least 2 websites claimed, there is no luggage storage at Amsterdam Sloterdijk and the luggage storage onsite at Amsterdam Central is only available if you have a train ticket. Sigh. Thankfully, we were directed to a luggage storage place just down the street - where you can also rent bikes. We did not participate in the bike rental, but dumped our stuff and went to go find a quick meal before going on a canal tour. I highly recommend a canal tour since Amsterdam is a city on water. According to our tour, there are over a thousand bridges. The canals are also the only place that you are safe from the ... read more

A few days before our departure, I flew to Peoria to visit with family ahead of the trip. On May 28, Jill and I took a Peoria Charter Coach to O'Hare Airport to board our Icelandair flight. Following a plane change in Reykjavik,we were bumped to First Class for the 3 hour flight to Amerstdam. Our hotel was very convenient to the train station, the main canal, and the tour busses; however, it was in the Red Light District! The hotel was very nice, but the neighborhood was a "happenin'" place. My introduction to Amsterdam was in the form of "Offbeat Amsterdam Red Light District Tour." This was pretty amazing! The streets were very busy with customers/gawkers/tourists, and the area had the smell of the coffee shops. They aren't selling coffee, but marijuana of all types. ... read more