<Two Short Boys (in the country of giants)>

Enkhuizen

We spent yesterday with Ian's dad in Enkhuizen. Now if this doesn't just make you want to put on a pair of wooden shoes and kick your heels up, I don't know what will.

On another front, a break of at least a day or two is on the horizon. Maybe I'll post some overdue pics.

Labels: Enkhuizen, The Netherlands, travel

Still winter here . . .

The main purpose of this post is to see if a short video I took can be seen through the following link. If you're seeing this, it probably works.

Labels: The Netherlands

De Woonbeurs - Amsterdam Home Design Show

Chris, Janine, Ian and I went to a home show in Amsterdam last weekend. We're all looking for ideas for our new houses. We liked the chairs - the design was fun and they were very comfortable.
(More pics after the jump)

Chris was obviously up for a good time.

The sinks and fireplaces were worth the trip - everything else was a bonus.

Above is my fave.

It was huge - we spent about 3 hours there, and I think we could have spent a couple more very easily, but they threw us out at 10. It was raining when we left. Our train stopped at Duivendrecht and we had to wait in the rain for a bus - I guess the electicity went out, so the trains couldn't function safely. We got home, completely soaked, sometime after midnight. Chris and Janine got home even later and wetter.

Labels: Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Winter . . .

. . . is definitely on the way.

It looks like the U.S. is in for a metaphorical chill as well:

Chief Justice Roberts just referred to Congress as the executive branch. Oops.
I guess he's nervous.

Ha! Thanks for that, Tinman.

Labels: The Netherlands

Guide to public transport in the Netherlands

The Netherlands has a reasonably good public transport system. Here's a basic guide to tickets, trains, buses, trams, airports and taxis.

Labels: The Netherlands, travel

Getting around - Guides to Amsterdam, Paris and London

For those of you traveling here and around Europe, I've put some links here so that I don't lose them next time my computer crashes. You might want bookmark these, too - it can prevent some stress to get an idea of the geography of a city before you go. If you've got a guidebook, you can refer to these maps and figure out how close or far everything is, and how to get from one place to another. This is especially helpful for when you're traveling to someplace where everything is in a different language. (For newcomers, this is where you click "Continue reading", below, to get to the actual links.)
This is the Amsterdam site, in English.

The London Transport Homepage. This is for everything, including timetables for the tube, buses and rail.

The Real Underground has some very cool information. It shows a somewhat more realistic geographic representation of the London Underground. You can also click and superimpose the city streets onto the tube map, which is pretty cool.

Here are the London Tube Maps.

The Paris Metro (subway) System.

And finally, the mother lode of transit systems everywhere - the Metro Planet Subway travel information site. You have to look around a bit to figure out what to click on to get where you want to go, but once you figure it out, it is an excellent reference.

Labels: The Netherlands, travel

The Dutch Christmas according David Sedaris

I think David Sedaris is a brilliant writer. I came across this link the other day that leads to him reading his story Six to Eight Black Men. About a third of the way through, he relates the Dutch story and tradition. And I swear, he has it down perfectly. After you listen to it, you can buy the cd it comes off of from here:
Amazon.com: Books: David Sedaris Live at Carnegie Hall

Just to give a little preview, the six to eight black men he's talking about are those who accompany Sinterklaas on his holiday journey. Ian says they're black because of the soot get when they go down chimneys. He portrayed Zwarte Piet (Black Peter) last year. They swear here that this is not racist. I'm not going to say any more about that. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words; you be the judge.

Zwarte Piet Ian (is it just me, or is he actually prettier than any of The Supremes?)

Labels: The Netherlands

Utrecht Hotel Service

The link is up! For rooms, go to the Utrecht Hotel Service, then click on the British flag for the English site. Follow the link on the left to "Congresses," then you'll see the "To have joy one must share it" link.
If all of the sudden you find you're navigating a site that is not in English, look for a British flag and click on it. It'll take you to a mirror site in English.
As you book your rooms, let us know of any questions or concerns you have - also let us know where you're staying once you've booked.

Labels: Our Wedding, The Netherlands, travel

A trip to Arnhem

This post is mainly pictures of our trip to the open air museum in Arnhem yesterday, so those of you with slow connections may want to skip opening the "Continue reading" link.

On our way to the train station, we went to the flower market here in Utrecht.

The flower market is well-used by the locals. Bikes everywhere. After getting their flowers, they put them in the bags on the back of their bikes and pedal home.

Frequently, one or both of us will get flowers on Wednesday or Saturday to put around the apartment. Those are the two days you find good flowers at the markets. Generally, we end up spending aboput 10 Euros and bring home would be about hundred dollars worth of flowers if you bought them from Sam's, for instance.

Today we did something a little different. Instead of getting cut flowers, we bought some bulbs to force.

bulbs

After getting our bulbs, we went to breakfast at a little cafe. We ordered one breakfast and split it.

We got to the station at just a little before noon, put up our bikes, then waited on the platform for the fast train to Arnhem.

It's about a 40 minute ride, so we played some cribbage to pass the time.

Arnhem has an outdoor museum that is kind of a little village.

map

There's also and indoor museum. We went there and enjoyed an exhibit called "Clothes make the man/woman." You be the judge...

After entering the open air museum, you see the farm land and animals that have traditionally been used in the Netherlands.

The museum is primarily made up of houses that have been relocated from all over the Netherlands. Most of them are at least several hundred years old, so there's quite a bit of architectural diversity. The majority have been made without nails - wooden pegs were used to hold them together.

A detail of the painted window.

A modern farm house.

Lots of windmills from the verying areas of the country.

This buggy was hidden away in an outbuilding. All of the houses are open during the summer months (they will be in April for those you you coming to the wedding), but they're closed for the winter. We could look through the windows of the houses, but couldn't go inside.