3 Days in Amsterdam

While the family was visiting last month, we took a three-day trip to Amsterdam.

The most convenient and easy way to travel by far is by train, unless, of course, the train companies are striking, which they often do here. We bought tickets months in advance and watched the Deutschbahn strike and re-strike. However, things seemed to be smoothed out in time for our travel.

This is how we travel.

We left the house before 6:00 a.m. and walked to the train station. Since our tickets had already been purchased, all we had to do was find our platform, car, and seats. There were seven of us, and our seats were four facing each other with a table in the middle, either side of the aisle. This was very convenient for eating our breakfast and playing Uno with the small children.

Our train ride took us through the Rhine River Gorge, passing majestic castles, romantic vineyards, and quaint villages. The tracks took us past all the same places we go when we drive this way by car, but with a different view from the large windows of the train.

Only two connections and four hours later, we arrived in Centraal Station, Amsterdam. From there, we crossed the street to the bus office to buy passes for the weekend. Then we caught our tram, which took us to a stop right in front of the apartment we rented, Villa Kuijper, just on the edge of the central city. 

Villa Kuijper - the top two floors our apartment, the bottom floor a café/bar.

We met the owner of the building, which once belonged to his uncle. Built in 1880, his family lived there until they decided to renovate and rent it to families for short stays.

We've found the people in The Netherlands to be very friendly and able to speak English very well. This man was no exception. He greeted us warmly and shook our hands as we introduced ourselves. He then unlocked the very tall door and led us up a very steep staircase. The steps were so steep, it was almost like climbing a ladder. 

A view of the stairs looking up from the bottom.

A view of the stairs from the top looking down.

Once inside, he showed us around the two-floor apartment, which was very beautifully decorated and modern. We were starving, so he recommended the café/bar that was located in the bottom floor of the building. 

The living room

After some food and a rest, we took a city canal cruise. It was raining, but the boat had cover and we enjoyed seeing some of the city's highlights. A narrative in English was available though the complimentary earbuds. Our friend living in the UK, who decided to fly over and join us for the weekend, arrived late that evening.
 

Canal view form the boat

Some of the many house boats on the canal

Bridge over a canal

First thing the next morning, we set out for a breakfast place Mr. B and I had eaten at on a previous trip. However, that place didn't open so we searched the neighborhood until we found a different place. This delay put us in a bit of a time crunch because we had pre-purchased tickets to the Anne Frank House, which is preferable to standing in a long line. 

The line for the Anne Frank House

We made our booking and were able to skip the long line already forming. We opted to take the small children to the Anne Frank House because we learned the only graphic photos are at the end of the tour and it was possible to bypass that exhibit. Prior to the trip, we purchased a kid's story of Anne Frank for the small children so that they could understand who she was and why we were looking at her house.

 

We solemnly walked nearly single file through the unfurnished rooms of the house where the Frank family lived in hiding for more than 2 years. Reading snippets of her diary, it revealed the story of the Frank family against the backdrop of world history. The older of our two kids really enjoyed the museum.


The remainder of our time in Amsterdam was spent walking. Amsterdam is a crowded city with more people on bicycles than in cars. Walking is not a passive activity, especially for the wandering tourist. You've got to constantly be aware of where you're walking, whether you're in a bike-only lane or safely on the pedestrian sidewalk.

I took lots of pictures of the funny crooked houses.

 

 

Good burgers here!

We had dinner at the famous Upstairs Pancake House, located in a 16th century home with another nearly vertical staircase. There's only seating for 14 people, but the pancakes are delicious!

Upstairs Pancake House

The stairs going up to the restaurant

A side view of the stairs so that you can see their steepness.

Their pancakes are famous for a reason!

We bought cheese. Pounds of cheese to bring back with us. Dutch farm cheese is made from pure unpasteurized milk. 

And that's about it. The next morning, we has breakfast at the downstairs café, meandered a bit longer though the streets, and then caught our train home.

Pretty Dang Hot

I hesitated writing this post because I didn't want to sound whiney. But the fact is, we just endured a major weather event and I'd like to share what it was like. Well, it was pretty dang hot.

I've lived in some hot weather places: Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. I know what it is to get into an oven-like car and be able to actually smell the hotness. However, I've never experienced heat like this. There are no air-conditioners in Germany, and, because of this, there is no escape from the heat.

In a five-day-long record-breaking heatwave, Germany's all-time heat record was shattered with temperatures topping out at 104 degrees. In our city, we had three days of 90-degree weather followed by two 100-degree days, each day getting progressively hotter. It was so hot, the highways (autobahns) were rupturing and causing "blow-ups" or wave-like ripples on the surface.

101 is hot.

The German's approach to the torridness is to open all the windows during the cool early morning hours, and then close everything up at precisely the right moment before the temperature outside exceeds the temperature inside.

When they close up, they really mean it. Many homes here have rolladens on the windows. Rolladens are like rolling shutters on the outsides of the windows, and they provide shade and insulation against the heat. The nicer ones are mechanically controlled from the inside of the home. 

Notice the rolladens on most of the windows. Looks like the town has boarded up, but they're just preparing for the heat.

Our apartment does not have rolladens. When we moved in, we noticed some mini-blind type shades installed on the outside of the windows, but their pulley systems had long been rusted into place. In my desperate attempt to provide some relief to our sweltering conditions, I discovered that the shades on the smaller windows had pulley systems on the inside so they were still operational. 

Here are the mini-blinds on the outsides of our small windows.

Though they are not as nice as rolladens, they have provided some shade and insulation.

To survive our long hot days, I would get up around 6:00 to start closing the windows and shades on the sunny side of the building. The sun rises at 4:00, so by 6:00 the sun is already blazing. Our living room and bedroom have big windows without the outside shades so I closed the windows, the inside blinds, and the doors of the rooms, closing them off completely from the rest of the house. The other rooms had all the layers - outside blinds, windows, and inside blinds - closed up and so dark that we felt like we were living in a cave. In fact, it reminded me of how we lived through hurricanes - in the dark with boarded up windows. 

These are our big windows in our living room. This room and our bedroom are very exposed to the heat.

The first couple of days, this system seemed to work pretty well. It would get stuffy inside, but we carried our two fans with us from room to room to keep the air moving. But then the evenings didn't cool off enough to provide any relief so that when we woke up it was already sweltering. The nice cool bricks of our building had finally started holding in all the heat, turning our little apartment into an oven.

The heat became oppressive. We couldn't put the children to bed until after 9:00 when the sun went behind a building and we could open their window. And still it was in the 90s at 10:00 p.m. We would get up in the morning, get as much done as we could until we just couldn't do anything anymore. Then we'd nap in front of the fans until we'd all wake up a sweaty mess. I gave up cooking and we ate cold food: salads, sandwiches, fruit. We made lemonade and ate Popsicles. We took cold showers. 

One afternoon we took everyone to a local pool. It was actually pleasant out beside the Rhine River eating a picnic dinner under the shade of a tree. The pool was packed with Germans, all seeking respite from the heat: swimming, eating, sleeping, playing cards, reading, and playing Ping-Pong in the shade. In America, you would never see this amount of people outside in heat like that day. Americans would all be inside sitting (heck, me included!). Here, I felt a sense of community, like "Hey, we're all hot. Let's make the best of it."

We celebrated the Fourth of July at a friend's house, sitting in the shade as best we could, sweating profusely. All the kids blissfully splashing in a tiny plastic inflatable pool and eating popsicles. A small thunderstorm passed close enough for us to see about six drops of rain, but still no relief from the heat.

By the last day, it was unbearable. We fled the house by 3:00 and went to Mr. B's office. His small department has air conditioning. With bags packed with snacks and quiet activities, we waited out the heat as long as we could. At 7:00 p.m., it was still 102 degrees. After we got home and started opening everything up, a wild wind storm whipped up and started dropping the temps. Finally some relief!

Be sure to remind me of this when it's winter and I haven't seen the sun for 4 months.

3 Days in the Alps

We arrived at the apartment we had rented over the internet in Garmisch, a mountain resort town in Bavaria, in the evening. A short, middle-aged Spanish woman greeted us warmly and let us in. She led us through the building that was once a printing house to the apartment that would be ours. We discussed the details of our stay in broken English, German, and little Spanish thrown in.

It was an interesting apartment with 5 bedrooms. Each bedroom had it's own shower and sink. There were three small rooms along the hall with a toilet and a sink in each. The 7 of us would have plenty of space. But, the best part was on the kitchen table: the largest tiramisu I had ever seen! 

This is the living area. I failed to take my own pictures of the place, so I "borrowed" these two off a website.

Here is one of the bedrooms. They were all alike with a shower and sink in each of them.

I did not forget to take a picture of the unbelievable tiramisu!

The location of the apartment was ideal, right downtown within walking distance of shops and restaurants. The mountains were close, but our view was obscured by rain clouds throughout most of our stay.

Rainy days

Day 1:
It rained most of the day, from a steady downpour to showers. Even the locals held ill feelings toward the weather. One lady stopped us in the street and expressed her distaste by saying, "Dis vetter ist....S#*T!" It seems she couldn't think of a better word to use in English.

However, we made the most of it. I took the small children to the indoor schwimmbad (swimming pool facility), where they blissfully swam and went down the water slide a countless number of times.

Day 2:
After consulting the forecast, we decided this day would be our best chance of getting out for a hike. We took a city bus to the site of the 1936 Winter Olympics. The ski stadium, built for 100,000 spectators, still exists today much as it was in 1936. Even with the eerie silence, it wasn't difficult to imagine the cheering crowds and perhaps Hitler himself viewing the ski jumps from the covered balcony. 

Ski jump

Just beyond the stadium was the beginning of the route to the Partnach Gorge, which is a deep gorge cut by a mountain stream. It's about a 30-minute hike through the gorge on a narrow trial that runs along side the river. When we were there, the snow melt had filled the confined river transforming it into wild rushing waters. 

Wild river of Partnach Gorge

The narrow ledge trail and waterfalls

 

We clutched the hands of the small children and proceeded with caution and wonder. Around each bend, the views were exhilarating with steep walls, plummeting waterfalls, and swirling rapids. We emerged on the other side to a spectacular view of the mountains. The trail continued on from there, but we turned and made our way back through the gorge. 

The view from the other side of the gorge

By this time of day, the trail was getting crowded. In most places, the trail was only wide enough for one person to pass through, so often we had to stop and wait to let others pass through. In addition, it seemed the more the people came, the less prepared they were for the hike. People not wearing proper footwear and attempting to use umbrellas to shield themselves from the constant spray.

A view of the narrow trail and some yahoo with an umbrella, which was whacking everyone in the face!

Overall, it was a breathtaking hike, which I will rate in my top 5 all-time hikes.
 

Day 3:
This day was a German holiday, which means nothing would be open, so we decided we'd take a drive to nearby Innsbruck, Austria. We knew that we'd risk finding things closed there for the holiday as well, which it was, but we were happy to explore a new city. 

Innsbruck, Austria. Could there be a prettier place? I think not!

The mountains surround Innsbruck and capture it's charm within their walls. After lunch at a sidewalk café during a brief window of sunshine, we wandered through their fußganger (pedestrian zone). To enjoy the sights at a leisurely pace and to indulge the small children, we took a carriage ride, which began at the palace gardens and wound around through the old city.

Even though it rained most of our trip, it was a wonderful time. It only means we will have to make a return trip to see the things we missed.

Guest Post: Mr. Bloomsbury

Having received frequent praise for the standard of writing Mrs. B has set, it is with fear and trepidation that I take the reins for this installment of the Bloombury's blog.

 

Since you know us, you will not be surprised to find this entry lacking in terms of written and photographic content. In fact, the only surprise to you here may be that I'm writing this at all.

 

Aside from the purpose of maintaining communications and reporting goings-on, the Bloomsburys is, at heart, a travel blog.

 

As such, this entry is on topic.

 

I am a fan of traveling and, while there are many reasons, the root of my interest (like nearly all of my interests) is that travel is a medium for engaging the world at life-size scale.

 

For the past several years, travel has been a work requirement for me. The range of destinations has been extreme; from tense and dangerous places to quiet and serene places.  I cannot say that I’ve enjoyed all of it, but I will say that I’ve found likeable (if not attractive) qualities of nearly all the places I’ve been.

 

Today, I'm writing this from somewhere in between, alone on a train rumbling across a surprisingly picturesque plain.

 

The train is hot, a still kind of hot, enabled by nonfunctioning windows and a late afternoon sky without clouds.

 

After having spent a winter split between Europe and the U.S. Pacific Coast, I am not well adjusted to the heat and can't readily remember the last time I broke a sweat just sitting still.

 

This ride of a few hours passes through a variety of landscapes including some agrarian settings that appear to be stuck in time from a century ago. In fact, when sorting my ticket as best I could with the station agent, I took pause to notice that handwriting and rubber stamps were still very much a part of the ticketing process. This process was not made easier by my working vocabulary of 6 words in the local language.  While my youngest child would credit me with speaking a number of languages, “Alabamian, British, American, and German," the reality is that I speak very little of any language outside of English.

 

Perhaps it was that moment at the ticket counter that reminded me of these things:

 

1) I was planning to provide a Bloomsburys blog entry.

 

2) As someone convinced they were born far after their time, travel is a way to connect with aspects of the "past."

 

3) The past few years I've travelled a lot of miles, and Mrs. B has done more than most can imagine keeping the ship afloat at home while I'm away (which is slightly more than she does to that end while I'm home).

 

4) Traveling is still one of my favorite things to do.  I’ve been fortunate to have had the opportunity to go many places for a variety of purposes and to often do so with fantastic companions.

 

I will now turn the reins back over to Mrs. B's more capable hands.

 

I know she likes to hear from folks who read this, so let her know what it is that makes you like to travel or what it is that makes you dislike traveling.

Thoughts about Bed Sizes in Europe

We've been doing a bit of traveling over the last few weeks...(more stories about those adventures to come). And we've spent a good number of nights staying in European accommodations, as opposed to staying in American hotels with American standards.

One of the major differences between European hotels and American ones is the bed sizes. Specifically, the "king" sized beds. In Europe, the "king" sized bed is typically two twin beds pushed together. The two twins each have separate fitted sheets, and come with one cover over both beds or two covers, one for each twin.

Here are two twins with one cover.

As I pondered this difference, I thought of some possible explanations for their system and how people could benefit from this logic at home:

1. To prevent too many people from sleeping in one bed. Two people can sleep comfortably, however, if you add a third person, the one in the middle gets stuck sleeping on the crack.

When would you have three people in one bed, you may ask? I slept in the middle of my two small children here.

2. To prevent one person from waking the other whilst flip-flopping in their attempt to get comfortable. 

3. To prevent one person from hogging all the space. (There is a line. Do not cross!)

4. To encourage an end to cuddle time. (Back on your own side to sleep!)

5. To replace half of the bed in case one side gets soiled or worn out, which would be less expensive than replacing the whole mattress. (Perhaps hotels beds in America would be less scary if they got replaced more often!)

6. Perhaps to accommodate different tastes in mattress firmness. 

7. When there are two covers: to prevent one sleeper from hogging all the covers. 

8. Perhaps to give hotels more flexibility to offer a room to tourists and families. If they have a family, push the beds together. The next day if they have tourists, the hotel staff can make them into two twins. 

9. To allow each person to select the weight of covers that suits them.

10. To allow for easier transport. There are no elevators in many places, and stairways can be narrow and very steep. King-sized mattresses are big, bulky, and very heavy. 

Try lugging a king-sized mattress up a few flights of stairs like these!

King-sized beds are an American creation, only invented in the 1960s. Would it be so terrible to sleep side by side with someone in a separate bed? It makes me think of Lucy and Ricardo in I Love Lucy or June and Ward in Leave It to Beaver. We've had the same mattress since we've been married. Perhaps it's time to embrace the culture and upgrade!

 

Tulips, wooden clogs, and cheese

Just a few hours' drive from us is the tulip growing region of The Netherlands, and springtime awakens the bulbs from their slumber to create a colorful patchwork.

We had read that one of the best places to view the brilliant blooms is at the Keukenhof Gardens. Here, the flowers are planted in gorgeous displays with more than 7 million bulbs and 800 varieties. It is called the most beautiful spring garden in the world.

Indeed, these gardens are world famous because it seemed the entire world was there the same sunny Saturday day we visited. There were so many people. Cars jammed the highways. Tour busses filled the parking lot. People streamed in with cameras in hand all hoping to catch a glimpse of the garden's beauty.

The flowers and displays were very beautiful, but it was difficult to enjoy viewing them while pushing our way through the crowds. There were so many different languages and nationalities that when I bumped into someone, I would say, "Pardon me, sorry, excusez-moi, entschuldigung," to try to cover all my bases.

We did manage to capture some photos without hordes of people in them.

Hyacinth

 

Daffodils

A mix of colors

Van Gogh

 

 

 

 

The gardens thoughtfully provided an activity to entertain the children. When we entered the gate, a woman handed us a "treasure" map. The children had to find the 5 stations located throughout the park and they would be given a free flower. At the last station, they could have their collection of flowers made into a bouquet. This goal became our mission as we pushed our way through the throngs.

Overall, it was a lovely place but too crowded. Also, we had anticipated getting to see the massive tulip fields. The fields are gardened by farmers who grow the flowers for their bulbs, which they sell.

A field of yellow waaaaaaay over there as seen from Keukenhof.

After we left the Keukenhof, we discovered what we were looking for. In the surrounding areas were football sized fields of reds, oranges, and yellows. I've read these enormous patches of color can be seen from space! I think that perhaps the best way to view the tulips would be to skip the Keukenhof and wander the region by bike or car.

Besides tulips, other cultural icons for The Netherlands are wooden shoes and cheese. We heard about the must-see Clara Maria Cheese Farm and Clog Factory, a 160-year-old farm that makes cheese according to Dutch tradition and clogs using authentic antique machines. Tours and cheese samples are free!

Our tour guide walked into the room and surprised us by saying, "Hi, y'all!" He was a friendly guy who grew up in Texas. His Dutch family owns the farm, and he told us all about how they make their cheeses. We purchased several varieties: a 1-year-old cheese, a 2-year-old cheese (slightly harder than the 1-year-old), a pepper cheese, and a whiskey cheese. It's a good thing their farm is several hours away, or I could see a habit forming.

Colorful clogs

Chopping the wood

Placing the wood into the machine

Carving out the inside

Glorious cheese!

Brining the cheese

They invited us to go into the barn to meet the ladies. They were all very friendly, and the small children enjoyed feeding them hay. We even got to meet the farm's newest addition: a day-old calf!

 

 

 

It's Spargel Season

What is spargel? It's white asparagus. Spargel is grown in mounds of dirt so that no light can trigger photosynthesis and the production of chlorophyll.

And the Germans are crazy about it. It's only sold during a short spring season so right now it's everywhere, and people are buying it up. It's a German tradition. A visit to the farmer's market and you'll see people lined up to buy it. Roadside stands are popping up everywhere selling it. Chalkboard restaurant menus are offering spargel in all kinds of ways: spargel cream soup, a pizza topping, a side dish, bacon wrapped, or a dozen other ways.

Rows of spargel at the market

Curious about the obsession, I bought some from our farmer's market. The stand I visited had 3 different types, varying in price. Apparently, the pure white (um, Aryian?) spargel goes for a premium, while the spargel with a variant color is considered a flaw and is sold for less. 

Alongside the spargel I found boxes of hollandaise sauce, which I correctly assumed accompanied the spargel. 

More rows of spargel with the boxes of hollandaise sauce

After obtaining the "white gold" and the sauce, I returned home and promptly looked up how to prepare the ghostly looking vegetable for consumption. The basic way to cook spargel is quite easy: peel it, boil it, and drench it with the hollandaise. I'd say it's softer and richer than it's green counterpart. Very delicious.

This machine will peel your spargel. Handy if you buy a lot!

Spargel peels