September 1, 2007
Trip to the Netherlands (aka Holland)
I’m writing on yet another flight, but this one is back to Rome. I meant to blog over the past week, but just didn’t make time to do it. So here over a week later I’m blogging on a plane once again.
I spent August 17 – 24th in the Netherlands, which is also referred to has Holland. As I mentioned before, I didn’t really plan that much in advance for this trip but decided to go there because 1) I knew it was a place where there are typically layovers when flying to the US & thus a better chance for me to get my flights covered by the company since I was going to the US for a training class & 2) because I knew people from Houston living there (doing similar 2 year assignments like I am). They were generous enough to let me stay with them while I was in there too! (Thanks Jose & Claudia and Jeff!) I spent Friday in Amsterdam, Sat. morning – Tuesday evening in Den Haag with trips to various places including to Belgium on Saturday, and then back in Amsterdam Tuesday evening through Friday morning.
Prior to going to Holland, there were only a few things that I knew about it - tulips in the spring, windmills, people like to ride their bikes everywhere, wooden shoes, colder weather, lots of canals, and prostitution & smoking weed (aka pot) are legal there and most of that occurs in the Red Light District. Now after visiting, I have confirmed that those are all true, but here are some other observations (or more info on the above):
1) Although I knew about them using bikes, I didn’t realize the extent to it until I got there! Bicycles are everywhere! Hundreds parked at train stations, dad’s riding around with a kid in front of them & behind them and groceries in these bags over the back wheel. Kids, moms, dads, business people, elderly people – it doesn’t matter their age, gender, status… they all ride bikes. Any type of weather – they ride bikes! Any time of day you go out on the street & you will see someone riding a bike down the street. Oh & they are not nice, new bikes either. They are very ‘old school’ and I saw several that were spray painted florescent pink and another in green and others in just awful colors. I think it has to do with the fact that stealing bikes is somewhat of a sport there apparently, so if you have a nice bike you would be the first target for this ‘sport’. And because of the way the handle bars are, they always look so prim & proper riding there bikes with their backs straight, etc. I was going to rent a bike and ride around Amsterdam, but the day I was going to rent one it was suppose to rain so I decided not to (in the end, it didn’t rain anyway!). There are tons of places to rent bikes too. So the Dutch (people in Holland) ride bikes a lot – fact! I took some pictures of the ones parked outside Den Haag and Amsterdam Central Stations, but you have to see it with your own eyes to believe it!
2) Cold weather – that I found out quickly & the hard way. It’s not super cold, but colder than Rome or Houston. I was in Venice prior to flying to Amsterdam and the temperature when I left was about 98F. I was wearing a t-shirt, some pants that I rolled up to look like capri pants, & flip-flops. I got to Amsterdam around 7:30pm, got a taxi to the PwC Amsterdam office to pick up my friend’s apartment key that he left there for me, & then went to his apartment. I was having problems opening the front door to his apartment & was locked out of my blackberry (as mentioned previously, I’m having issues with even simple things!), so I decided to walk to somewhere to call my friend to make sure there wasn’t some sort of “trick” to opening his door. So I headed down the street & then decided I needed to roll down my pant legs. I was still cold and then actually paid attention to what the people around me where wearing and realized they were wearing jackets, down-filled vests, scarves, etc. So I was the only crazy person walking around in flip-flops! Needless to say the rest of the time I was in Holland I wasn’t wearing flip-flops & I wore the blazer I brought with me! I think most of the time the temperature was in the 60’s, which for a Texas girl is absurd for August!
3) I went with some of my friends and a group of people to the Red Light District on Sunday night. I think I read & heard enough about it to not be completely ‘jaw dropped’ about everything, but it was still a bit odd. The prostitutes rent their rooms where they stand in their lingerie in the front window trying to attract the men walking by for their ‘business’. For most there were red lights actually lighting up the windows (thus the red light district). Each room had a small bed, sink, bathroom & not much else (or at least not from what I could tell walking by). When they are doing their ‘business’ they close the curtains & then open them back up again when they are done. There are some streets where the width is so small basically just 1 person can walk at a time & the windows are on both sides. Down those streets I just wanted to get to the end! In the Red Light District there are also tons of shops selling anything related to sex & drugs (esp. pot) that you can think of and live ‘sex shows’. There are also “coffee shops” all over where you can go & order and some pot & mushrooms (and not the kind you get at any normal restaurant…these might make you see some crazy things!) As a side note, whenever in Holland if you want to get coffee go to a café not a coffee shop, or you might smell some funny stuff in there! The whole coffee shop thing is in all of Holland, not just the Red Light District. If any of you are wondering, NO I did not partake in any of these activities – all I did was walk thru the Red Light District. Some things I found odd about the Red Light District were the day care in the middle right between the ‘windows’ a church in the middle. Also most of the ladies in the windows did not seem to be Dutch.
4) Since things like prostitution & smoking weed are legal, you would think that the city would pretty much be chaos, but it isn’t. I had to actually make sure I crossed at crosswalks (unlike in Rome)! Also my friends told me that the Dutch do not believe in drinking and driving…even if it’s one drink (they will ride bikes, but not drive a car). They also have series of traffic cameras set up along the freeway where it will measure the distance between to calculate if you are speeding and if so you will get a ticket in the mail (and it’s not like in Houston where the cameras are marked). Overall the city seems orderly & clean…but then again I wasn’t in the Red Light District really late at night/early in the morning.
5) Dutch, the language, to me isn’t that pretty on the ear (sorry if any of you speak Dutch!). To me it sounded like English with extra letters and them sounding like they are hocking a loogie (or maybe it’s a hairball stuck in their throats). I was in a museum and heard someone speaking Italian behind me & just though ‘Oh Italian is such a pretty language!’ Now I actually want to learn Italian even more when I get home & am grateful I don’t have to learn Dutch! The good this was that almost all Dutch speak English too, so I really didn’t have a communication problem (except not being able to say the street names!).
6) I did see a lot of farmland, livestock & windmills as we were driving through Holland and as I was on the train. We even took some pictures with some (that was one of our challenges during a road trip!)
7) Climbing Dutch stairways can be considered an exercise routine!! In an email my friend sent me, he told me he was on the 3rd floor of a building and he had “Dutch stairs” in his building. And just put “Yeah, have fun with those!” I really didn’t know what he meant until I opened the front door to his building & looked up at the staircase in front of me! They are VERY steep, the stairs are small, and when you stand on one the next is about mid-shin. There were about 50 stairs to get to his apartment & let me tell you getting my huge suitcase up & down that WAS a workout!
8) The Dutch eat fries with EVERYTHING! Most meals we ate came with a side of fries. And they dip them in a mayonnaise type sauce (Fritz sauce) instead of ketchup.
Although I stayed in Den Haag several days, I didn’t really see much of the town because we went everywhere else. On Saturday I went to Bruges and Brussels in Belgium with Claudia and Jose. They have a car, so we just drove there. It’s crazy how in just a couple hours you can be in a different country. They didn’t seem all that different from Holland. I did do some of the ‘Belgium’ things like have waffles, get chocolate, and drink beer (at home I would never drink beer, but in Belgium & Holland I had it and it wasn’t that bad!). We kind of did a whirlwind tour of Bruges, just having lunch there & looking at some of the landmarks. Then we went to Brussels and looked around there in the rest of the afternoon & evening. One of the most fun things we did in Brussels was go to this place called Mini Europe that has miniatures of main landmarks of most of the European countries. It also had where you could press the button to play the anthem and make things on the models move. I think it was built for kids, but it seemed that all the adults were having more fun than the kids! It’s a place that if you went to by yourself it wouldn’t be that fun, but since it was a group of us and we were taking pictures of each other etc. it was a blast. Also for dinner we were joined by another couple from Houston that just moved to Den Haag (again doing a 2 year assignment there similar to what I’m doing).
On Sunday afternoon we went to a Latin Festival in a city close to Amsterdam. Claudia & Jose’s friend who’s originally from Mexico was dancing in it. It was interesting going to a festival in another country (especially a Latin festival…meaning Latin America…in Holland). The biggest thing I found funny was that although there was Mexican dancing & mariachi bands, there was no Mexican food! I actually had some Turkish food there! The dancing was really good & the weather turned out great that day too!
Monday afternoon the 3 of us decided to take a ride to the islands in Northern Holland, but we didn’t really plan ahead and when we got there we found out that the next ferry was going to leave in another hour and that if we took that one we would be stuck on the islands because there would be no more ferries coming back that night. So we decided to make the best of the situation & took a ride through the country side and then stopped at a couple small towns along the way back. Also Claudia decided to make a challenge for us to take pictures with as much livestock as we could, so I actually went in a pasture with sheep to take a picture with them! We went to so many places I don’t even know the name of too. We would just stop & take pictures…and I can not remember the names of them all!
On Tuesday I went to the Open Air Museum in Arnhem, which was about an hour train ride & then 15 minute bus ride from Den Haag. The Museum was more like a park with probably about 20 different house and building in a large open area with paths. The houses were set up like they would be in Holland during different periods and you could walk through different areas of the houses. They also had a building with people weaving in it, a blacksmith making different things, fresh bread baking that you could buy, display of the equipment of how cheese is made, etc. They also had gardens and playgrounds set up like in the ‘old days’ and had several restaurants & cafes. I spent several hours there and enjoyed it a lot! I was very glad that the weather was fairly warm and it didn’t rain!
Wednesday & Thursday I spent exploring Amsterdam on my own. I had a guide book I used to pick the main places I wanted to go & other than that I just kind of made my plans as I went along. Some of the things I did were running & walking through Vondel Park, which is a HUGE park that they have. It was so relaxing going through there & is a place where the Dutch go for picnics and just to relax. I also went to several museums including the Rijks Museum and the Van Gogh Museum. I also went to the Anne Frank house, which was probably one my favorite things of the whole trip. I’ve read the Diary of Anne Frank in school and found it interesting, but going through the house and seeing all the places that she wrote about was something else. There were also videos of the secretary who brought the families their supplies of food talking about what happened and even video of Anne Frank’s dad. I also went and saw Rembrandt’s house (the painters). That was interesting because it was set up as it would have been when he lived there with all the artwork & his painting supplies, etc. Those were the only “big” places I went to & since I spent several hours in each place it took up some time. Also since I wasn’t on a set schedule I slept in a lot too. J
I also went back to Den Haag on Thursday night to have dinner with some of the people there since it was one of the girl’s (from Houston) birthday. I even got to see the PwC Den Haag office, which was cool to see how different it is compared to Houston and Rome. They have an open bar at the top floor every Thursday evening there, which doesn’t happen in Houston or Rome! It’s probably the most different than the Rome office since our office there is not modern at all and is so much smaller.
I think the part I enjoyed the most about the whole trip was being able to hang out with people that I know and not having to travel alone! It was great visiting with them, traveling with them, and laughing with them. Overall I had a great time!
I took lots of pictures that I'll post later this week (it's getting too late to do it tonight!)
Trip to the Netherlands (aka Holland)
I’m writing on yet another flight, but this one is back to Rome. I meant to blog over the past week, but just didn’t make time to do it. So here over a week later I’m blogging on a plane once again.
I spent August 17 – 24th in the Netherlands, which is also referred to has Holland. As I mentioned before, I didn’t really plan that much in advance for this trip but decided to go there because 1) I knew it was a place where there are typically layovers when flying to the US & thus a better chance for me to get my flights covered by the company since I was going to the US for a training class & 2) because I knew people from Houston living there (doing similar 2 year assignments like I am). They were generous enough to let me stay with them while I was in there too! (Thanks Jose & Claudia and Jeff!) I spent Friday in Amsterdam, Sat. morning – Tuesday evening in Den Haag with trips to various places including to Belgium on Saturday, and then back in Amsterdam Tuesday evening through Friday morning.
Prior to going to Holland, there were only a few things that I knew about it - tulips in the spring, windmills, people like to ride their bikes everywhere, wooden shoes, colder weather, lots of canals, and prostitution & smoking weed (aka pot) are legal there and most of that occurs in the Red Light District. Now after visiting, I have confirmed that those are all true, but here are some other observations (or more info on the above):
1) Although I knew about them using bikes, I didn’t realize the extent to it until I got there! Bicycles are everywhere! Hundreds parked at train stations, dad’s riding around with a kid in front of them & behind them and groceries in these bags over the back wheel. Kids, moms, dads, business people, elderly people – it doesn’t matter their age, gender, status… they all ride bikes. Any type of weather – they ride bikes! Any time of day you go out on the street & you will see someone riding a bike down the street. Oh & they are not nice, new bikes either. They are very ‘old school’ and I saw several that were spray painted florescent pink and another in green and others in just awful colors. I think it has to do with the fact that stealing bikes is somewhat of a sport there apparently, so if you have a nice bike you would be the first target for this ‘sport’. And because of the way the handle bars are, they always look so prim & proper riding there bikes with their backs straight, etc. I was going to rent a bike and ride around Amsterdam, but the day I was going to rent one it was suppose to rain so I decided not to (in the end, it didn’t rain anyway!). There are tons of places to rent bikes too. So the Dutch (people in Holland) ride bikes a lot – fact! I took some pictures of the ones parked outside Den Haag and Amsterdam Central Stations, but you have to see it with your own eyes to believe it!
2) Cold weather – that I found out quickly & the hard way. It’s not super cold, but colder than Rome or Houston. I was in Venice prior to flying to Amsterdam and the temperature when I left was about 98F. I was wearing a t-shirt, some pants that I rolled up to look like capri pants, & flip-flops. I got to Amsterdam around 7:30pm, got a taxi to the PwC Amsterdam office to pick up my friend’s apartment key that he left there for me, & then went to his apartment. I was having problems opening the front door to his apartment & was locked out of my blackberry (as mentioned previously, I’m having issues with even simple things!), so I decided to walk to somewhere to call my friend to make sure there wasn’t some sort of “trick” to opening his door. So I headed down the street & then decided I needed to roll down my pant legs. I was still cold and then actually paid attention to what the people around me where wearing and realized they were wearing jackets, down-filled vests, scarves, etc. So I was the only crazy person walking around in flip-flops! Needless to say the rest of the time I was in Holland I wasn’t wearing flip-flops & I wore the blazer I brought with me! I think most of the time the temperature was in the 60’s, which for a Texas girl is absurd for August!
3) I went with some of my friends and a group of people to the Red Light District on Sunday night. I think I read & heard enough about it to not be completely ‘jaw dropped’ about everything, but it was still a bit odd. The prostitutes rent their rooms where they stand in their lingerie in the front window trying to attract the men walking by for their ‘business’. For most there were red lights actually lighting up the windows (thus the red light district). Each room had a small bed, sink, bathroom & not much else (or at least not from what I could tell walking by). When they are doing their ‘business’ they close the curtains & then open them back up again when they are done. There are some streets where the width is so small basically just 1 person can walk at a time & the windows are on both sides. Down those streets I just wanted to get to the end! In the Red Light District there are also tons of shops selling anything related to sex & drugs (esp. pot) that you can think of and live ‘sex shows’. There are also “coffee shops” all over where you can go & order and some pot & mushrooms (and not the kind you get at any normal restaurant…these might make you see some crazy things!) As a side note, whenever in Holland if you want to get coffee go to a café not a coffee shop, or you might smell some funny stuff in there! The whole coffee shop thing is in all of Holland, not just the Red Light District. If any of you are wondering, NO I did not partake in any of these activities – all I did was walk thru the Red Light District. Some things I found odd about the Red Light District were the day care in the middle right between the ‘windows’ a church in the middle. Also most of the ladies in the windows did not seem to be Dutch.
4) Since things like prostitution & smoking weed are legal, you would think that the city would pretty much be chaos, but it isn’t. I had to actually make sure I crossed at crosswalks (unlike in Rome)! Also my friends told me that the Dutch do not believe in drinking and driving…even if it’s one drink (they will ride bikes, but not drive a car). They also have series of traffic cameras set up along the freeway where it will measure the distance between to calculate if you are speeding and if so you will get a ticket in the mail (and it’s not like in Houston where the cameras are marked). Overall the city seems orderly & clean…but then again I wasn’t in the Red Light District really late at night/early in the morning.
5) Dutch, the language, to me isn’t that pretty on the ear (sorry if any of you speak Dutch!). To me it sounded like English with extra letters and them sounding like they are hocking a loogie (or maybe it’s a hairball stuck in their throats). I was in a museum and heard someone speaking Italian behind me & just though ‘Oh Italian is such a pretty language!’ Now I actually want to learn Italian even more when I get home & am grateful I don’t have to learn Dutch! The good this was that almost all Dutch speak English too, so I really didn’t have a communication problem (except not being able to say the street names!).
6) I did see a lot of farmland, livestock & windmills as we were driving through Holland and as I was on the train. We even took some pictures with some (that was one of our challenges during a road trip!)
7) Climbing Dutch stairways can be considered an exercise routine!! In an email my friend sent me, he told me he was on the 3rd floor of a building and he had “Dutch stairs” in his building. And just put “Yeah, have fun with those!” I really didn’t know what he meant until I opened the front door to his building & looked up at the staircase in front of me! They are VERY steep, the stairs are small, and when you stand on one the next is about mid-shin. There were about 50 stairs to get to his apartment & let me tell you getting my huge suitcase up & down that WAS a workout!
8) The Dutch eat fries with EVERYTHING! Most meals we ate came with a side of fries. And they dip them in a mayonnaise type sauce (Fritz sauce) instead of ketchup.
Although I stayed in Den Haag several days, I didn’t really see much of the town because we went everywhere else. On Saturday I went to Bruges and Brussels in Belgium with Claudia and Jose. They have a car, so we just drove there. It’s crazy how in just a couple hours you can be in a different country. They didn’t seem all that different from Holland. I did do some of the ‘Belgium’ things like have waffles, get chocolate, and drink beer (at home I would never drink beer, but in Belgium & Holland I had it and it wasn’t that bad!). We kind of did a whirlwind tour of Bruges, just having lunch there & looking at some of the landmarks. Then we went to Brussels and looked around there in the rest of the afternoon & evening. One of the most fun things we did in Brussels was go to this place called Mini Europe that has miniatures of main landmarks of most of the European countries. It also had where you could press the button to play the anthem and make things on the models move. I think it was built for kids, but it seemed that all the adults were having more fun than the kids! It’s a place that if you went to by yourself it wouldn’t be that fun, but since it was a group of us and we were taking pictures of each other etc. it was a blast. Also for dinner we were joined by another couple from Houston that just moved to Den Haag (again doing a 2 year assignment there similar to what I’m doing).
On Sunday afternoon we went to a Latin Festival in a city close to Amsterdam. Claudia & Jose’s friend who’s originally from Mexico was dancing in it. It was interesting going to a festival in another country (especially a Latin festival…meaning Latin America…in Holland). The biggest thing I found funny was that although there was Mexican dancing & mariachi bands, there was no Mexican food! I actually had some Turkish food there! The dancing was really good & the weather turned out great that day too!
Monday afternoon the 3 of us decided to take a ride to the islands in Northern Holland, but we didn’t really plan ahead and when we got there we found out that the next ferry was going to leave in another hour and that if we took that one we would be stuck on the islands because there would be no more ferries coming back that night. So we decided to make the best of the situation & took a ride through the country side and then stopped at a couple small towns along the way back. Also Claudia decided to make a challenge for us to take pictures with as much livestock as we could, so I actually went in a pasture with sheep to take a picture with them! We went to so many places I don’t even know the name of too. We would just stop & take pictures…and I can not remember the names of them all!
On Tuesday I went to the Open Air Museum in Arnhem, which was about an hour train ride & then 15 minute bus ride from Den Haag. The Museum was more like a park with probably about 20 different house and building in a large open area with paths. The houses were set up like they would be in Holland during different periods and you could walk through different areas of the houses. They also had a building with people weaving in it, a blacksmith making different things, fresh bread baking that you could buy, display of the equipment of how cheese is made, etc. They also had gardens and playgrounds set up like in the ‘old days’ and had several restaurants & cafes. I spent several hours there and enjoyed it a lot! I was very glad that the weather was fairly warm and it didn’t rain!
Wednesday & Thursday I spent exploring Amsterdam on my own. I had a guide book I used to pick the main places I wanted to go & other than that I just kind of made my plans as I went along. Some of the things I did were running & walking through Vondel Park, which is a HUGE park that they have. It was so relaxing going through there & is a place where the Dutch go for picnics and just to relax. I also went to several museums including the Rijks Museum and the Van Gogh Museum. I also went to the Anne Frank house, which was probably one my favorite things of the whole trip. I’ve read the Diary of Anne Frank in school and found it interesting, but going through the house and seeing all the places that she wrote about was something else. There were also videos of the secretary who brought the families their supplies of food talking about what happened and even video of Anne Frank’s dad. I also went and saw Rembrandt’s house (the painters). That was interesting because it was set up as it would have been when he lived there with all the artwork & his painting supplies, etc. Those were the only “big” places I went to & since I spent several hours in each place it took up some time. Also since I wasn’t on a set schedule I slept in a lot too. J
I also went back to Den Haag on Thursday night to have dinner with some of the people there since it was one of the girl’s (from Houston) birthday. I even got to see the PwC Den Haag office, which was cool to see how different it is compared to Houston and Rome. They have an open bar at the top floor every Thursday evening there, which doesn’t happen in Houston or Rome! It’s probably the most different than the Rome office since our office there is not modern at all and is so much smaller.
I think the part I enjoyed the most about the whole trip was being able to hang out with people that I know and not having to travel alone! It was great visiting with them, traveling with them, and laughing with them. Overall I had a great time!
I took lots of pictures that I'll post later this week (it's getting too late to do it tonight!)
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