Haarlem/Zandvoort - Netherlands

On Saturday morning, we met up with our friend from Madrid who we were traveling with and our friend from Amsterdam to take a bike ride out to some small towns around Amsterdam. We were hoping to see some Dutch windmills and tulips. Tulips have an interesting history in Holland. They arrived a few hundred years ago from Asia and Turkey and were being researched for medicinal purposes when a Tulipmania caught on. Almost overnight, the bright, lush color of the flower made it so desirable that having lots of tulips in and around your house was a status symbol of wealth and privelege. Lots of people started breeding hybrids of the flower and others jumped into the trade of selling them to make money off of the rich people. Eventually, after the demand was met, there were too many tulips and prices dropped and many people lost their fortunes or savings they had used to get into the tulip trade. At present, there are tulip festivals all around the country from March to September. We rented our bikes after some mind changing and deal looking for €14 a piece and headed out to the countryside. Just like the city, the countryside of the Netherlands is made for bikers and there are man bike lanes everywhere. We followed them alongside canals and saw all kinds of little communities around the canals. They were full of people just fishing and boating and enjoying the easy life. We arrived in Haarlem after two hours of winding through the countryside and found a place to have some lunch. We ate some small sandwiches, delicious french fries with mayonnaise and curry sauce, and had fresh strawberry smoothies. The town was beautiful, clean, and had great architecture. The houses were more uniform and did not have the leaning qualities nor the hooks of the houses in Amsterdam. We saw the large cathedral and other important buildings while walking through a market full of fresh fruits, veggies, and baked goods. We had a few bites to eat and hopped on our bikes to finish our tour of the town. On the edge of the town was another church that had a very modern feel with its strange architecture. From there, we turned down a small road that would take us to a beach town on the North Sea called Zandvoort. We wound our way through a very posh neighborhood with nice houses and it reminded us very much of places back in the states with the large houses and yards and everything many city Europeans are not accustomed to having. We finally arrived after a short thirty minute ride and the view was really nice. The wind was blowing but the temperature was just warm enough to not wear a jacket. This was to be a problem as we all unknowingly got sunburned a little bit because we didn´t even think to put on sunscreen. One of our friends tried putting his feet in the water but said it was quite chilly. The view from the beach was nice and the wind was blustery, which seems to be typical of the North Sea. Anyone from the Netherlands will correct you quickly if you dare to call it the Atlantic Ocean. Instead of riding back, we decided to catch the train, which can be quite a frustrating experience. To start with, the train stations normally are unmanned now so no one to help you and the machines do not take bills or coins, only cards. This would be okay if the machines accepted all cards but they only accept Dutch bank cards with the special chip. So what do they do with people who don´t have the card from a Dutch bank account and board the train without paying? As our friend living in Amsterdam said repeatedly, "its so stupid that they think tourists would have a Dutch bank account and they give you no other way to use the train, just get on and dont pay, its their problem." Duly noted. For the rest of the evening, we relaxed and stayed close to our hostel, only venturing out to buy a few souvenir post cards and magnets to take home or sit by a canal as the sun set. Overall, we had a good trip and caught a mid day plane back to Madrid on Sunday. Enjoy the pictures.

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Amsterdam, Netherlands

On our second day in Amsterdam, we slept in somewhat and had breakfast at our hostel. They call it breakfast but two pieces of toast and some peanut butter and jelly with coffee or tea isn´t exactly the breakfast we were looking forward to. As it is though, the Dutch are not big on eating a large breakfast to start the day. Since we´d already visited most of the museums, we checked out some of the others we hadn't seen to see which ones we wanted to see. The famous art museum is called the Rijksmuseum and its famous painting is called the Nightwatch. The cost of the museum though is €12.50 and since half the museum is under construction, thus making half the paintings unavailable for viewing, we decided that the price was not worth it. Amsterdam also is host to the original Heineken brewing factory but for a tour that includes a beer or two, they charge €15 so we decided to go to a photography museum called FOAM instead. Inside, they had a collection of photos by a Dutch photographer who spent a lot of time in the USA documenting alternative sports like skateboarding and such. We also found another exposition of scientific oddities like fetuses and deformed specimens. It was stomach turning at points. Afterwards, we returned to the Pancake Bakery to eat pancakes again and, I forgot to mention, their other poison that kept us going back, cinnamon flavored ice cream. After lunch, we napped in the park again for a couple of hours until our friends met us after going to the Anne Frank House and the Rijksmuseum. We walked around the city some more checking out the different areas and stopping in some bars along the way to have a drink and some shops to see what kinds of knick knacks they sold. We had dinner in a cheap looking Italian place near Dam Square and took some pictures of the famous buildings there that weren´t covered in scaffolding. I feel really bad for people that pay tons of money to come all the way over here to see a city and half the important stuff they want to see is covered in scaffolding. We took our friends through the red light district because they had never been to see the madness. We were a block away and decided to turn down a small alley to cut over to the main street of the district and as we were walking through it, our friend saw a friend of his from school in Texas there. It was odd, funny, and awkward all at once. We took a loop around the district and watched the stunned looks of our friend as they experienced the craziness of such a place for the first time. Girls literally stand in windows and offer their services to anyone passing by. It´s kind of more kitschy now than anything but if you dare to take a picture, they will turn their back to you, close their curtain, or, as we saw first hand, open the door and throw water and insults at you. This happened to the people in front of us who were very obvious about taking pictures of the hookers. As we walked past one place a man said, "hey guys, come watch a sex show?" It´s just not something you hear everyday anywhere other than Amsterdam. As famous as the city is for smoking and prostituion, the Dutch people are very conservative in their own lives. It´s a strange juxtaposition. We spent the rest of the evening with our friend that lives in Amsterdam having a drink before calling it a night since we were planning on a bike ride on Saturday. Enjoy the pics.

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Amsterdam, Netherlands

Thursday morning saw one of our earliest wake up calls in quite a while. It's interesting that sometimes you go to bed at 4 a.m. after a fun night on the town. However, this was the other way round and waking up from a short nap to catch a taxi to the airport just isn't any kind of fun. The ride to the airport was quick though as the roads were pretty much empty except for other taxis full of people also foolish enough to pay for a flight leaving at 615 in the morning. Everything went well and landing in Amsterdam was actually interesting because it allows you to see just how underwater the west coast of the country really is. There are canals running everywhere and it looks like a few more inches of water would send them over their banks and into the lives of many of the Dutch. Having previously visited Amsterdam six years ago, we were excited about having a weekend where we wouldn't feel rushed to see things. We took our time getting into the city and had a nice leisurely stroll to our hostel. Amsterdam is a beautiful city beyond the smoking coffee shops and the red light district. The architecture is nice, clean and the houses are some of the strangest, slimmest, yet nicest you will see around. We were later told that many people leave the curtains open on their bottom floor to show how well cultured and mannered they lived. This is a mannerism left over from many years ago when the rich Dutch decided they needed to up the class level of the poorer folks so they figured why not show them just how well mannered people live. We met up with our friends from Madrid who took a different flight around noon and went to the Pancake Bakery for lunch. We ate there last time we visited Amsterdam and love their pancakes. They are gigantic and they will put all kinds of ingredients in the pancake like bacon, ham, cheese, onions, chicken, bananas, apples, etc. In the Netherlands, lunch is not considered to be all that important so people usually eat just a sandwich or something light. This is due to the importance they place on dinner, which is usually a large meal served between five and six o ´clock. After lunch, we strolled through the streets taking in the sights. The architecture of Amsterdam is beautiful and has a unique touch, due to the canals and old laws. The houses are usually very tall and not very wide. We were told that this is due to the fact that the old laws stipulated that taxes were levied based on the width of your house so instead of building out, the people built up. This caused some interesting problems. For one, the stairways in some houses are so narrow that getting up them can be quite a challenge. In some instances, there is no staircase but a ladder. Another interesting feature you will see on the houses is a long beam sticking out of the front with a hook. This hook is for a rope that is used as a pulley to lift furniture into and out of the house via the windows because the depth or lack of a staircase makes putting a bed upstairs impossible unless going through the window. This method of furniture movement has caused some houses to lean forward farther than others. Some of the houses also have odd shapes where one floor looks to go one way and the top floor the opposite. The canals are everywhere, lined with boats and people sitting and eating and talking. You can take a taxi through the canals if the streets are too congested but Amsterdam is a city built not around cars nor canals but the bicycle. There are people bicycling everywhere and they will run you over with no hesitation. If you hear a bell dinging, odds are that is your one warning before you get hit. We saw one guy get hit after not observing the bell of an oncoming biker and he was promptly told "look out you asshole". You will find bikes everywhere to the point its almost too much but it definitely cuts down on the noise and air pollution. We walked around looking at the shops, there are tons of local boutiques and other types of shops but they are expensive. Later we spent some time relaxing in Vondel Park, a beautiful place with tons of lakes and wildlife.We ate dinner at a semi-cheap Chinese place. We met up with a friend of ours who lives in Amsterdam now and he took us around the city explaining some of the things he´s learned about the Dutch culture. He told us that the winters are brutal and that some days you cannot leave your house without walking over ice and yet the Dutch have learned to adapt. The rest of his advice is spread through the three entries for this weekend prefaced with we were told. We had a couple of drinks and headed back to our hostel, another story in and off itself. Enjoy the pictures.

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