Last Day in the Netherlands

A lack of planning and a general feeling of exhaustion (man, planning a touristing day is TIRING! After three full days, I really just wanted someone to decide where I should go, and just point me in the right direction), well, they meant that I didn’t really get anywhere on the last day. I wanted to wash my hair and my clothes, and chill out, and catch up on blogging (although the latter didn’t happen … apparently writing and editing my photos is also too exhausting).

Thankfully my host scooped me out of my lethargic state (I think I was starting to watch an episode of Masterchef … on my vacation in Europe – oh, the horror! I’m such an American sometimes). He decided a biking trip was in order to invigorate me, and boy, was he right.

The Netherlands are generally always flat, so when you bike on a dyke, you can see for miles in all directions. My experience was apparently pretty typical - we saw things you would generally expect … cows. More cows. Still more cows.

Oh and horses.

I think I stayed in this place for about 20 minutes, just being a girl and crushing hard on the horses. I was planning on stealing one, but then two of them starting practically mating and the third one ran away to give them some privacy, so I figured it wasn’t a good time.

After about half an hour, we came upon the cutest little cafe on the canal where we ended up having lunch.

Oh, did I mention that lunch was the most ostentatious and luxuriously delicious ice cream sundae ever?

Yea, it’s a hard life, being a tourist in Europe.

Amsterdam

I will preface this by saying that I was a fool, a FOOL to think that I could cover Amsterdam in one day. Listen to me, youngsters, and plan for at least two, if not three days in this wonderful city.

First of all, how awesome is it that the Centraal station is right next to the downtown area? No need to take busses or walk through creepy industrial sites – just cross the canal (first of many) and head into one of the tiny cobblestone streets that permeate European cities.

First stop of the day was the Oude Kerk (the Old Church … again, one of many, I’m sure). I have a fancy for old churches and cathedrals (due to the fact that there’s a dearth of them in North America … those modern Baptist churches are a joke compared to the cathedrals of Europe; might as well compare the waiting room at the doctor’s office to Versailles).

In any case, like any gullible tourist, I totally paid the 4 Euros to look inside the church, which looked like most other Dutch churches inside. But what the heck, you gotta live a little, right? The interesting thing about this one were the intricate wall and ceiling decorations. So I take a photo of one of the pictures on the ceiling.

Then I read up about it in the handy dandy little brochure, like the proper tourist that I am.
Guess who was in the picture?

St. Crisp and St. Crispin, patron saints of shoemakers.

Bam. Now that I’m buddy buddy with them, I’m hoping for a windfall of Louboutins in the future.
The rest of the church was also of course beautiful …

…  but let’s just say, I wasn’t looking up as much as I was looking down.

See, the floor stones are actually grave stones for the people buried beneath the church. And a lot of them had these weird symbols on them, so I decided to photograph every single one, just in case I become Tom Hanks and have to solve some sort of Templar mystery with these clues.



Dan Brown, feel free to hit me up and make me a star in your next European mystery quest. I’d be only too glad to take another trip through here … as long as it’s all expenses paid, you understand.

Anyways, I figured I should at least see some sights and visit some museums, so I headed to my first destination. (Which was neither a sight, nor a museum, but a Dutch cheese tasting, which unfortunately was full and I had to change my plans). But on the way, I also managed to see some other sights.

Why yes, that IS the world famous naked invisible man. Didn’t you stop by to take a photo with him on YOUR trip?

And apparently the secret hideout of the USSR. Guess after the union broke up, the leaders figured, why not head to Amsterdam and relax with some green? I mean, heading up a dictatorship is really hard work, you know.

With all that sight-seeing, I got a little bit hungry (plus it was what, 1pm already? Did I mention I got a late start?), so I stopped at one of those absolutely cute tiny cafes on the canal and got what must have been my most delicious meal to date. If you're ever in the area of the Hegensgracht, stop by either the Hegensgracht (cafe) or Toos&Roos for a delicious sandwich and soup.

(That is not the actual view from the cafe, but it’s close by, I promise!)

(Fresh and mouthgasmicly soft white bread, mozzarella ready to melt in your mouth, tomatoes and greens basically straight off the farm, all drizzled generously in home made pesto. I die. I die.)

Feeling appropriately refreshed post-lunch, I hit up my first museum. Still, I decided to ease into the cultural tedium of countless masterpieces of the more famous museums with a visit to a small museum with masterpieces of a different kind.

The Museum of Handbags. Yes, it exists, and yes, it was heavenly. The only thing better would be a shoe museum. As it happened, there was a shoe section there too, so I was on cloud 9 for a good hour or so.

There was a bag there from the 1400s, for example …

… as well as a whole cabinet of bags made from various exotic materials, from armadillo to ostrich.

There were also bags there that even I was a little confused about, but then I realized that this was probably a collection of the purses that Lady Gaga had accidentally left behind in her hotel rooms during a tour or something, and it made more sense.

With such an auspiciously great start to my museum-ing, I headed off with a light heart to this here little place.

That would be the Rijksmuseum. Where I paid 14 Euro to see their reduced collection, because the entire building was being renovated and so they were only displaying a small part of their masterpieces. Great.

But I’m stubborn as a bull, and if I walked all the way here, there was no way in hell I’d be deterred by such a little thing as an overpriced ticket to a not-really-worth-it-type exhibition, and in I went. On the way to the more famous Rembrandts and Vermeers and The Night Watch, I learned a few other lessons in art history.

Like that a Dutch lady once paid the price of a canal house for a dollhouse …

… and that apparently Greek men were not very well endowed …

… and that the expression ‘pain in the ass’ was probably first uttered by the model for this particular statue when the sculptor asked him to sit on a snake for 10 hours straight.

The snake’s expression indicates that he was probably not pleased by the arrangement either.

The Vermeers and the Rembrandts were nice and obviously well executed, if not rather small. I guess that’s always the case – I mean if fame determined size, the Mona Lisa would be 10 ft tall. But similarly to Da Vinci’s painting, The Milkmaid and Rembrandt’s self-portraits were all rather small and unprepossessing.

Despite the fact that this was a ‘reduced’ exhibition, I felt like I had had enough by the time I finished viewing it … I only wished it weren’t that expensive. Still, I was determined to also hit up the Van Gogh museum, so on I trudged down the street. But you know, I’m like a magpie, so when I saw a sign for a free entry to the Diamond Museum, I was on it like leopard print on Russian girls.

 No seriously, I can’t resist shiny things. Now they claim that they were showing real diamonds here, but of course I can’t tell the difference, so who knows. There were also real workers who were polishing the diamonds (much smaller ones). Then in a different room, they had actual rooms full of diamonds that were for sale. Now even though this was supposedly part of the ‘museum’, there were still mobs of salespeople anywhere, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt as much that I didn’t belong as I did there.

There were Chinese couples who were literally scooping up diamond-encrusted watches left right and center, and there was dowdy little me, snooping around with my dirty poor-person fingers. Or at least, that’s how the snobby salespeople made me feel. Well never mind them, I still went to every single room, because nothing gets in the way of me and my touristing. And then I quickly tried to exit, but got lost and had to trek through all the snobbily accoutured salesrooms once again.

Bah. I need to get rich.

Anyways, across the street was the Van Gogh museum and I rejoined the touristing crowds with ease. Unfortunately, you weren’t allowed to photograph in the Van Gogh museum …

As I was reminded when I sneakily tried to take a photo. I mean, there really is no reason to take a photo of a painting, when I can get a reproduction/print/really good resolution image on the Internet later. No reason at all. But the touristing impulse is strong, and the traveller’s camera trigger-happy finger can not rest.

I actually really enjoyed the Van Gogh museum, surprisingly. Despite the fact that it was not very big (and yet still cost 14 Euros!), I liked seeing how the works of one painter progressed over time. You could see how he started with thick, dark, oily strokes and slowly progressed to small, quick, multi-coloured strokes. It was also interesting to see this evolution in the context of the events that shaped his life. All in all fascinating.

By the time I left though, it was 6pm. I really wanted to take a boat tour of Amsterdam, but had decided earlier to leave it to the end, so I could enjoy Amsterdam in the late afternoon when I was tired of walking around. But the tours were all 1.5 hours long, which would make me quite late in getting home, so regretfully, I had to get back to the train station.

I still hadn’t managed to have a cheese tasting, or visit the Heineken Brewery or take the boat tour. So clearly, one day in Amsterdam is not enough.

Still, even from such a limited exposure, I would venture that Amsterdam is my favourite city in the Netherlands – its busy atmosphere, its beautiful buildings and ever-present canals and the general feeling of European elegance contributed to a very satisfying day for me.

But seriously, next time, I’m taking the damned boat. Period.

Den Haahhhhhhhhhhh

So in case you thought I was going to The Hague (and by the way, what’s up with the article? THE Netherlands, THE Hague … I shall call myself THE Anna in 3rd person from now on and see how people like it) … well, anyways, I actually went to Den Haag. Pronounced with a extremely loud and vigorous gargle so you sound extra Dutch. I mean, it’s the same place, but I feel way cooler visiting Den Haahhhhhhhhhh.

Well, it’s very much like the other Dutch towns I visited – that is, very cobblestone-y and ‘European’. Because, duh, I’m in Europe. I should be a professional writer, no?

I took full advantage of all of the cute street-side cafes by having lunch at a plaza filled with umbrellas and the sound of churchbells.

The latte macchiato I ordered was once again, a somewhat bland reminder of Second Cup or Starbucks (and then I felt bad, because I’m in Europe and I’m supposed to be drinking refined European coffee), but I felt totally justified ordering an apple tart again (second day in a row, how successful!), because after all, apple tarts are a Dutch specialty.

Now being that this was Monday, unfortunately, all the museums were closed, which meant I had to make do with monuments and buildings that I could look at but could not go inside. On the upside, it played well into my walk fast-see things-go philosophy and also into not spending the moolah. Which, I have to say, was going pretty fast at that point.

I was trying to be inconspicuous about my map-checking to ‘fit in’ (and those who know me, know that I LIVE by the map) – but this meant that quite a few times, I turned off into little alleyways that weren’t exactly where I meant to go. Still, the European charm persisted, and also, I managed to find my way in the end, because unlike London or Paris, Dutch cities are usually pretty good about having perpendicular, rather than star-shaped intersections, meaning that it’s easy enough to get around. (Where as in Paris, someone will tell you to take a right and you’ll get to a star-shaped intersection with 3 streets going off to the right and it’ll make you very very sad and confused).

One of those wrong turns that I took brought me a little off to the side of where I wanted to go, so I cut across through a park (one of a million here – having a lot of green space in the city is something that the Dutch people do very well … or as I like to say, the Dutch do green well ). As it happened, there was actually an exhibition of sculptures by South African artists right there in the park. I wasn’t even surprised, because another thing the Dutch do really well is having really weird public art. Like the strangest shaped things standing in the middle of the street. In Vancouver, our public art stretches to cover huge bear statues painted in different colours, which is, OMG, pretty out there (*not), but the Dutch actually go out there. A lot.

One travel tip though? It’s not as easy to find bathrooms in Europe as it is in North America. I mean, at home, I would chug water like a horse and then find the nearest Starbucks to make use of their facilities. But while Starbucks does exist here, the cafes are far and between and chugging water like a horse is not an option anymore. Since by that point, I absolutely had to make a trip to the facilities, I stopped in the nearest Dutch cafe and bought myself an espresso in order to use their toilet. I mean, two birds one stone, right? (Because you can never have too much coffee …)

Having now frequented two cafes and one Dutch bathroom, I figured now would be a good time to see some of those other things that all those guidebooks talk about.

So I passed by the Paleis Noordeinde (which is the actual residence of the royal family, I believe) on my way to the Vreidespaleis, the Peace Palace. I don’t know who uses it or for what, but it was on my map and a palace, so who was I to say no? (I think it was gifted by some rich dude to the UN for housing all of their aspiring International-Relations-Political-Science my-life-goal-is-to-work-with-international-law interns. Just to show them that there is no such thing as international law. JK. Except for the first part. And the last part.)

The people who were just having a romantic stroll about town also didn’t get to say no … to taking 5 million pictures of me. I would feel bad, but I’m traveling by myself and I mean, someone needs to document the presence of my awesomeness in Europe.

I was still feeling chipper by then, and apparently I hadn’t yet realized that my shoes were giving me some really horrendous blisters, so I had the bright idea of walking across half the city (through the neverending parks, again) to the pier. In reality, it’s actually quite far away and I didn’t actually make it there, so it wasn’t one of my brightest ideas. Note to self: if the tram system is well-developed and costs 1.5 Euros, TAKE THE TRAM. It won’t kill your ‘Best Tourist Ever’ status to ride the bus once in a while instead of walking.

The reason I actually headed that way was the Madurodam, which is labelled as a mini-Holland attraction for kids.

I know, I know but I couldn’t resist.
Actually …

Much better.

Well label me a kid and call me Judy, but it was AWESOME. I mean, I can say that I do have a somewhat developed interest in architecture and this display would help me learn more about Holland, but let’s be honest – I was just excited to touch and pose with all the little things.

Does it look like I was excited? Because I was very, VERY pumped. As were the little kids, who kept running around after the moving trains and boats.

The birds were not impressed however.

Nope, not in the slightest.

Not by the little boats and the little people, and certainly not by the big people. This one kept on just sitting there, even when I was literally 20cm away from it taking a photo. Guess this is where ‘cool as a bird’ comes from … (wait, is that a saying, or did I just make it up?)

Once I had satisfied my inner child, I for some reason decided it would be smart to continue on EVEN FARTHER through the park. Someone teach this girl to quit while she’s ahead. By this point, my shoes were starting to really hurt (despite my sticking on a whole family size pack of bandaids on my feet); still, I pressed on … apparently to the middle of nowhere.

Because the whole time that I walked by the canal and through the park, I met exactly ZERO people. Seriously, how does that happen in a city center? I almost thought I was lost, but my directions were to follow the canal, and that’s kind of hard to miss. FINALLY, I made it to my (last) destination.

Oh yes, the Rosarium. I figured, I might as well end my day on a high and colourful note. I like flowers, and parks, and basking in the sun, so I thought it’d be a done deal. Oh, except that …

Wrong season, dummy! The roses were either done blooming or hadn’t started yet, because aside from these little buds, every other flowerbed was full of tiny leafy bushes, but absolutely no flowers.

Bummer.

Still, I walked (barefoot, thank God!) through the park, attempted some silly self-timer photos (which, by the way, is really hard to do when you need to hang your camera from a branch and there’s wind and birds in the way).

My original plan was to walk all the way back to the train station but I knew by now there was no chance in hell that was happening, so I caught the first tram I found and comfortably made my way back to the central plaza. Then I somehow got it into my head that my tram back home stopped somewhere else, so I walked off and then proceeded to get lost in some very sketchy alleyways, before realizing that I needed to go back to where I got dropped off in the first place. Just pure genius.

By the time I got back to Delft, I was pretty cranky and pretty tired. Thankfully, my host arranged for us to have a very relaxing and happiness-restoring bike ride to the store.

Somehow, he figured out that buying delicious buns for dinner was just the thing to perk me up. I guess I make my feed-me-or-I'll-tear-your-head-off philosophy quite apparent after a long day. Go figure.

(Sidenote: can I just say how much I love European stores? The selection is SO awesome and despite what everyone says, I still think it’s pretty darn cheap. I mean, everything we bought was between 1 and 3 euros, which added up to about 30-40 euros with everything. When I shopped at Provigo in Montreal, the same amount of stuff would probably cost double that. So whatever, I was like a kid in a (candy) store back there).

Travelling to Europe

Living on the west coast, we're pretty much at the farthest place from Europe in North America. Well, save Hawaii, but hey, if I ever lived in Hawaii, I don't think I'd ever leave to go on vacation. I mean, what's the point, right?

Anyways, my flight left at 8:40pm, and I would land 9hrs later in London. My last Europe trip was 3 years ago, so it seems that I forgot just how excruciatingly small the seats were. Holy cow. Plus I was late to the airport, so I got stuck with a middle seat. Now the ladies beside me were nice and talking to them definitely helped alleviate the boredom; one lady was from Dusseldorf and we talked about travelling and my plans for Germany a bit; and the other ladies were from Vancouver and they were paralegals/lawyers, so we had a lot to talk about in that area as well.

Still, by the end, the German lady got sick and started coughing all over me; the old Indian grandma in front of me decided to keep her seat lowered straight into my lap for the majority of the flight, for which she was rewarded with my knees sticking into her lower back (not my fault I have long legs), and I generally felt quite crappy. I did manage to catch maybe 3 hours of sleep, so that was something (I usually don't sleep at all), but let's just say I wasn't at the top of my game when we arrived in London. I think I managed to almost forget my laptop in those little trays at security. I mean my laptop was gray and the tray was gray and it was just gray up in my head.

Also, my flight to Amsterdam got delayed, so I wasn't a happy camper. But on the flight to Amsterdam, I had an aisle seat, FINALLY, and the man beside me was super helpful and fun to talk to (and not so bad looking, if I do say so myself). Plus the flight itself was only an hour or so. When I landed, I had a bit of a phone crisis, because I was supposed to phone the people I was staying with and my credit card was having issues fitting into the phone and I was all sorts of loopy. Thankfully that got solved though, and I hopped on the train to Den Haag (the Hague) and then switch to a different train heading to Rotterdam so I could hop off at Delft, which is where I will be staying.

First impressions? The Netherlands is very green. Very green and very orderly. All the fields and parks are just right, and neat and everything is perpendicular (which of course my OCD brain LOVED). There are so many bike paths, it's not even funny, and now I really wish I had packed my running shoes so I could run-plore (explo-run?) the country. But of course I had to make room for all my dresses, so I didn't (may have been a mistake - it's so darn windy here, I don't think I could wear anything skirt-y or dress-y because I would just be giving everyone a strip-show).

Anyways, off to a real bed now!

Delft

Surprisingly, I got 10ish hours of sleep last night. I mean, I came prepared and I popped in my earplugs (I did bring a whole ziploc baggie of them, in case they get lost or people started coveting my awesome dollar store ear plugs). That managed to drown out the trams that run past the house every 5 minutes until midnight. I also tend to rip out my earplugs in my sleep somewhere around 3am-ish. Which led me to discover that apparently all the birds of the world live in the Netherlands and they really like to get it on at 4am. There was also an owl that kept hoo-hoo-ing until late morning. Good times. But I managed to catch up on some sleep so I was a happy camper.

In any case, my hosts are the best ever and made awesome breakfast (although let me tell you - it's really hard to eat 'healthy' with the Russian style of eating - because they set out everything and you just sit at the table for 2 hours and keep helping yourself to seconds ... and thirds ... and hell, who's counting?). They also offered to take me to the market with them and show me around Delft for a bit. Now everyone who knows me knows that I am a lone ranger when it comes to touristing. That is - I love to have my plan and my map and just set off by myself. But I definitely appreciated having them show me around because obviously, I don't speak Dutch (although most people here are good about knowing at least a little bit of English); and also because I didn't have a plan.

Can I just say how very cute this town is?

It's all canals and little brick houses with red roofs and parks and happiness.

It's like Quaint Little Town, USA, except that here, it's all real. It's not a toy town, these people actually live here! (Now I have to say, while I absolutely LOVED strolling around town, I don't think I could live here (aka I would die of boredom in about a month)).

First, we hit up the market. It was exactly what you would imagine a European farmer's market to be. It's all clean and neat and really really lovely. It made me want to just buy little packets of fire roasted nuts and freshly baked bread and flowers.

 

Just beautiful.

Just to reiterate, here are the three things that define Delft all in one photo: bikes, canals and tiny cute houses. (Oh yea, the bikes? Everywhere. I thought Montreal was a bicyling city, but this is much more insane - think twice as many bikers, all on pedestrian streets filled with crowds of people).

And this is how they should teach you parallel parking in America - if you do it wrong, you will fall in the canal, so you better do it right! Awesome sauce. Of course it helps that all of their cars here are tiny and I've yet to see anything SUV sized.

Now all this market walking was exhausting (but seriously though - how is it that I can run and do exercise classes just fine, but continuous all-day walking tires me out like no other?), so I was feeling peckish. It didn't help that our next stop was some famous bakery with some absolutely amazing looking European pastries. Starbucks, move on over and don't even try to do 'pastries'. I need this bakery in my life.

Brood means bread, and koffie is coffee, so I see Koffie Broodje and I know I'm in heaven. We didn't end up getting that, but I was pretty much salivating anyways.

And of course I had to get some real coffee as well. My only complaint? These Europeans just can't satisfy my American-sized coffee cravings. This was like a tumbler that I would pour whisky in, and I was definitely hoping for a Grande-sized caffeine boost. But thankfully that apple turnover hiding in the back provided me with the energy to explore the rest of Delft on my own in the afternoon.

Now I have a theory. And that theory is that tourists love to climb stuff. Give them a tower/monument/giant staircase, and they will fricking climb it until their toes bleed.

See that tower in the background? That's the tower of the Nieuwe Kirche (New Church). That's where William of Orange is buried.

Yea, he was just like the most important person in Dutch history. There's signs all over town that say William of Orange ate here, or slept there, or was killed there; the bakery where we got our pastries in the morning actually used to be an inn, and that's where William's killer had spent the night. I bet they didn't advertise that 500 years ago.

Oh yea, and the tower of the new church is also home of some stairs.

Um, of COURSE I climbed it. I love to climb shit. Don't even get me started. The only little issue? Well, this stair was built for 1 person. One tiny (probably 10 year old boy-sized) person to climb up and down to ring the bells. There were no Quasimodos in Delft. So let's just say, we all had to get cosy and up close and personal when I met people coming down and I was going up. There were also three balcony levels where you could get the heck out of the staircase and see the city. Let me tell you, those balconies were no more than ledges with stone railings. Again, those Dutch bell-ringers were some slim sons of bitches.

But the view was amazing.

Not quite THE view of Delft, but A view of Delft nonetheless.

We did actually walk to the Oostpoort (the East Gate - the only remaining one of the city) where Vermeer had done his painting, but I didn't have time to actually walk across the bridge to get the same perspective because the bridge was being turned (not raised, but turned!) to let a boat through.

I just had time to hoof it over to the Oude Kirche (old church) before taking the tram back to the house (oh yes, it's tram city over here!). They had a very different style of stained glass windows than I'm used to, but it was gorgeous nonetheless. Now, because of the reformation, they have a definitely non-choral type of worship, so instead of the pews facing the front of the church where the altar and the church choir would be, all the seats face inward to a sort of pedestal where the preacher would be. Being the choral nerd that I am, this is not my fave, but it was interesting to see.

The stained glass windows were kind of brown-ish looking ...

We finished the day in Delft by going to a beach situated between Delft and Rotterdam to take a nice (very fricking LONG) stroll by the sea.

 It was pure bliss - pristine white sand, cool water and the warm kiss of the sun. Only problem? Gale force winds. No wonder they have a gajillion windmills here!

Of course these wind-surfers (and there were kite-surfers too) didn't think it was a problem!

Best end to the day I could've imagined. Then I came home and collapsed from exhaustion. Well, after another delicious home-cooked meal. Great start to the vacay!