Dutch life

In general there is an air of social acceptance here. This is much more the case in the southern portion of the Netherlands. I have seen dogs many places they are not allowed in the US. These are pets, not service animals.  I have seen them in HEMA (like Target), get on the bus, tied just inside the grocery store entrance, in restaurants. Once we saw three dogs from different parties at the same large table in a restaurant. These dogs are generally well behaved and just watch the world go by.

Swearing is not bleeped out on TV. F’s and S’s and D’s especially are heard after 9pm, along with more skin than in the US. It is like a parallel universe to see the 80’s hit The A-Team dubbed in German, Japanese animine in Dutch, COPS with subtitles. Did you know there is an international edition of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and it is shown on CNN?

Things I have seen people carry on their bikes : a folding chair, a cello (in a hard case with straps like a backpack), three children, two other adults, another bike, two full cases of beer.

Tonight for dinner we had a Dutch dish called stampot. Basically kale and potatoes boiled together and mashed then served with Rookwurst (like ring bologna or polish sausage). One of my co-workers made it for us. It was total comfort food and actually pretty good. We ate it all.

Things I will miss: Walking to work/grocery store/people watching/pidgeon chasing/library/along the river/everywhere, great courtyard for Natalie to play in behind the apt., new friends, easy access to organic food that does not cost much more than non-organic food, easy access to fabulous chocolate, general awareness of resources being used. They are not very wasteful here as we tend to be in the US.

Things I will not miss: dog poo on the side walks/bike tires/shoes, the awful exchange rate, being 7 hours ahead of friends and family, being unable to read a cereal box/newspaper/etc, not being able to understand the local news cast.

It tooka lot of time and effort on our part and Natalie’s part to adjust to her new school. Now she seems to really like it. When Mark asked her if she wanted to play with her Dutch friends or her Minnesota friends, she made a sad face and said her Minnesota friends.  She points at planes and says she is going to fly back to her Minnesota home/friends/school tomorrow. Natalie is still fascinated by Dutch dog poo, maybe it reminds her of Isis and Porter back home.

We have about 2 1/2 weeks until we come back to the US. It has gone fast.

Germany

We rented a car and drove to Germany this weekend.  We went through a drive-through or two. This picture was taken in the Moselle River Valley. The Moselle River is a tributary of the Rhine and joins the Rhine at Koblenz. There are actually two buildings built over the road here. There is a brown building behind the white one. I don’t know what the buildings are.

 Wineries are every where in the Moselle River Valley. The hillsides are covered in grapevines. Totally covered. Most areas are actually covered from the roadside to the top of the hill, others like one are terraced.

  

No we did have any wine. Well actually I had a little it with dinner. It was mixed with beer, I didn’t realize what I was ordering. I don’t think I would get it again. Just not my taste.

 

Our destination was Burg Eltz . Burg Eltz was home to the Eltz family for hundreds of years. It was never destroyed in any war due in great part to the strategic marriages the family made. The Eltz family was aligned with most powerful families in Europe. They do not allow pictures of the inside, but the outside was really cool too.

 

 These were rain spouts on the outside if the castle. Pretty funny.

 

 

The way down to the castle was lined with stations of the cross. Some where missing and the remaining ones were very worn.

 

 We spent the night in Bernkastel-Kues, one of the many small towns along the river. This is a picture of what used to be the main square. The shops were closing as we took this picture, we were unable to check them out. Very picturesque, even with rain moving in. We had to seek cover shortly after this picture was taken and we ate schnitzel, roasted pork, sauerkraut and potatoes. Very yummy. Except for the beer/wine mix.

 

 

 

 It snowed overnight especially on the top of the hills.

The car we had was a Citroen, a French car. It is the same spelling as the Dutch word for lemon. Again pretty funny.

We had rented a TomTom GPS system along with the car, but it did not have Germany maps, only Benelux (Belgium/Netherlands/Luxemburg). We really did not have trouble on the way there. Germany has very good signage and  we stayed to the highways and small towns. I was glad we had the TomTom to guide us through Luxemburg and Belgium though. They had poor signs and we had to go through Luxemburg city and Liege. Liege is an armpit, not a place I would recommend a tourist to stop. The I think it was in Germany that the TomTom kept telling to go up an on-ramp to the highway, but the on-ramp had obviously been closed for quit sometime. We were able to program our destination around that obstacle, but we never totally trusted the TomTom again. 

I found the TomTom a handy security blanket-type item, but it was also limiting. You must an exact destination in mind, not just a town and it is not easy to spontaneously change your destination. You cannot see what is around your location, only what is within maybe a quarter to half mile on the map. I like the freedom of being able to say, “Hey if we turn here we can go to X. Let’s do it!” That is much harder with the TomTom. But like I had, it was nice to have to guide us throug Liege.

Easter

Above is Natalie’s new traveling companion, Super Dog. Super dog now goes on all our trips.

 

Easter in the Netherlands.

To start our day, Natalie and Ellie went on a Easter egg hunt. It was a bright sunny day but on the cold side around the mid 30’s and it didn’t warm up much from there. The kids had fun hunting for eggs while moms and dads guided them in the general direction.  After that we were on the move headed to Hoensbroek Castle where they have a midevil castle with games to play and a whole castle to explore. It didn’t disapoint. The castle oldest part was built in the 1300s and the last addition was completed in the 1700s. It was in beutiful shape and it didn’t look to have been but minimumly restored.

The Dutch celebrate Easter Monday and Nicole and I had the day off as well as Natalie. As you can see it snowed a couple of inches Easter night which for Natalie ment it was time to build Frosty the snowman. After that on to Vaulkenburg to catch the steam train to Simpleveld, about 30 minutes east of Valkenburg. When we arrived back at Valkenburg we stopped in the Coffee Pot for a late lunch.  This place had the best milk I have ever tasted. We got Natalie milk and Nicole took a sip because the glass was extremely full for a 2 1/2 yr old. Nicole said that I had to taste this and I couldn’t believe how sweet and buttery the milk tasted mmm. Milk back home never tasted this good, I think its the cows. That was our Easter weekend and with the last picture taken of Natalie on the train back to Maastricht was one very tired little girl, awh.