Day 8 – Petals

0 comments on this article Posted by Jachin in News on April 12th, 2011 , tagged with , .

One of our main reasons for making Amsterdam on of the stops on our trip was that it was the height of Tulip season. Heather had done some research and apparently a good place to go to look a tulips is the Keukenhof gardens. They are only open for two months every year (during tulip season). They have thousands of varieties of tulips and people come from all over the world.

We were a little unsure of the best way to get to the Schiphol Airport where there was a bus to the gardens or where to buy tickets. After a little walking and looking around, Heather talked to a couple of very helpful Amsterdam police who said we just had to go down to the central station for everything. So we started waiting for the tram. There were a lot of people waiting for the next tram at the station, we waited for a while. Then someone walking by the tram said something loud in dutch. Then we over heard someone in english saying there was a tram workers strike, the trams were not going to be running between 9am and 4 pm that day. We had just missed the last one. Fortunately, even though we were on the edge of Amsterdam, it is a very small city so we just walk the 20 minutes to the central station, got our tickets for the bus and gardens and got on our train to airport.

I’m not a gardener and I do not know much about flowers but Keukenhof was very impressive and very beautiful. We spent several hours there and only got to about half of the gardens and green houses. There was one huge greenhouse in the middle that just had box after box of different varieties of tulips, just about ever color combination you could imagine with all sorts of strange shapes.

Zombie Tulips

Zombie Tulips

There were also some good overlooks where you could see outside the garden and look at the tulip fields in bloom. I also got a herring sandwich from a cart vendor since they are so delicious.

Elysia, Jachin and Heather

Elysia, Jachin and Heather

Tulip Field

Tulip Field

Elysia and Jachin on a "Bridge"

Elysia and Jachin on a "Bridge"

Miss Anco 2011

Miss Anco 2011

So Many Flowers

So Many Flowers

On the way back from the tulip garden we hit another public transportation delay.  There was some engineering work so we had to take a different route from Schiphol Airport to Amsterdam.  After some confusion, we got back to the city and decided to spend some time walking around the city to see some parts we had not been to yet.

For dinner, Elysia had heard that Amsterdam had a lot of Indonesian restaurants where they sever food in a style similar to tapas where you get a bowl of rice and a bunch of there small dishes everyone shares. We found a place that served that, it was quite good.

That evening we walked through the city some more checking out some of the “variety” of neighborhoods Amsterdam had to offer. The canals in Amsterdam are very pretty. Elysia assured us they were much better then Venice.

Amsterdam Canal at Night

Amsterdam Canal at Night

It was a nice night but we did not want to stay up too late so we did not kill our selves making it to the train station in time for our train to Paris which was leaving early in the morning.


Day 7 – Pedals

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This turned out to be our first really nice day on our trip. We had, had some sun in England, but the days had been mostly cloudy and always a little chilly. It was sunny and got up to about 65 F.

We had been keeping an eye on the weather so we had planning to spend the day outside.

First we head out of the city to see some windmills. There was a little town Heather had researched a short train ride away called Zaanse Schans so we headed out there. It was touristy, but it was not very crowded and they have 6 operational windmills doing things like making flour, paint, and lumber. Also the town had a big chocolate factory in it so the whole place smelled like coca.

They also had a clog shop, where they made wooden shoes and we got to see a little demonstration of some of the steps in the process. Plus they had a cheese shop (we all sample cheese and Elysia and I bought some), a pewter shop and a bunch of other things we did stop at.

Jachin in Giant Clogs

Jachin in Giant Clogs

Heather with some Windmills

Heather with some Windmills

The windmills were nice. Heather went inside since she had never seen one before, me and Elysia did not feel like paying. After all the walking it was nice just sit and look out at the water and listen the windmill. The one we stopped at was called “The Cat” and they had a very nice cat that came out and kept us company.

The Cat at "The Cat" Windmill

The Cat at "The Cat" Windmill

On walk back through town we stopped at a bakery and got some lunch. I had a little mini pizza and some sort of apricot pastry. Both were excellent.

Pastry From Zaanse Schans

Pastry From Zaanse Schans

Back in Amsterdam stopped at a market where Elysia and Heather did some shopping. I went in search of drugs (for my cold). We then swung back by the hotel to drop off some of the stuff we had bought in Zaanse Schans and then we headed over to Mikes Bike Tours for a tour of the city. Elysia had, had a really good experience taking one of their bike tours Munich and given how prevalent biking is in Amsterdam it felt like biking around Amsterdam was an important part of the experience.

It was a small group on our tour. Only the three of us and a Scottish couple, they seemed pretty cool. They gave us some solid sounding advice when/if we go to Scotland. Our guide Peter was great. Since there were not a lot of us I think he had more time to tell us about the buildings and the city. The best part of the tour for me was stopping at a little fish shop that severed herring. Herring is considered to be the premier native Amsterdam food. You can either get it in a sandwich (which is what I did), or with out the bread, and you put onions and pickles on it. I really liked it. Heather and Elysia, not so much. It worked out though, I just ate the rest of theirs.

Jachin Listening Attentively to the Guide while Heather and Elysia Take Pictures of Each Other

Jachin Listening Attentively to the Guide while Heather and Elysia Take Pictures of Each Other

Elysia Trying Herring

Elysia Trying Herring

We had seen a big park, VondelPark, on the bike tour, so after the tour we decided to walk back there to check it out more and then ate at a tapas restaurant that was quite good. I was not tired yet though so after Heather and Elysia went to bed I went for a walk down the canal our hotel was on. At night the canals are pretty peaceful, most of the noise and excitement goes on, on the side streets.

Vondel Park

Vondel Park

After a long walk I got tired so I went to bed too.


Day 6 – Don’t Worry Be Happy

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The day began with a song, through my morning haze it sounded familiar, Heather later told me it was “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”. I was a long way from figuring that out, when the song ended a calm voice started speaking loudly in Dutch from what sounded like just a few feet above my bed. My initial thought was that we had all slept in for way too long and the “ferry people” were in our room, telling us it was time for us to leave to boat. No one was in the room, then I noticed it was still dark out side, and the voice was coming from a loud speaker in the ceiling I had not noticed before. Then the english version of he announcement came on, explaining we had an hour before it was time to disembark. I tried to get more sleep for the next 45 minutes, alas a similar message was given every 15 minutes counting down the minutes before it was time to leave. Over all my experience on the ferry was a good one (much better then flying). However I wish there was an option to opt out of the wake up announcement. I ended up wishing we had taken a longer route or a slower ferry so we could get a full night’s sleep.

Getting off the boat we we got on the train, and rolled into Amsterdam around 11am. We figured out how the Tram worked and took it to the Mozart Hotel.

After checking in, we headed to Van Gogh Museum. On the way we stopped at a little store where Elysia and Heather got hot chocolate (it chilly and rainy). It was a great art museum. We actually started with their special exhibit on Picasso. They did a good of showing some of the different stages of his career, his influences and other artists inspired by his work. There was also a lot of interesting history about his life that  they did not have time to cover in my art history classes or I had forgotten. Plus the exhibit was about his time in Paris so there was some interesting stuff about the city we were going to visit in a few days.

Heather and Elysia Drinking Hot Chocolate

Heather and Elysia Drinking Hot Chocolate

Then we got into the biggest collection of his work Van Gogh collection in the world. I’m a big fan on Vincent Van Gogh. I think he is one of the best examples of someone who really innovated and explored new ways to express ones self with paint, but his work still manages to accessible. I think a lot of good artists manage to do one or the other but doing both is the sort of thing that warrants getting your own museum. Also, like with Picasso they also included some work by other artists that influenced Van Gogh and Van Gogh’s work was something that influenced them.

I (heart) Amsterdam

I (heart) Amsterdam

After all that art, it was nap time, plus I was coming down with a cold. I had started to get sick when we were in England, but it had gotten worse since then. So we went back to Hotel Mozart and slept for a few hours.

We got up and to the Anne Frank House. Pre-ordered tickets have to have specific time to enter, which I would recommend doing if you go during the day. It is a small place to they carefully control how many people are in the exhibit at once. If you do not know who Anne Frank is, you should read about her. It’s a fascinating story. Before going in I was worried about how heavy it was going to be considering the subject matter. It was all done very well though. No where near as heavy as the Holocaust Museum in DC. Not that Holocaust Museum is bad, it was quite good, in fact, it is important, and I would strongly recommend it to almost anyone, but maybe I would not plan on doing something ‘fun’ immediately afterwards.

Anyway, the Anne Frank museum was something you could do something fun afterwards. It was not so much about the horrors of the holocaust, but it was more about the history of this one family and their friends. At the end there there were some exhibits addressing larger questions about tolerance for other cultures and racial discrimination today.

Amsterdam Canal

Amsterdam Canal

When our visit to the Anne Frank House was over, it was time for dinner. We got Thai food. It was very good.

The plan for the evening was to explore Amsterdam’s night life. So we went back to the hotel. Heather and Elysia changed clothes, I did not, I forgot to bring anything “nicer” for “going out”.

The night got started out right though, about a block from our hotel, Elysia found a €50 bill on the sidewalk. We looked around, no one was nearby, it was ours… I mean… Elysia’s, she was super cool though and bought a couple of round of drinks with it, speaking of which, drinks in Amsterdam are expensive.

I can’t remember what day she said it, but Elysia noted that she was under the impression that Amsterdam was a “poor man’s Paris”; not quite as classy, but just as fun and less expensive. Well, that may have been true once upon a time, or maybe if you knew the right places to go, and some of the expense could have been the unfavorable exchange rate we were dealing with, but eating and drinking was not cheap.

We ended up find a couple of good places to hang out near our hotel then back to Hotel Mozart for bed.


Day 5 – Fish and Chips

0 comments on this article Posted by Jachin in News on April 9th, 2011 .

After another good night sleep and kind of a slow morning we went for a walk around Eliot and Kristine’s house. They live near a sort of Park/Nature preserve thing. It is an all open area, apparently rabbits really like it. We mostly saw people with their dogs though. We also spent some time visiting Eliot and Kristine’s very quite neighbors in a cemetery, some folks had been there since the early 1800s. After a nice walk Eliot had to go into work. We said “good bye” to him and Kristine dropped us off to look around the town of Mildenhall.

Wildlife in Beck Row

Wildlife in Beck Row

First we ate some lunch at a Pub/Inn called “The White Heart”. We all had fish and chips. It was pretty good. Then we walked through the town and down the river on footpaths. The English countryside is covered with these walking paths and they have very lenient trespassing laws. Basically as long as you are not causing trouble (and no one asks you to leave) you can walk pretty much anywhere in the country you want.

Fish and Chips

Fish and Chips

After doing the footpaths we decided to check out an island that was in the middle of the river. We ended up at a dead end and had to backtrack to get off of it. The path looked legit, but apparently some bridges that used to be there were not there any more.

Walking Trail

Walking Trail

Heather and Elysia Disobeying a Sign

Heather and Elysia Disobeying a Sign

Once our hike was over Kristine picked us up. We went back to Beck Row one more time to pack everything up then she took us to Ely. After we said “good-bye” we got on our train to Harwich. At Harwich we boarded our ferry to Holland.

The Ferry was much nicer then any of us expected. I even got a bed that fit me. While in line for food I talked to this British guy who was on his way from Cambridge to some college town in Holland (where his wife works). He made the point that the boat was way more “civilized” then air travel. I have to agree with him. We tried to spent the last of our pounds on the ferry (which they made pretty easy to do).

After a round of Hearts where Elysia pretty much dominated the whole game (Heather did manage to shoot the moon though) we headed off to bed. I took a quick turn on the deck hoping to see some stars but it was too cloudy to see any. It was my first time spending the night on a boat, the seas were a little rough, despite (or because) of that I slept very well.


Day 4 – Jamie’s Italian

0 comments on this article Posted by Jachin in Family, News on April 8th, 2011 .

At last, I got a chance to sleep in. Eliot and Kristine’s couch was very comfortable. We took our time getting started. We had done a lot of stuff the last 3 days and we were pretty tired.

We had been warned to watch out for some of the neighborhood cats. In England, Eliot and Kristine explained to us, the rules/customs about how animals are handled are a lot different. Cats can not be declawed and are basically given free reign. Eliot and Kristine have a cat door for Beck their main cat. They also kind of have a second cat, “Big Cat”, they pretty sure he’s leading a double life though and has another family somewhere else. “Big cat” likes to sleep in the guest bed Heather and Elysia were sleeping in, he is shy around people he doesn’t know though and if he showed up he did not wake anyone up. I might have had to deal with “Orange Cat”, apparently “he” is rarely seen by anyone, but he likes to sleep on the short couch in the living room (I was sleeping on the long one) based on the hair that is left behind. No sign of him though, if “Orange Cat” stopped by he was not loud enough to wake me up.

Eliot made us a delicious breakfast of french toast. Kristine made us some delicious english tea.

Around noon all 5 of us headed into Cambridge (about a 45 minute drive). We started out doing a little shopping. My legs/feet were not doing well and had not been for the last couple of days. I got to ask Eliot for medical advice for the first time. He prescribed either new shoes or insoles. I was thinking about getting new shoes before I left, then after Elysia reminded me my shoes were starting to fall apart I figured we should do some shoe shopping first. We did a little shoe shopping at the mall in Cambridge, turns out my UK shoe size is 12, and it also turns out most UK shoe stores do not stock that size. We found some good insoles though, I put them in my shoes and my feet immediately started feeling better.

We also looked around the market a little bit, sampled some ostrich meat and went into “The Eagle” for a drink. Cambridge was a beautiful town. Lots of beautiful old buildings, ivy, beautiful lawns, flowers every where, a small river with a bunch of little bridges. Pretty much how one would imagine Cambridge should look.

Eliot, Kristine and Jachin

Eliot, Kristine and Jachin

After walking around for a while and dithering about what we wanted to eat we went to Jamie Oliver’s Italian restaurant “Jamie’s Italian”. I had a rabbit and pasta dish (I do not think I had ever had rabbit before). The waitress warned me when I ordered it that it was “free range” which means it had been shot, which meant I could find some bullets in my meat. I did not find any bullets and it was delicious. I have a lot more sympathy for Elmer Fud now. I tried some of the other dishes we had ordered. It was all very good.

Eliot and Kristine were really excited to take us to another place for dessert that served “Sticky Toffy Pudding”. They spent the whole day running up to dessert telling us how it was pretty much the best thing ever and how eating it would be life changing. I’m not a big enough foodie to say this with much confidence but they were right. After having tasted it I can not think of a dessert I would say was better.

Then we went back to to Eliot and Kristen’s house in Beck Row, chilled out for a bit and went to bed.


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