CRF: Holland

"CRF" is not a crime show you've never heard of, it stands for "Cutting Room Floor." Below are some of our favorite pics that never made the blog. We figured we'd reminisce a little while we're back home. We return to Europe on New Year's Eve.

See all Holland posts...

Autogas

When pulling up to our very first gas station, on the highway in The Netherlands, we were extra sure not to pull up to a Diesel pump by accident. "There, that one says 'gas'!" I pointed out to Merlin.
We both immediately remembered our friend Lukas, in Amsterdam, telling us about natural gas pumps. Fuel is very, very expensive in Europe and a lot of people opt to convert their car's systems over to run on Autogas (basically 'propane'). It costs a lot to make the switch, but it saves a lot of money in the long run. Autogas costs less than half what petrol does and 40% less than diesel. Also, the carbon emissions are much lower, making it a more environmentally friendly option. So far, we've seen them in Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany. How amazing that we had never even heard of it! Even more amazing that the option exists. Good job, Europe.

Update: Autogas is also big in Australia and parts of Asia.

MikeDonald's

Yes, that is an giant Michael Jackson monument in a McDonald's parking lot. I saw it from afar, as we were driving off the highway on our way to Luxembourg and had to investigate. Is that... no it couldn't be... yes, it is... a giant Michael Jackson with flowers and notes at its base. Once inside (to use the bathroom and the free WIFI), I found it made more sense. This was a McDonald's like no other I had every seen. First, there was another Mike shrine.
The drawing of him as Peter Pan sort of creeped me out.
There were a lot of Elvis posters, an old Coca Cola machine and an enormous, rotating Marilyn Monroe. Yes, the grate she's standing on blew her skirt up sporadically.
There was also an upside down car hanging from the ceiling and, if you look closely you'll see that the waitresses wore shirts that said "Rock N Roll" on the back.
The only sign it was the Netherlands was the trash can.

Maastricht

We're in Maastricht today, and it's rainy. When we arrived, though, it was beautiful. The city was packed with people enjoying a late summer weekend. The lines at the ice cream stands were very long, and the sun felt great.The last time I was here it was close to Thanksgiving time, and there was a huge Christmas market in the main square - Sintrmarkt, as they call it. It was interesting to see all the space, free from lights and ferris wheels.
Loose seal! (that's a joke) It's not alive, and it was for sale on this little side street.
It feels, here, un-Dutch. Limburg, the province we're in, hangs down between Germany and Belgium and the people here are used to switching between languages. People in the main part of Holland like to say that it's not really Dutch, and I don't know that the people here would disagree.
There are hills, too. The city feels as though it's situated above the river (the Maas), instead of alongside it. Being on the bridges, you get a sense of height and space that I was unused to. It's an interesting place to spend our last day in Holland.

Castle Hunting: Slot Loevestein

We left Rotterdam early on a grim, foggy day to make the journey out to Slot Loevestein, a fourteenth century castle that seemed fun and remote. It was chilly, but not cold - the weather alternated between a light drizzle and a steady rain. We were in good spirits, though, and we felt very adventurous.

We took the train out to Gorinchem, via Dordrecht, which was a pretty little town on the Waal river. It was empty when we showed up, at about nine in the morning. A boy we met on the train was very surprised that we were going to Gorinchem - "What are you doing, coming from New York to Gorinchem? But there is nothing in Gorinchem!" - but we found it very charming. We walked through the village and out to the harbor. We waited for about half an hour for the ferry upriver.

This stretch of the Waal (below where the Maas joins it) is the busiest waterway in Europe, according to one of the men who worked on the ferry. There were lots of cargo ships - container ships going up to Germany from the North Sea and coal barges coming back down towards Rotterdam. We passed a number of pretty villages - above is Woudrichem, a small, fortified town where the ferry made a stop.

Woudrichem harbor, with about a dozen boats.

We had a little lunch, which we'd packed that morning. We had found this great, brown, hearty bread and made some terrific sandwiches. Rebecca's been really into the rivierkreeftjes, or crayfish, which are widely available at supermarkets around Holland.

Rivierkreeftjes sandwich, with apple, onion and lettuce. Great castle hunting food.

This is Slot Loevestein, which really was worth the trip. It's in the fork between the Waal and Maas rivers, which gives it a very important defensive position. It's also on a little rise (this is Holland, so we're talking fifteen feet - a mountain!), so it was safe from the strategic flooding the Dutch used against invading forces.

There are two moats. There was a flock of sheep inside the outer wall and moat, and we were free to walk around - mostly alone - and take some pictures. Later on, a wedding party showed up to take pictures of the Bride and Groom. We headed back on the ferry just as it really began to pour, and made it home to Rotterdam in time for supper.

Things Dutch People Like

Trampolines. Every walk we've taken in a suburban Dutch neighborhood, we've found trampolines in the front lawns.
Usually, when you see one, two or three more will pop up in succession. Obviously, one kid got a trampoline, which meant that the kids next door couldn't possible live without one... which meant the kids next door to THEM got one and so on and so forth.
Poor kids in the bigger city didn't have a front lawn to trampoline on (does that work as a verb, too?) Luckily, street fairs, like this one in Haarlem, provide ample room to jump.
And a harness! For super trampolining!
Surely there wouldn't be trampolines at the beach, too. There's swimming and sandcastle building! But there they were in front of strandhuisje.
If you weren't lucky enough to have one, you could go to the trampoline park. Which is, apparently "Trampoline Park" in Dutch.
I could provide more pictures, but I think it may get tedious for both you and me. As tedious as, say, jumping in one place. Over...and over...and over again.

Dutch people also really like Cylindrical Meats a.k.a. sausages, wursts, hot dog and the ilk. They can be found in the meat section of the grocery store:In the packaged meal section:And, most impressively, in the canned food section:
Lastly, Dutch people really do love their hagelslag, which I've already covered, so I won't rehash it here. Though, check out this amazing box:Update: I just found out that there's a National Dutch Trampolining Contest. So, maybe that wasn't a Trampoline Park after all. Maybe it was a training camp!

Rotterdam at Night

This is the view from our hotel window in Rotterdam, the city every Dutch person we asked said "wasn't worth going to" because it was ugly and "too new." I felt like telling each of them, "I'm American. I can handle new." Rotterdam was bombed to smithereens during World War II, and had to be rebuilt from the ground up. So, it really is completely different than any of the other cities in the Netherlands - all those lovely little places with lovely little buildings that date back to lovely little days of yore.
Our room is on the 9th floor, which would be the 10th floor in America (in most of Europe, the ground level counts as '0'). So, this is, by far, the highest up we've been in this country - whose land lies mostly on sea level or below. You wouldn't find a view like this in another part of the Netherlands and, I have to say, I'm pretty glad there's no windmill lit up in neon in the distance.

Rural Holland

A lot of people who we've talked to have said that there's no nature in Holland. That's a bit of an overstatement, but it speaks to a truth about the country - its rural areas aren't really all that rural. They can still be very pretty. These pictures are culled from a few different places and towns. We came across the fields above as we were searching for a castle (that turned out to be more like a manor house) on our bikes in the rain. If it wasn't so misty, you could see a highway in the distance.
We fell in love with this little gatehouse cottage - it looked like someone actually lived in it. The lighter green strip in the picture is actually a canal, not grass. On a lot of the less-used waterways, the duckweed grows so thickly that it looks like dense spinach soup.
This is in Haarlem, which is a "rural city." The whole river, here, was dotted with boats on this Sunday.
This house was also in Haarlem. This part of the city seemed to be the "painted-house district." It feels like a small town in the center, though it does have its share of sprawl. The population density is very high here in Holland, so it's nice when you get a chance to pretend that you're in the countryside.

There are actually quite a few windmills. This one turned outside our room in Santpoort Noord. We were told that it ground grain. They are much larger than I expected.

I had always assumed that the reason that Holland had so many windmills was because it had a lot of wind. While this is partly true, there are two more important reasons why they built thousands of them. First, because they didn't have any swiftly moving water to power mills. Second, because they needed engines to pump water out of the fields to keep the land relatively dry.

Domesticity Abroad

Today, we did laundry. Travelers, they're just like normal people!

Hagelslag

"Hagel" means 'hail' in Dutch and is also their word for sprinkles. Now, I'm a big sprinkles person, as anyone that has ever seen me within 10 yards of a Mister Softee can vouch, but I was a little taken aback to discover that, here, they eat it for breakfast. It basically functions like sugary cereal in America.
We went into a supermarket to see just how many brands of hagel there were. Answer: a lot. Some had cartoon characters on the packaging and, I like to imagine, prizes in the box. Kiddie Hagel. Then, there were the classier looking boxes. Adult Hagel.
Of course, at the bottom of the shelves, there was hagel in a bag. Economy Hagel.
The next morning we decided to try some out at the hotel's breakfast buffet. Basically, you just pour it on toast. We played with the idea of using pindakaas (peanut butter, or as it literally translates, peanut cheese) as our binding agent, but opted instead for margarine. That way, we could be sure to taste the hagelslag.

This was Merlin's. He chose to cover half his bread with the traditional cylindrical chocolate ones and the other half with the more daring pink and yellow spherical hagel. Both were really sweet.
This was mine. It came from a box with a dinosaur on it. I thought it would be mint and chocolate and for the first few bites, my eyes deceived my taste buds. Green=mint. Obviously. However, upon further inspection, picking fallen green hagel off my plate with the wetted tip of my finger, I discovered that it basically just tasted like sugar.
P.S. We wanted to find a hagelslag commercial on youtube to post for you all but all I kept getting were Sen. Chuck Hagel interviews.