Posts

Showing posts from October 5, 2007

Zaanse Schans

Image
Let's say you are a tourist with only one afternoon within which to experience every Dutch cliche imaginable, where would you go? There really is only one answer: Zaanse Schans . In a space no larger than that of a decent urban park, they have managed to combine (deep breath) a bunch of windmills, a cheese factory, a wooden shoe factory, a costume museum, a supermarket museum, a pewter workshop and a souvenir shop or two. It is Dutch Disneyland (minus the overgrown rodent, which is a shame because they really do have some fine cheese). As tacky as it is, I was pretty excited to be there and even wanted to have my picture taken in front of some windmills (those who know me well, know I love taking photos as much as I hate being in photos). At the moment the photo was being taken, I saw an enormous jumbo-jet-size bee zip in front of the camera. I was certain that Shawn would see this behemoth and wait for him to pass before s

The Venice of the North (better known as Geithoorn)

Image
On July 30 th , we learned some new things about our newly-adopted homeland. On that day, we rented a Smart Car, which for those of you that are not familiar, is like a real car, only much, much smaller (and outrageously adorable...I can't believe I did not take any photos of it) and drove to the tiny city of Geithoorn , which is known for its network of canals and its lack of vehicular traffic (leading to its inevitable moniker as the Venice of the North). The thing to do here is to rent small "whisper boats", so-called because they are powered by silent electric engines and follow one of a number of color-coded trails. The first thing we learned during this process is that the Dutch are way too trusting. We knocked on the door of a house advertising boat rentals. The rental guy, who had given us really good advice on an Italian restaurant earlier, now gave us a boat. Just like that. No form to fill out, no deposit, no liability release, noth

Delft and Gouda

Image
Yup, as promised, I am taking another stab at the mammoth undertaking that is: blogging Amsterdam. I don't think too much time has passed to record my observations of a day spent in the Southern Holland towns of Delft and Gouda. Mind you, that day took place on July 24, over two months ago, so the details may be a little fuzzy. Fortunately for my taxed memory, we did not stray too far from the expected program. In Delft, the first order of business was visiting a pottery factory, or excuse me, a Delftware factory. This is where they make those ubiquitous blue vases, plates, flower holders etc. that line the shelves of every souvenir shop in all of the Netherlands. We got to watch as the artisans hand-painted all the aforementioned objects and learned some facts about the pottery-making process (such as: the paint used on the ceramics is actually a blackish color, it isn't until the glaze is added and the item is put into