April is a great time to be in Holland, since it’s time for the tulips to bloom. There is a huge garden about a half hour outside of Amsterdam called the Keukenhof. It’s only open about three weeks of the year to showcase all of that bloomage, and that just happens to be when we’re here. Whether we planned it that way originally or just got lucky, I’m not sure, since this whole thing started last August. But we figured we better take advantage of a rare opportunity to see something that can’t be seen most of the year.

We decided to rent a car to go out there as it otherwise would have involved two bus rides each way, which not only would have cost about the same if not more, but we would’ve forced us to be beholden to their schedule, and we had no idea how long we’d want to be in the Keukenhof.

So we got a little Fiat 500: an automatic, but despite that, it took me about five minutes to figure out how to put it in gear. It’s actually not a bad little ride for a one-lung putt putt job of a mini car, once you figure out the transmission.

Driving in Amsterdam proper is something of a challenge due to there being lanes for bikes, busses/taxis/ubers and cars, and they criss-cross all over the place with everyone pretty much assuming they have the right of way. Listening to Siri direct us is also a bit comical in that every street name is incomprehensible, so you really need to have the visual map visible to understand where you’re supposed to go, so I drove one-handed while holding my iPhone. Fortunately, we made it out of town without any major incident (not counting that one bike rider who went flying over the hood), but I was also glad it was a Saturday, and not a weekday where the traffic (and the other drivers’ patience) would’ve been ten times worse.

Once we got there, we quickly found out we weren’t the only ones with that idea. The place was pretty packed, but fortunately, those who run the place were very efficient and we didn’t have to wait long to park or get into the gardens.

Entrance to the Keukenhof. I guess it’s not very impressive, but I think they were just under-promising and over-delivering.

Once in, we were greeted with an array of the most colorful flowers possible, spread out over acres and acres of beautifully landscaped land. Here’s their YouTube propaganda:

We took approximately 1,325,124 photos of all the flowers. Rather than bore and alienate all two of our loyal readers, here is a slideshow sampling of everything we saw (may take a second to load):

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Can’t help it:

We also tried the obligatory National Gross Food of The Country You Have to Say You Tried, which in the case of The Netherlands, is raw herring, made tastier by putting it in a bun and covering it with pickles and onions.

Carolyn had a bite. One. But I was proud of her for that. She’s not a seafood lover, but was willing to try something once. I missed her best grimace, though.

I ate the rest, and it really wasn’t bad. The fish itself didn’t have a ton of flavor, which is why they put the pickles and onions on it. I wouldn’t order it in a restaurant, but now we can both say we’ve eaten raw herring.

Also visible from the Kuekenhof are the rows of colorful tulips and other flowers.

We didn’t have a selfie stick, but we took some obligatory selfies anyway:

And of course what trip to Holland would be complete without a picture of a windmill?

Or wooden shoes? Especially Wooden Shoe Pumps, like all the hot Hollywood celebrities are wearing.

After putting yet more miles on our own regular shoes made in Chinese sweatshops, we hopped back in the car and decided to get lost in Holland’s countryside. We both enjoy just driving around seeing the sights and how people live outside the city and tourist areas. We enjoyed a very nice meal at a randomly picked cafe (noticing that outside of Amsterdam, people are not as fluent with their English, nor are menus printed with English subtitles as they are in the city). Our journey took us to the coast, where we spent all of two chilly minutes looking at the English Channel. We couldn’t see England, but we’ll see her plenty in about a week when we head over to London.

Even Holland’s country roads are specially designed to accommodate bikes. When we first started going down this road, we thought maybe it was a one-way street. Turns out it’s just what they do so there is plenty of room for the bikes. If you’re approaching another car and there are no bikes, you just straddle the white line. If there are bikes, you wait until there’s room to pass. Even in the countryside, bike riders were everywhere, and bike accommodation is ubiquitous.

And so, after a full day of exploring and seeing some of the most beautiful flowers in the world, we returned to our hotel, considering our last full day in Holland as a complete success.

I hate Vincent van Gogh. If he were in this room right now I’d bite off his other ear.

Why do I say that? Because he paints a bunch of stuff and then gets all famous after cutting off part of his ear and ultimately shooting himself in the chest and then they build a big museum for him in Amsterdam where you get to stand in line to buy a ticket and at first the line moves reasonably fast and you inch forward bit by bit thinking the whole thing might take maybe 1/2 hour at the most and after you approach the front of the line and stand and stand and stand, all in the rain mind you, you realize that no one has moved for at least 15 minutes, which turns into 30, which turns into 45, and ultimately you don’t get in for nearly 2-1/2 hours at which point you decide that Vincent van Gogh was a jerk and his paintings all suck. I was ready to spray paint over his name on the museum and replace it with Vincent van Stop.

However, Carolyn finally channeled the dark side and they eventually had to let us in.

Once in, we went to the first exhibit area which featured the theme of, well, prostitutes. Picture taking was forbidden but since I felt it unlikely they’d grab the camera and throw it into a canal like in the Red Light District, I snapped a few before they chased me out with a broom and a stream of Dutch profanities.

There were a couple more than the above but they include images of boobies and this is a family website.

I was a little irritated to have waited in line for 2-1/2 hours only to find the gallery virtually empty in places… plus there were pictures of boobies in said places, so you’d think it would’ve been packed. I couldn’t understand it. But then we went to the van Gogh portion of the exhibit and discovered that’s where all the people were. Apparently people would rather see van Gogh paintings than boobies. Go figure.

After a few hours of wandering around the exhibit our feet started barking at us, and we just ended up plum tired. Of course, on the way home, Carolyn had to get her door fix in:

And we thought it would be cool to post all of these beautiful flowers that were in pots lining the way to the gallery:

And otherwise we just walked to the hotel in the rain, and Carolyn promptly fell asleep and I posted this stuff. Sometimes you just have to have a day where you do mostly one thing, or nothing, and this was one of those days, all thanks to a frickin’ endless wait in line for an art exhibit.

Since this wasn’t the most exciting day ever, I’ll close with some observations about the Dutch thus far:

They mostly dress very casually; we’ve only seen a few ties here and there. They are actually quite a beautiful people as well as about the tallest, on average, in the world. It’s also rare to see anyone overweight. They do, after all, ride their bikes. A lot. Also, so far, other than a Burger King at the airport, we’ve only seen two McDonalds. That’s it, no other fast food anywhere. No Taco Bells, no KFC’s, no Carls Jrs… nada. See how easy it is to be so much smarter than Americans?

Speaking of which, we talked with our Uber driver and learned that in school they taught English, French, and German, although he said nowadays they’re down to maybe two of those. Still, it’s interesting that all you have to do is say a word or two and their incomprehensible Dutch turns into nearly flawless English immediately, and in very easy to understand and fluent English besides, without a lot of accent to it. He also told us they’re very blunt, which can sometimes be mistaken for rudeness. My impression is that they simply don’t feel the need to waste time with unnecessary verbal niceties.

Overall, I really like the Dutch. They have a live and let live attitude as exemplified by their liberal approach to social issues. It all works for them. They seem happy, and peaceful, and of course very bikey. Virtually every sidewalk we’ve walked on has a bike section to it. God forbid you linger too long in that section –as I have multiple times– for you’ll get run over in a heartbeat, or at the least have their little bells ding at you right before they would have if you hadn’t jumped out of the way. Even the motor scooters share the lane with the bikes, all of them going about the same speed. When you think of how many cars they’re keeping off the road, and how much exercise it gives them, well, it’s a model for any city out there. At least any flat city; the lack of hills is largely what makes it work.

On the left is for pedestrians, on the right for bikes. If you cross the street, you can’t stop and feel relieved for missing the cars, because you’ll be standing right in a bike line, and those will be on you faster than you can say Amsterholyhell.

Anyway, that’s all for today. We’re just gonna chill tonight I think.

Day two was mostly full of walking. We flew all the way to Amsterdam and boy are our feet sore. The Wyndham Apollo Hotel is about a fifteen minute walk from the area that has all the big museums, etc., and then it’s another 20 or 30 minutes to meander down to central Amsterdam where the Anne Frank House is located, among other things. Much of our trail probably would look a lot like the Family Circus routes whereby we wander to and fro, get a little lost, find something else, circle back around to the place we started even if that’s not where we wanted to be, and then eventually get where we were going, even if we didn’t know what that was in the first place.

After an easy breakfast at a bakery where we ordered something – not having the slightest idea as to what it was (it had powdered sugar on it, so we knew it couldn’t taste bad), our first destination was the obligatory Anne Frank House. I say obligatory not to downplay its significance: I’ve spent a lot of time learning about World War II, and Anne Frank offers us memories we should never forget. But it’s not something you go to and say, “wow, that was awesome!” In fact, the line of people waiting to get in was mostly somber and quiet, as it should be.

That said, the line was awful. I left Carolyn to walk down the row of it to see how long it would take to get in, and came back with the bad news that my guess was that it’d be an hour to two hour wait. We commiserated and ultimately decided not to wait in line for that long, no disrespect to Anne Frank’s memory intended. Next month they’re moving to a reservation-only system, which I think is very smart. Maybe we’ll be back someday and try it again using that. Meantime, at least we got to meet her statue:

And so after missing out on Anne we continued to meander through Amsterdam. We don’t have a ton of pictures because at some point it gets a little redundant. The architecture is awesome but it is pretty nearly all the same wherever you go. The canals are semi-romantic and kinda cool, depending on which one you look at, but again, pretty much all the same. I do wonder if anything alive exists in that water. Like a lot of in-city waterways, the water is pretty near black and looks like it would only support a creature from the black lagoon. A little bit of trash here and there floats about; not overly so, but if I fell into one I’d probably rush back to the hotel and hop in the shower and stay there for an hour while calling for antibiotics.

And of course there was the obligatory door for Carolyn. This one had once been a number seven, but the ivy decided to change that into an eight… it’s almost done.

After that, we went into one of the three main Royal Palaces they have and have mostly converted into a tourist attraction. Built in Amsterdam’s heyday, they’re massive and ornate and everything you’d expect a king to have when they had almost as much money and power as today’s American one percenters. Ha!

Some ornate churches…

One of which either got converted into a shopping center or they made a shopping center look like an old church, we weren’t entirely sure:

And, since we were down that way anyway, we decided to go to the obligatory Red Light District. I say obligatory not to downplay its significance: I’ve spent a lot of time learning about… uh… never mind. I’m being redundant, heh heh. Anyway, it’s only obligatory in that so many people think of it whenever you say the word “Amsterdam.” That and coffee/pot shops. Well, that and possibly, “What’s an Amster and why do they swear every time they say it?” But maybe that’s only me.

Anyway, as far as the excitement of the area, trust me. It ain’t no thang. It’s just a few blocks full of bars, paraphernalia sex shops, and hookers in underwear or bikinis (I didn’t stop long enough to inspect: I think most of us tend to look at them from the corner of our eye, not wanting to look too interested) in windows. Taking pictures of them is verboten, which is German for, “A big bouncer rushes up to throw your camera in the water if you try,” but I never saw anything remotely like that. Maybe it’s more prevalent at night, I dunno. Since it was in the afternoon and not so busy maybe we missed out on watching that kind of fun. Anyway, I couldn’t get Carolyn to give me fifty euros for fifteen minutes with a hooker from Czechoslovakia (actually I have no idea what the going rates are… or where they’re from. Speaking of which, some enterprising prostitute needs to put a “Sale! Today only!” sign in her window or some such. They all looked pretty bored, and I have to think the scantily clad babe in a window thing is marketing that has become a little tired and not so thrilling anymore), so we headed back to the hotel by using Uber, which went amazingly well, seeing as how we were picked up by a very nice man driving a Jaguar and avoided being shot because we weren’t in Kalamazoo.

By that time we were a little beat because we still haven’t completely adjusted to the time change difference. I had a helluva time sleeping all night, and so we got back to the hotel and plopped down for a nap. Six hours later, we woke up way past time for dinner. Hopefully this’ll be the night for adjusting fully to the time zone. If not, maybe we should’ve stopped in one of the coffee shops and bought some magic brownies to put us to sleep. But hey, we’re from Portland. That’d be like buying a Portland TrailBlazer hat in Amsterdam.

It’s Planes, Trains and Automobiles! (one of Kevin’s favorite movies ever):

• Flights : 6
• Countries: The Netherlands, France, England, Ireland, Portugal
• Main Cities: Amsterdam, Paris, London, Dublin, Lisbon
• Hotels: 4
• Apartments: 5
• Trains: 2
• Rental cars: 1

If it all works perfectly, it’ll be a minor miracle!

Day one: Portland to Amsterdam

It’s about a 9-1/2 hour non-stop flight from Portland to Amsterdam, or as I like to call it because this is a family website, Amsterdarnit. The route that takes the plane over Greenland and Iceland, where it was largely trouble-free with only a few bumps here and there. After a couple of movies and some reading and a few failed attempts at shut-eye (we were, after all, traveling all afternoon and into the evening, arriving at around 11 PM our time, which 8 AM Amsterdam time, meaning we started the day here with virtually no sleep– I know, I know, poor little us), suddenly we were in Holland! The Netherlands! Make up your mind! Why do you have two names? Amsterdammit!

We were fortunate enough to have enough air miles built up over the years to make it a First Class flight. Which meant mimosas in the morning and a seat that could lay flat for sleeping, plus videos galore and nice meals capped off with a hot fudge sundae. Yeah, we could get used to that.

After one of the longest airplane taxis we’ve ever experienced, going through customs and immigration was a breeze. No lines, no bag checks… almost like landing anywhere in the US. The Amsterdam airport is very modern and beautiful, although navigating the transportation to figure out the best way to get to our hotel made us glad we weren’t in a hurry (especially since I always look for alternatives to cabs).

Pretty much everyone you encounter speaks English, except perhaps tourists from Mississippi. Several encounters have started out in Dutch (which we can tell because of all the “AA’s” and a surprising amount of rolling r’s), which I view as a good thing because that means we don’t necessarily look like big ol’ dumb ‘Muricans, but as soon as you say, “Speak English you stupid Dutch person, can’t you see we’re civilized?” they switch to English right before they punch you in the mouth. Seriously, they switch gears without a hitch and are easy to understand, although the typical American politeness of apologizing for bumping you when they’re passing by gives way to what is probably a more typical European approach of, “I’m not going to acknowledge that because it was nothing to apologize for, you stupid simpering American weenie who needs constant affirmations from complete strangers.”

First impressions: As soon as we checked into our hotel and unpacked a little, we went on a walkabout to get a lay of the land and orient ourselves to our location. It’s a pretty city with lots of water. Canals everywhere.

But perhaps the identifiable aspect of the city are the bikes. Bicycles everywhere. And most of them look like the old three speed you had when you were a kid. Nothing fancy here, just two wheels and a couple of pedals. Virtually every sidewalk has a lane intended for both bicycles and scooters.

It takes a little getting used to especially when you cross a street. Just when you think you made it without getting hit by a car, you have to remember you’re now in the bike lane, and those suckers come fast. They know they have the right of way wherever they go, so they just zoom around like they’re in a Mario race, daring you to be one of the power ups they run into, except that you’d both lose instead of inheriting a new power.

Tulips and pretty flowers are abundant, as you might expect. We hope to go see some tulip farms and if we’re lucky, maybe some threelip farms later on during the visit.

Carolyn likes doors. Expect more pictures of doors.

After walking about, seeing that we’re not very far from “Museum Central” featuring the Can Gogh Museum and Rijksmuseum, we found a little nondescript grocery store and bought some food for the room, which is one of our favorite ways to save money while traveling. We’re not sure if all downtown Amsterdam grocery stores are similar, but it felt more like a close-out discounter than a grocery store, with stuff piled pellmell in bins and not a lot of rhyme or reason to the layout (you have to admit, no one does in-store marketing like Americans). Still, some apples, salami, an aloe vera drink, some bread, chips, and cheese plus a very tasty prepackaged confection called “choco wafels” –which beats Li’l Debbie and Hostess all to hell in the yummy snack department– all for less than $10 US, pretty much feeds us for the night and maybe the morning. Yes, you can travel cheap in Europe if you’re not proud or picky.

During our walkabout we walked past a store window featuring a scantily-clad mannequin, oh wait, no that was no mannequin, that was a real live prostitute advertising herself in the window! (Does that mean I should have called it a womannequin?) Anyway, it wasn’t even the red light district, although it might’ve been on the border of it, we’re not sure. In the end, so what, who cares. We’re not in the market for a hooker so it was like passing a window display full of Dell Computers. Except maybe a little better looking and they probably don’t do Windows.

Anyway, so much of Amsterdam’s reputation at least in the US is: “hookers and pot.” We saw what might’ve been a pot shop and a couple of women in their underwear in the window, but otherwise, that’s not what this city is all about at all, any more than pot shops define or dominate Portland or Seattle.

So, after being up all night and wandering around the city getting our bearings, it’s back to the room for a nap. Hopefully we’ll be able to sleep through the night and wake up loaded for bear. We’re going to figure out our itinerary for the next three days and otherwise chill out and acclimate. Welcome to Holland, us!