Two Beers and a Pretzel

So on Friday I decided to recover from 4 days of walking tours and museums.  I slept in, went to lunch with Ingrid and some of her co-workers, posted the Belgium update on the blog. I looked into going to Berlin, but it was going to be cold, so I decided on Madrid (warm and cheaper). Then Ingrid got off work and we went out on the town.

First we stopped by her home town and had dinner with her parents.

I had a great time chatting with her parents.  Her dad is a big whiskey and cigar aficionado (even after his recent heart attack), and he likes rowing and old cars, and they drove route 66 a few years ago, so we had plenty to talk about.  Her dad recommended Barcelona over Madrid, so I decided to book that instead.

After a great meal, we went back to Dordrecht.  I booked Barcelona,  and we caught the train to Breda – the local college party town.  We had a 30 minute wait in the station, so we made some goofy videos on my camera to entertain ourselves.  I’ll post a few when I get them edited…  In Breda we met a bunch of Ingrid’s friends and former co-corkers at her previous job.  Went dancing and drinking until about 4:30 AM.

When we got to the train station around 5 AM, the tracks were being maintained on our planned route, and the next train wasn’t until 7:30 AM.  So we stayed at one of her friends houses (the guy on the right) for a few hours.  I was exceptionally tired with a light hangover.

Around 9 AM we caught a train back to Dordrecht.  Ingrid fell asleep.  I had breakfast and had to get ready for my 1:40 PM flight to Barcelona.  The train is usually 45 minutes between Dordrecht and the airport, so I left at 11:00 to catch the 11:12 inter-city.  NOPE!  The work on the tracks had screwed everything up.  It took me 2 and a half hours to get to the airport – just as they closed the gate on my non-refundable $220 flight.  I spent an hour or so unsuccessfully trying to get a refund on the airport taxes, then another 2.5 hours to get back to Dordrecht – where I fell promptly asleep.

About 2 hours later Ingrid woke me up and said that since her apartment has open access to the doctors office where she works, part of her ‘rental’ agreement was that friends are not allowed to stay there without her… and she still had plans to go out drinking and crash at her friend’s house.  She found a nearby hostel for me.  Decent enough, $30 and clean. No hot water in my shower – that kinda sucked.

Literally, the only good thing about that day was that my iPod battery lasted exactly long enough for me to get back to Ingrid’s place.  I seriously thought about and looked into catching the next plane home – but it was a $250 change fee and $600 fare difference.  Ouch!!

Despite a snoring Frenchman in my room (earplugs are awsome), I got about 12 great hours of sleep and feel pretty good today.  Ingrid’s having more friends over to chill out today – since she was planning on me being away.  I’ll probably check the train schedules and see when the track maintenance will be done – and plan my remaining day-trips in Holland and possibly visiting Kirsten in Cologne, Germany.  We’ll see…

As a tourist in Belgium, you’ll see waffle shops, chocolate shops, chocolate waffle shops, museums, waffle shops, bars, chocolate shops, a few canals, the occasional handmade lace shop, and more waffle and chocolate shops. 

I think the only way these people are still skinny is that they walk or bike everywhere – even in cold, drizzling weather.  I´m pretty sure we could solve America´s weight issues by forcing everyone to just walk for 1 mile a day – then replace the plethora of medeocre fast food joints with gourmet bistros.

Before you see too many of these pics, I had to use the high ISO settings on the Olympus, so some of the night shots (like the one above) have a lot of noise artifacting.

I arrived in Brussels around 11AM on Wednesday and immediately started looking for a cheap room.  Now, since this town is the seat of the European Union, hotels are about 120€ (or $180).  I found a hostel dorm for $30 that was just a short walk from the city center.  Back toward town, I happened by the famous statue of the little boy peeing.  He’s surprizingly small for such a famous statue - under 2ft tall.

Then on to the very interresting Musical Instrument Museum.  I won’t bore you with pics of all the different instruments, but it has some reall odd ones mixed in with ones you would expect.  There was a very cool audio tour included where as you stand on marked spots on the floor, your headphones play sounds from the instrument you´re currently viewing.

And on to an exhibitt of Magritte – the Flemish surrealist.  As always, no photography allowed in the museum, but this should give you an idea of his work…

Once I left there, it was getting dark, so I went for a meal and some people-watching in the town square. 

As you can imagine, the capital of the EU had a lot of really neat little bistro´s.

Unfortunately my surfing buddy Arnaud had to work late and couldn’t meet me for drinks, but I found an interresting little bar with live music, good beer, and a greasy pickpocket rifling thru other people’s jackets.  The hostel locked up at 1 AM, so I had to get back and get some sleep.

FYI- the band was a ukelele, guitar, acoustic bass, drummer, and trombone player – and they were pretty darn good.

The next morning I took the train to Brugge, stashed my bag in a locker at the train station, and decided to climb the city bell tower.  They have a 15 Euro pass that is good for all the Brugge city museums, like 20 of them…. And it the tower had a nice view of the town. 

At the base of the tower was a small exhibit on Salvador Dali.  Man, that guy was messed up and full of himself.

Then I wandered to the town hall.  You can see the bell tower in the background.  The dark building in the corner on the left is the Basilica of the Holy Blood which contains a bit of what is supposed to be Christ´s blood preserved by Joseph of Arimithea shortly after his death, and given to a crusading knight in the 1150´s.

Then I wandered around town a bit to see the scenic canals.

After dark, I checked out the Christmas Market at the town square – which has a decent ice skating rink in the center… to I rented some skates and went for a slide.

Ingrid was having a late dinner with a friend, so I was in no hurry to catch the train.  I found a little bar and had 2 things that you can´t get in the USA…  Paddy Irish Whiskey, and a Cuban Cigar!

Finally, it was time to catch the train, but I got one last decent picture on the way out of town.

On the way back, I had a layover in the massive and modern Antwerp train station.

Ingrid´s train was arriving about an hour after mine, so I found a bar around the corner from her place and shared a few drinks with some locals before she finally arrived.  Then it was off to a long winter´s nap…

Friday night Ingrid and I are going out with a few of her friends.  Prior to the festivities, my task is to figure out what I´m doing the rest of the weekend and next week.  Saturday night Ingrid has plans to stay over with a friend in another city who will apparently freak if an American guy comes along.  That kinda puts me in a hard spot for lodging, but I´m trying to meet with some more of my friends from MojoSurf camp, or possibly Mandy from New Zealand.  Jenny in Dublin is busy until Sunday, so that won´t work.  I´m thinking if I can´t confirm with any of my friends (and find a place to crash) by tonight, I´ll probably book a last minute trip to Berlin.  Bummer I didn´t bring my ski bibs, or I´d go to the Alps.

Back before the Brits took over, New York was known as New Amsterdam, and Harlem was named after Haarlem.

I took the train to Haarlem after lunch and explored the town for a few hours before heading back for a home cooked Dutch meal.  The town has 2 main highlights.  The Frans Hals Museum, and the main Market Square.  The square looks very picturesque and old, but you realize how old when you go the museum and see paintings of the square from 1680 that look nearly like it is today.

There’s also lots of pretty, blonde Dutch girls everywhere…

Then I had a classic Dutch lunch – fries with mayo…

So, when you see a museum dedicated to a Dutch portrait master, you see lots of old paintings of people in black clothes with white frilly collars, and the men accessorize with black hats.  All very realistic, but somewhat monotone.

There’s also a historic windmill in town.

I had to get back to Dordrecht in time to have dinner with Ingrid – which included a surprise bike ride to the grocery store.

And then she slaved in the kitchen to cook me a home made batch of Boerenkool.

Someday I’ll put the video of Chef Ingrid online…

Ingrid had to work, and most museums in Europe are closed on Mondays – except in Amsterdam… so I hopped on the train and made a day of it.

I started at the Óur Lord in the Attic’ Church (Amstelkring Museum) and bought an I-amsterdam city pass for 38 Euro.. 

If you don’t know the story:  Laws were passed in the 1700′s to ban Catholocism from Holland, so Catholics had to worship in secret.  A German merchant bought 3 adjacent houses and built a hidden church on the upper floors.  Law enforcement decided to ‘look the other way’as long as the church was not obvious from the outside.  The museum was in the middle of a rennovation, so it was not easy to get decent pics.

From there I wandered around town a bit, thru some shopping streets and the redlight district.  The whole thing with the prostitutes is exceptionally strange – especially since they all look – um – ‘Well Worn’ might be how you describe it.  Not too enticing.  The Cannibis College and Marijuana Museum were pretty cool.  Both places specialized in touting the medicinal value of pot, and the economic benefits of hemp fiber.  As you can imagine – they were staffed by some very friendly and laid back people.  The highlight for me was seeing an electric guitar made entirely from hemp…

One museum I walked by had an exhibit on Oman and was part of the i-amsterdam pass, so I checked it out.  However, no photography allowed.  Interresting because some of my family live in Muscat.

I ended up at the Anne Frank House.  That was really sad.  I can’t imagine being Otto Frank and living thru a concentration camp to discover the rest of your family died.  Actually being in the house really made you feel like you experienced that history yourself.  Again, no pics allowed inside…

After leaving there, I was kind of depressed – so I opted for a long walk to the Van Gogh museum and saw some nice scenes along the way.

Once at the Van Gogh musem, there were no photos allowed (go figure), but it was included in the i-amsterdam pass.  The museum had a very cool exhibit of Van Gogh’s letters to his brother and linked his mental state to many of the paintings on display.  It was very interresting to be able to match his life story to his work and see as his style developed.

Once I left the Van Gogh, it was dark, so I wandered town for a while…

…and decided to swing back thru the Red Light District to see if it got any more interresting.

There was a lot more tourist activity, but the girls didnt look any better’- still not sure what the big deal is there…

The biggest shocker was the sheer number of White Swans hanging out in the canals – and the fact that they would swim right up to you to bed for food.

I stopped in a bar and had a few beers (and got a good 2nd hand buzz) waiting for my train.  I accidentally took the Sneltrain (slow) that made about 12 stops between Amsterdam and Dordrecht, so I didn’t get back to Ingrid’s place until 11:30 PM.

With the 3 museums I saw using the i-amsterdam card, I think I got my money’s worth

Today I’m catching up on the blog and other travel plans before taking an afternoon trip to Haarlem and coming back for some home made Dutch cooking. 

After work on Friday we got in Ingrid’s car and drove 6 hours to Hanau, Germany - the fabled home of the Brother’s Grimm.

With a few traffic delays, we arrived at Erinn & Chris’s house just after 11 PM, caught up with Erinn, got to see baby Annika, and went to bed.  On Saturday morning Ingrid and I went for a walk around town before getting back for lunch.  Later in the day we dragged Erinn out to the Christmas Market.

That night Erinn & Chris were exhausted from baby duty, so Ingrid and I hit the town without them, had some interresting conversation, then got back at 2 AM and found both of them awake, so we all stayed up until 4 AM talking.

The next day we hung out until after lunch.  Then Ingrid was anxious to get back home to rest up for her motorcycle riding exam on Monday.  I’m kinda bummed that we missed visiting my friend Kirsten in Cologne, Germany, but Ingrid made up for it by proving that she can cook a pretty tasty curry rice with chicken – so I suppose I’ll have to whip up some Thai food in the near future.

I think I’ll head into Amsterdam tomorrow since all the museums everywhere else in Europe are closed on Mondays…  Then Tuesday it’s off to Belgium for 2 days to hang out with one of my surfing buddies, Arnaud.