My love affair with Antwerp officially ended today. Kyle had to go to the plant extra early today so I didn't get up and go to breakfast with him. I decided to sleep in and I slept past breakfast. He got back to the hotel about 11 am and he had to do his monthly closing for work in the hotel so I decided to go out exploring the city.
I went out and took the bus down to the outdoor market and grab some lunch. I took the bus down and the outdoor market that looked so interesting from the bus last week turned out to be a big dud. It was mostly underwear sales and lots of vegetables. I love veggies as much as the next guy but there's really not a lot of fun of making a picnic lunch out of a big bunch of leeks and some onions. I walked around for a few minutes then went into a few of the shops nearby. None of the shops were particularly interesting so I started to head back to the hotel.
I walked back to the bus stop and went to the other side of the street (another thing I've learned, if you want to go back to your original destination you have to get on the bus on the other side of the street, I'm so well versed in public transportation now) and waited and waited and waited. There were about 4-5 other people standing there waiting too. It was then that someone noticed a sign taped to the bus stop about 3 inches from the ground that said the bus was going to be on a different route for a few days. This is what I figured out from their wild hand gestures and the strange loud discussion that commenced. Apparently it said there was another bus stop it would be stopping at but it was several blocks away. Several of the people started walking the same direction so I stalked them to the new bus stop. I was waiting for bus 22 but I finally gave up and just got on a bus going to the Centraal Station. I knew that I could get back to the hotel on bus 17 that left from the Centraal Station.
I was also out of bus tickets and picking up another bus card is easy to do at Centraal Station. A single ride (with transfers good for 1 hour) is $1.60 if you buy it when you get on the bus. At the Centraal Station you can get a ticket good for 10 rides for $8.00. I walked around the Centraal Station and finally found a cafe to grab some lunch. I was starving. It was about 2pm and I hadn't had anything since dinner about 8 pm on Monday night.
I finally got back to the hotel around 3 and Kyle, aka lazy bum, was taking a nap instead of working. We were supposed to go do laundry when I got back because I thought he would be done working by then. Instead he napped and I got to go do laundry by myself. We had passed a laundry mat on the bus and I was just going to have him go drop me off at the laundry in the car. He claims not to remember the exact bus route and thought it would just be easier if I took the bus and a 40 pound suitcase filled with stinky dirty clothes. So I took my happy little self and my huge suitcase of stinky clothes and got on the bus. The bus stop nearest to the laundry mat is only about 3 blocks away. But they are very very very very very very long blocks.
Another thing I learned today: Luggage wheels do not roll easily over cobblestones.
I got to the laundry mat and I had to first purchase some detergent from the vending machine on the wall. I really have no idea at all what I washed our clothes in. I could have washed them in Anthrax for all I know. I stuck with the powder since I figured I probably wouldn't bleach out our black clothes too badly with powder instead of liquid. I bought 2 different kinds of detergent in hopes that not both of them were bleach. I got some really strange looks from the other people in there when I opened both packages of laundry detergent and started sniffing them to try to make an educated guess of which detergent to put in with my whites and which to put in with my darks.
I then got the fun of trying to figure out how to work the machines. All the washers are front loading washing machines and luckily they had 2 of the extra large capacity washers so I could just get away with doing 2 loads, one dark and one white. I stuffed our laundry into 2 washers (they were $7 each load so I was trying to get away with as few loads as possible) and noticed that there wasn't a spot to put money in them. On the wall was the machine that controls all the washers and dryers in the whole place. You add your money and then you select which machine you want, which wash or dry cycle and then push start on that machine, go push start on your washer or dryer then return to the control machine to retrieve any left over money. Oh, and did I mention all the instructions were in Dutch?!?! Luckily those words weren't to difficult to figure out. The word for wash started with W and the one for dry started with D. There was some medieval torture device or ironing table or something that some lady was running a sheet through. I'm not sure exactly what it was or how to use it so I just stayed as far away from it as possible.
Europeans for the most part don't use air-conditioning like we do. When we turn on our air at home we expect it to cool things down. Here they just cool it enough that you won't die of heat exhaustion. The laundry mat was not air conditioned at all. It was really really pleasant in there too. It was a 12x20 room filled with about 15 washers and 15 dryers (mostly all going), a scary rolling hot iron device and no windows. The good news is not only did I get our laundry done I lost 37 pounds doing it.
When our laundry was finally done some 2 hours later (they have a nice little soak built into the middle of the wash cycle) I got to pack it all back up into my luggage and drag it back down the cobblestone sidewalk to the bus stop. I finally got back to the hotel just as LazyButt was finishing up his work and we invited John to head down to the Centraal Station to grab some dinner.
We head back out to my beloved bus and wait again and head to Centraal Station. We get there and walk around a bit and we decide to go to the Windsor Restaurant. They had a nice set-up outside and it seemed somewhat busy. We should have known to just leave when we sat there for about 10-15 minutes before the snooty waiter even acknowledged us to give us menu's or take a drink order.
We order and John and I both order steaks and girly man orders shrimp. Turns out Girly-Man was the smartest of us all. We get our steaks about 45 minutes later and my steak which is supposed to be cooked medium is so past well done it's stringy and tough and tastes like shoe leather. Not just any ordinary shoe leather but shoe leather that's been worn while cleaning out a pig barn. I take one bite of it and decide there is absolutely no way that this steak can be eaten. John tastes his steak and he is just as repulsed as I am. They insisted on cooking me another steak and it came out cooked better but still tasting like the inside of a septic tank. I decided to just stick with my fries and when we left the restaurant there were 2 completely untouched steaks at our table. The snooty waiter insisted that the steaks were fresh today and they are very very tasty. I suppose we maybe didn't read the menu correctly and we somehow ordered the goat testicle steaks or something.
So I ended up having a very yummy warm waffle with 2 scoops of gelato for dinner instead. I was really missing the kids so badly today as well. I'm kinda tired of being in this city . We've seen most everything and while Antwerp is a nice city it's not a city I'd suggest visiting for 10 days!!! I keep really trying not to think about the kids too much. A few days ago I hit something on the Garmin and it popped up that I'm 7,400 miles from home. I know the kids are in great hands with my parents and when we do talk to them they tell us what a fun time they are having. In fact, they are normally too busy to even really want to talk to us. I'm so unbelievably appreciative that Kyle's mom kept the kids for a few days last week and that my parents are keeping them for over 2 weeks while we are over here. I'm fairly certain I may have to visit my parents in the loony bin when we get home (not only do they have my 10,8 and 4 year old they lost their minds and invited my sisters 4 & 5 year olds too).
When we got back to the hotel John couldn't get back to his room fast enough. I think my rough day of fighting buses, strange Dutch languages, stupid washing machines, hot weather and the fact that you can't get a drink larger than 7 oz here was getting to me.
Other things I've learned in the past few days:
There are several dialects to the Dutch language. The further North you go the heavier the Flemish dialect is. The proper spelling of Flemish is actually Phlegmish. They call it this because in the majority of the words you sound like you are trying to cough up a fur ball. It is possibly the un-sexiest of all languages in the world. Even Kyle commented that even the most beautiful woman in the world could not make Flemish sound sexy. I've begun referring to Dutch as "I wanna HokaLoogie" language.
ManPri's are just stupid. There is this crazy obsession here with men wearing capri pants. I'm not talking the long board shorts like the guys at home wear I'm talking full out man capri-s. Men wearing capri's should be taken out and shot. There is no amount of hotness of man that can handle wearing manpri's.
Socks with sandals just looks stupid. It looks even stupider if you happen to be wearing manpri's.
Women lose their minds over here and do crazy things with their hair. I've seen probably 30 women who have at least part of their heads shaved down to a buzz cut then have ponytails off some part of their head. There are also a ton of women with dreadlocks. Blond hair in dreadlocks is not an attractive look. Apparently Europe did not get the memo that the Mullet has been banned by the UN as causing you to look like you're an in-breed and confused about your sexuality. Just say "NO" to Mulletting. Please write to your local European governments and request that they put a stop to these horrible hair-do's. They are making all us humans who walk fully upright look like crazy over-achievers.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Monday-Antwerp
Monday I decided to go out on my own and see the city. I've decided I like the old city center much much more than the modern Centraal Station area. The Centraal Station is where all the diamond shops, high end designer boutiques and touristy things are. The Groen Plaatz is the old city center with the old cobblestone roads, the old churches and just cooler scenery.
I headed down to Groen Plaatz and started walking. My original goal was to go down to the river front. When we were on our tour last week we could see the old fortress (castle) by the river but we didn't walk down to it. I started walking and of course, didn't find it. I did stumble upon an amazing old church though.
The outside of the church was nothing really special but I decided to go inside anyway. I walked in and immediately felt my eyes fill with tears. It was one of the most beautiful things that I've ever seen in my life. It is a baroque style of church which means it's heavily decorated in ornate statuary and wood carvings everywhere. Walking through this church I couldn't help but marvel at how many people must have spent their entire lives carving the pieces in this church. Even as I was photographing it I knew that there was no way possible that I could really capture the essence of the grandeur of this church.
There is a large carved pulpit on the side of the church. The preist would walk up the side and could preach his sermon from the middle of the pulpit. On the bottom of the pulpit there are life size wooden sculptures of Jesus and 2 of the desciples catching fish. They are standing in a boat and there is a carved net and several fish caught in the net. There are wooden leaves growing out of it everywhere. It really is one of the most spectacular things I've ever seen in my life.
I walked all over the place and then headed back to the hotel to meet up with Kyle. We headed back down to the GroenPlaatz and walked around some more. We headed down to the river front to see the old castle that is on the banks. Kyle was doing the navigating and we walked forever completely parallel to the river. I don't want to hear again how it's just me and my bad sense of direction.
The castle itself was closed for the night but you could still walk around the outside of it. Kyle, of course, knew much more about castle fortification than I did. He was pointing out all the little holes where they would have had archers shooting at people trying to get into the fortress. It's so strange to think that all those things you grew up seeing in movies and reading in fairy tales really happened. Because Antwerp has been such an international port for hundreds and hundreds of years it was a very desirable port to try to overtake.After walking around down by the river for a while we headed back up near the GroenPlaatz and had dinner at a fabulous French restaurant right across from the Cathedral. The Cathedral was absolutely amazing in the sunset lighting.
At the French restaurant the entire menu was in Dutch and the waiter had to help us to order everything. Kyle picked out the starter on his own though. He ordered Kip Formage Foccacia which he though was going to be a type of bread with some cheese and chicken on it. (kip means chicken, formage is cheese) The waiter looked at him a bit strange when he said he wanted it as a starter but went ahead with it. We about died laughing when he brought our our appitizer and it turned out to be a grilled chicken breast SANDWICH!!! I've been giving Kyle a very hard time about being such a fatty he needs a sandwich before he can start his meal.
I had probably the best steak of my entire life. Kyle had some sort of curry pasta that was really good from the bite I stole. We then walked over and had some gelato before catching the bus back to our hotel.
Amsterdam area Day 2
Sunday morning arrived way way too early. Luckily people in the area realize that Amsterdam will exhaust you and check out is at 12 noon!! We somehow managed to drag ourselves out of bed and checked out a right around noon. We decided that we had done all the damage in Amsterdam we could do and headed out to hit Haarlem, Netherlands.
Haarlem is a completely different world than Amsterdam. Amsterdam is wild crazy with adult shops on every corner. Haarlem is a quiet picturesque city with a lovely city center, lots of quiet outdoor cafes and beautiful canals. We took a ferry to get to Haarlem and had a nice relaxing lunch in the city center. There was an outdoor book fair going on and we walked around for a couple of hours just enjoying the beautiful city and taking in the scenery.
Europeans really do know how to relax. From the plant last week Kyle learned that there is NO overtime whatsoever in Europe. People are simply not allowed to work overtime. If you work more than 40 hours they have to give you time off equal to that. They receive at least 30 days of vacation a year plus 10 holidays.
At Monsanto here they work 37.5 hours per week and take an extra 3 days off per month!! The pay scale is also quite different here than at home. We are used to getting raises every year based on performance. They receive raises that are dependent on inflation. If inflation goes up 2% every one's income goes up 2%. They don't really get yearly performance raises. Of course, with all that time off who needs raises?!?!
There is an old fortress/church in the center of Haarlem that was just gorgeous. There was a great little Dutch pancake stand in the middle of the city center. The pancakes are a mixture between regular pancakes and a funnel cake. They were really good. They serve them with a huge pat of butter and lots of powdered sugar.
After we walked around for a while (all the shops are closed on Sunday and Monday) we decided to head back to Antwerp. Our Garmin decided we needed a scenic route and took us all through the countryside to get back to Belgium. It was some of the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen in my life.
They have cows everywhere. I thought that the canals in The Netherlands were just in Amsterdam. It turns out that the canals run all through the country. They use their canals for everything. There were cows, horses and sheep everywhere and after several miles of this I finally figured out what was missing from the scene. There were no fences at all on any field.They use their canals as fences. The fields are about 100 meters (approx 100 yards) wide and about 1000 meters long with canals (about 2-3 meters wide) running along all the sides of the field. They would have corn on one field, sheep on the next field, a couple fields of cows then a few empty fields, ready to be grazed next. Some fields had a bridge between the fields with a gate in the middle of the bridge but most of them we couldn't see a bridge at all. We think they probably have a portable bridge system they bring in via tractor to move the cattle to another field.
There are small roads next to the larger roads where there were people out for bike rides (of course). I could totally see spending a couple of weeks just in the Netherlands biking around the countryside. It's a beautiful beautiful land.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Amsterdam
What a city!!!!!! It's a city that I really think any traveler to Europe has to experience. It really is such a strange city with such gorgeous old architecture, beautiful canals, legalized prostitution (Benjamin just ignore that, I'll explain when you are much older) and a really cool bohemian feel. It reminded me somewhat of New Orleans, the whole rowdy interior with a posh cultured exterior.
The city itself it full of more people than I've seen since New York. There are 4 bikes for every single person. 
The bikes are absolutely everywhere. At the beginning of the day you see the bikes and you think, "Ah, how nice they ride bikes instead of taking cars around the city," by 3 hours in you are cursing the inventor of the bike and trying to devise a way to somehow walk down the road without being ran over by one of the stupid things. In Amsterdam you have the street that cars attempt to drive down, you then have a wide bike path and then the walking path. Bikes however seem to believe that they should and will drive in any area they darn well please and they do just that. You have to look both ways, cross your fingers, pray to the patron saint of not getting smashed by 2 wheeled monstrosities, hold onto your belongings and run across the street before another gang of wandering bikes comes by to try to use you as a human speed bump.
The first thing we did when we got to the city is head to the Flea Market. I had heard that the flea market in 
Amsterdam is one of the Top 10 shopping streets in the world. It was a lot of fun walking through and seeing all the goods for sale. They had everything from cheese and olives, to bra's and panties. Shoes and purses and tons of flowers. We picked up a few things but mostly we just walked around and did some people watching. It's also a great place, as our tour guide on the canal ride pointed out later, to buy back your stolen bike at very reasonable prices.
We hopped back on the bus and headed back towards the city center. We got off near the Waterloopian Flea Market. It had a decidedly different feel than the first flea market. The first flea market had things that the every day person in Amsterdam needed to live. The Waterloopian flea market had tons of African/Caribbean items for sale, lots of Rastafarian type things, bongs and pipes (again, Benjamin just ignore that) and then lots of yard sale type items. I don't think we actually purchased anything there.
From there we started walking all over the city. We decided that instead of spending our time going through museums we were going to just walk around and get a feel of the city. If you've ever been anywhere with Kyle (aka, Mr. if there is a sign you must stop and read it, re-read it, re-read it a third time just to make sure you didn't miss anything, memorize it in case there is a pop quiz at the exit of the museum Kohlhaas) you will see the wisdom of my suggestion that we skip museums. The man can spend 2 hours at the base of the arch which everyone else would be bored in 30 minutes tops and that's if you've never left your house before. So we walked. . . .. . . . .and walked. . . . . . .and walked. We sat at an outdoor cafe and had a couple of drinks then we walked. . . . . .and walked. . . . . . .and walked.
We took a nice relaxing hour long canal tour all through the city. It would be very nice if the seats reclined. Since you are in a boat in the canal and the buildings are very tall your neck is killing you by the end of the ride just from looking up all the time. The canal ride was one of the best parts of the whole day. It was relaxing, my feet got a nice rest from the walking. . . . .and walking (yeah, I think you get the point) and a nice view of a lot of different parts of the city.
The day was quite cool and it sprinkled on us a few times despite the fact that Weather.com claimed we had no chance of rain that day. It was a high of about 65 and really windy (or perhaps that was just from all the (*&%(& @#*&#@%$^ bikes speeding past trying to mow down innocent walkers). I lost my jacket a few days ago and I was really glad I grabbed a sweater before leaving home.
We walked around forever trying to find a restaurant with an open table outside so that we could sit and eat and watch the freaks. .. I mean people walk by. It's kinda funny that in all the cafes with outdoor seating the chairs are all on the same side of the table facing the sidewalk. The restaurant owners realize that you want to watch the people walking past.
After dinner I would have been fine to just go back to our hotel but Kyle, being the red blooded American man that he is claimed that as an American tourist in Amsterdam it was his obligation to walk through the red light district. He said there is a major fine for Americans who visit Amsterdam and do not walk through the red light district. I checked the guide books and I couldn't find that listed anywhere but he insisted that it's a little known fact and the authorities supposedly have a secret way of checking to see if you actually fulfilled your legal obligation of gawking at the women who are innocently selling their wares.
The most surprising part of the red light district was that the girls, who were dressed rather modestly in bikini's were all very very good looking. There was one girl that was very obviously a man, a couple of kinda scary chics but the rest of the women were youngish (20-30) gorgeous, girl-next-door looking women.
I hear there are cigarettes and other smokable things for sale legally in Amsterdam as well. I did learn that last weekend was the last grand hurrah for pot in The Netherlands. As of July 1st there is a smoking ban in all of the Netherlands. Marijuana isn't exactly legal in the Netherlands. It's simply tolerated and not prosecuted. As of July 1st all smoking must be done outdoors and the police may start cracking down on it. At least, that's the rumor on the streets. So, the last weekend in June would have been a good weekend to be in Amsterdam, if you are into that sort of thing.
After about a hundred miles of walking, and dodging those dang bicycles it was such a relief to get back to our hotel. We got to the train station about 5 minutes before the last train of the night left the station. We walked around the city for about 14 hours!!! It was crazy, insane, wild Amsterdam. I woke up Sunday morning realizing exactly how old I really am, and that I'm just too dang old for Amsterdam.
The city itself it full of more people than I've seen since New York. There are 4 bikes for every single person. 
The bikes are absolutely everywhere. At the beginning of the day you see the bikes and you think, "Ah, how nice they ride bikes instead of taking cars around the city," by 3 hours in you are cursing the inventor of the bike and trying to devise a way to somehow walk down the road without being ran over by one of the stupid things. In Amsterdam you have the street that cars attempt to drive down, you then have a wide bike path and then the walking path. Bikes however seem to believe that they should and will drive in any area they darn well please and they do just that. You have to look both ways, cross your fingers, pray to the patron saint of not getting smashed by 2 wheeled monstrosities, hold onto your belongings and run across the street before another gang of wandering bikes comes by to try to use you as a human speed bump.
The first thing we did when we got to the city is head to the Flea Market. I had heard that the flea market in 
Amsterdam is one of the Top 10 shopping streets in the world. It was a lot of fun walking through and seeing all the goods for sale. They had everything from cheese and olives, to bra's and panties. Shoes and purses and tons of flowers. We picked up a few things but mostly we just walked around and did some people watching. It's also a great place, as our tour guide on the canal ride pointed out later, to buy back your stolen bike at very reasonable prices.
We hopped back on the bus and headed back towards the city center. We got off near the Waterloopian Flea Market. It had a decidedly different feel than the first flea market. The first flea market had things that the every day person in Amsterdam needed to live. The Waterloopian flea market had tons of African/Caribbean items for sale, lots of Rastafarian type things, bongs and pipes (again, Benjamin just ignore that) and then lots of yard sale type items. I don't think we actually purchased anything there.
From there we started walking all over the city. We decided that instead of spending our time going through museums we were going to just walk around and get a feel of the city. If you've ever been anywhere with Kyle (aka, Mr. if there is a sign you must stop and read it, re-read it, re-read it a third time just to make sure you didn't miss anything, memorize it in case there is a pop quiz at the exit of the museum Kohlhaas) you will see the wisdom of my suggestion that we skip museums. The man can spend 2 hours at the base of the arch which everyone else would be bored in 30 minutes tops and that's if you've never left your house before. So we walked. . . .. . . . .and walked. . . . . . .and walked. We sat at an outdoor cafe and had a couple of drinks then we walked. . . . . .and walked. . . . . . .and walked.We took a nice relaxing hour long canal tour all through the city. It would be very nice if the seats reclined. Since you are in a boat in the canal and the buildings are very tall your neck is killing you by the end of the ride just from looking up all the time. The canal ride was one of the best parts of the whole day. It was relaxing, my feet got a nice rest from the walking. . . . .and walking (yeah, I think you get the point) and a nice view of a lot of different parts of the city.
The day was quite cool and it sprinkled on us a few times despite the fact that Weather.com claimed we had no chance of rain that day. It was a high of about 65 and really windy (or perhaps that was just from all the (*&%(& @#*&#@%$^ bikes speeding past trying to mow down innocent walkers). I lost my jacket a few days ago and I was really glad I grabbed a sweater before leaving home.
We walked around forever trying to find a restaurant with an open table outside so that we could sit and eat and watch the freaks. .. I mean people walk by. It's kinda funny that in all the cafes with outdoor seating the chairs are all on the same side of the table facing the sidewalk. The restaurant owners realize that you want to watch the people walking past.
After dinner I would have been fine to just go back to our hotel but Kyle, being the red blooded American man that he is claimed that as an American tourist in Amsterdam it was his obligation to walk through the red light district. He said there is a major fine for Americans who visit Amsterdam and do not walk through the red light district. I checked the guide books and I couldn't find that listed anywhere but he insisted that it's a little known fact and the authorities supposedly have a secret way of checking to see if you actually fulfilled your legal obligation of gawking at the women who are innocently selling their wares.
The most surprising part of the red light district was that the girls, who were dressed rather modestly in bikini's were all very very good looking. There was one girl that was very obviously a man, a couple of kinda scary chics but the rest of the women were youngish (20-30) gorgeous, girl-next-door looking women.
I hear there are cigarettes and other smokable things for sale legally in Amsterdam as well. I did learn that last weekend was the last grand hurrah for pot in The Netherlands. As of July 1st there is a smoking ban in all of the Netherlands. Marijuana isn't exactly legal in the Netherlands. It's simply tolerated and not prosecuted. As of July 1st all smoking must be done outdoors and the police may start cracking down on it. At least, that's the rumor on the streets. So, the last weekend in June would have been a good weekend to be in Amsterdam, if you are into that sort of thing.
After about a hundred miles of walking, and dodging those dang bicycles it was such a relief to get back to our hotel. We got to the train station about 5 minutes before the last train of the night left the station. We walked around the city for about 14 hours!!! It was crazy, insane, wild Amsterdam. I woke up Sunday morning realizing exactly how old I really am, and that I'm just too dang old for Amsterdam.
Friday-the neverending drive
Our Garmin GPS unit, mapquest and all the locals claim that it takes about 2 hours to drive to Amsterdam from Antwerp. They all lie. . . . .or maybe they just aren't driving with Kyle.
We left our hotel around 5pm to head towards Amsterdam. We were out of cash and decided we should probably find an ATM before leaving Antwerp. We looked up the nearest bank and luckily got stuck in some major grid iron traffic in the middle of the city. Kyle, who hates traffic more than most other things decided that the Garmin had an evil plan to ruin his life and started turning the exact opposite way than the Garmin told him to. This, surprisingly led to a rather fun "conversation" between myself and my dearly beloved. We spent a lovely 90 minutes driving in 4 block circles about 3/4 of a kilometer from our hotel. We got to see the same streets about 100 times. The best part is, we never found an ATM.
When we FINALLY made it out of the city and about halfway to Amsterdam we decided we had better stop for dinner. There is no grabbing a quick bite to eat in Europe. You can grab a sandwich at a million shops during the day but at night all quick shops close and you are left with McDonald's (or McDrive as they call it here), gas station grub (4 year old sandwiches that are mostly just bread and more of their beloved mayonnaise) or a sit down restaurant.
Europeans dine out completely differently than we do at home. Here, going out to dinner is an entire night thing. You go out to dinner and you expect to spend at least 2 hours at the restaurant. You really need to grab a snack on the way to the restaurant if you are hungry. You go in and have a seat and order drinks. Wine and soda (Coca Cola Light is what they call my beloved Diet Coke) are normally about the same price and about the same amount. No one has fountain drinks here and when you order a soda it comes out in a 6.5 oz bottle. It's normally about 2 Euro's (about $3.20 US dollars) for that bottle of soda. You get a small glass to pour your cold soda in but it's never served with ice. If you are really lucky you get a single ice cube in the bottom of your cup. At $.53 per ounce you make that soda last. If you want water at a restaurant it's bottled mineral water. I prefer mine still (without sparkles) and that's a much better value at about 5 Euro for a 1.5 litre bottle. But wine tastes better.
So we have dinner in a small town on the way that takes about 1.5 hours. We finally get to our destination about 11pm. The only problem is the hotel we show up at isn't the right one. We were actually on the wrong side of Amsterdam. I put in the street address and Amsterdam as the city. I should have put in Zaandaam, Amsterdam and the address and I would have ended up the right place.
They also do addresses weird here as well. If I were to put our address in the standard European way it would be:
Floraville Road 6064
62260 Millstadt Illinois
It's crazy confusing when trying to enter things into the Garmin that way. We were supposed to go to Provincialeweg 15, Zaandaam, Amsterdam but instead we went to Provincialeweg 15, Amsterdam, Amsterdam which is 30 minutes away. I was really loving the city at that point.
We finally got to our hotel about midnight. Luckily Amsterdam doesn't get started early so we were able to sleep in on Saturday morning.
We left our hotel around 5pm to head towards Amsterdam. We were out of cash and decided we should probably find an ATM before leaving Antwerp. We looked up the nearest bank and luckily got stuck in some major grid iron traffic in the middle of the city. Kyle, who hates traffic more than most other things decided that the Garmin had an evil plan to ruin his life and started turning the exact opposite way than the Garmin told him to. This, surprisingly led to a rather fun "conversation" between myself and my dearly beloved. We spent a lovely 90 minutes driving in 4 block circles about 3/4 of a kilometer from our hotel. We got to see the same streets about 100 times. The best part is, we never found an ATM.
When we FINALLY made it out of the city and about halfway to Amsterdam we decided we had better stop for dinner. There is no grabbing a quick bite to eat in Europe. You can grab a sandwich at a million shops during the day but at night all quick shops close and you are left with McDonald's (or McDrive as they call it here), gas station grub (4 year old sandwiches that are mostly just bread and more of their beloved mayonnaise) or a sit down restaurant.
Europeans dine out completely differently than we do at home. Here, going out to dinner is an entire night thing. You go out to dinner and you expect to spend at least 2 hours at the restaurant. You really need to grab a snack on the way to the restaurant if you are hungry. You go in and have a seat and order drinks. Wine and soda (Coca Cola Light is what they call my beloved Diet Coke) are normally about the same price and about the same amount. No one has fountain drinks here and when you order a soda it comes out in a 6.5 oz bottle. It's normally about 2 Euro's (about $3.20 US dollars) for that bottle of soda. You get a small glass to pour your cold soda in but it's never served with ice. If you are really lucky you get a single ice cube in the bottom of your cup. At $.53 per ounce you make that soda last. If you want water at a restaurant it's bottled mineral water. I prefer mine still (without sparkles) and that's a much better value at about 5 Euro for a 1.5 litre bottle. But wine tastes better.
So we have dinner in a small town on the way that takes about 1.5 hours. We finally get to our destination about 11pm. The only problem is the hotel we show up at isn't the right one. We were actually on the wrong side of Amsterdam. I put in the street address and Amsterdam as the city. I should have put in Zaandaam, Amsterdam and the address and I would have ended up the right place.
They also do addresses weird here as well. If I were to put our address in the standard European way it would be:
Floraville Road 6064
62260 Millstadt Illinois
It's crazy confusing when trying to enter things into the Garmin that way. We were supposed to go to Provincialeweg 15, Zaandaam, Amsterdam but instead we went to Provincialeweg 15, Amsterdam, Amsterdam which is 30 minutes away. I was really loving the city at that point.
We finally got to our hotel about midnight. Luckily Amsterdam doesn't get started early so we were able to sleep in on Saturday morning.
Thursday, tour and dinner
Thursday we were invited to spend the evening with the group from Monsanto again. We were told to meet in GroenPlaatz at 6pm for a tour of the city. I wasn't sure exactly how long the bus would take so I ended up down there about 5:45 so I had plenty of time to grab some friites and sit and people watch until Kyle and the rest of the group showed up.
Friites (french fries) are a national obsession here. There are Friite stands on every corner. They are served mostly with mayonnaise or curry ketchup. I've only had them with mayo. It's kinda funny that even in the nicest, fanciest places they serve fries with their meals.
So I met the group next to the Cathedral. We went on a walking tour throughout the city for about 2 hours. It turns out the city Antwerp means Thrown Hand. There is a legend that there was some large creature that live in the river and would require all ships that pass by to pay a large toll. If they couldn't pay the toll the creature would chop off one of their hands as payment for using his river. Then someone named Brabo came along and instead of paying the toll or losing a hand he chopped off the creatures hand and threw it into the river. Brabo is very popular here (many parking garages are called Brabo's). The fountain in the photo above is a sculpture of Brabo. You can see Brabo holding a hand above his head and the water squirting out is supposed to represent the blood. Beautiful, romantic twisted Europeans.
We walked though much of the old centre of Antwerp. We found out the reason there are so many religious scultpures on the street corners. It turns out that Antwerp used to be a city similar to Amsterdam or Venice, that there were canals running in the middle of the streets. The citizens wanted to put in street lights to be able to see the canals after dark so they wouldn't fall in and drown. If you put in a neighborhood street lamp you had to pay a very very high yearly tax in order to have your street light. If you put in a religious statue (normally Virgin Mary and baby Jesus) the city would give you a light for free. There are still around 75 statues on corners throughout the city.
There is only one that has been restored to it's original painted colors. All of the rest of them are white or very pale.We then went to the oldest restaurant in Antwerp. It's only been in business for 250 years!!! The other thing that Belgium is known for, in addition to Friites and Waffles are their mussels. Since we were in the 250 year old Rodden Hoed Restaurant that serves traditional Belgian food, I had to get the mussels. I chose the curry flavor of mussels. I first thought it was kind of odd that so many traditional Belgian places serve curried items. The fact is that Antwerp has been a major shipping port for hundreds of years. Most of the spices traded throughout the world came through Antwerp. Curry was one of the most expensive spices so they kept some of it for themselves and they use it in many dishes. It's a very very mild curry flavor, quite unlike Indian style curry.
Kyle went with another Belgian delicacy, eel. It was served the traditional Belgian way, in some green herb sauce. I was in happy little mussel land and I didn't feel like trying his weird green eel dish. We, of course, had big bowls of friites served next to our entrees.
Yes, the mussels are served in a large bucket. It's really strange to see your dinner come out and served to you in by the bucket full.
I was sitting next to the local wine expert and he was ordering lots of great bottles of wine. He has some amazing taste in wine. At home, I like an occassional glass of red wine but that's about it. Here, I'm becoming addicted to the wine. Not only is the food absolutely amazing, the wine is exceptional. In Belgium they drink mostly French wines. I've tasted the beer a few times but I'm really not a beer kinda gal. I do however, love me some wine now.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
I'm not crazy
I found out yesterday that my little freak out at GroenPlatz (getting off the bus and then turning around and running right back onto the bus) wasn't completely unwarranted. Since we've been here we've been noticing trash piling up on the streets everywhere. It turns out that all the civil servants in the city were striking over some tax issue. The protest rally that I stumbled upon ended up being some sort of confrontation between the civil servants (dressed in red) who oppose some tax and the people dressed in green who are for the tax. At least that's what I've pieced together. There isn't a local news in English so the only way I'm able to get news that is going on is to find a Dutch website and translate it using Babelfish. I'm just guessing that the direct translations aren't perfect because there are a lot of things that it says in the newspaper online that just do not make sense at all. So here's me (yes, an actual real live photo of me, sorta)
On Tuesday night Kyle and I took the #17 bus and went down to the Central Station, the main train station area. It also happens to be the fashion and shopping area of the city. All shops close down at 5pm here. They stay open late on Thursday night until 9pm but every other night they all just close up and go home at 5. Strange. So we walked around that area for a long time. I found some really great pieces in some windows but for some reason Kyle told me I wasn't allowed to buy any of them. There was a really great Chanel dress in the window of a store that was only $4395 Euro's. (only $6916 US).
We had dinner at a nice little Italian place. I know, Italian again. There are Italian restaurants on every corner. I'm not sure exactly what Belgian food is since all we are finding in all the areas are foods of different nationalities.
After dinner we found another gelato place (have I mentioned I'm in love with gelato?!?) and this gelato place also had waffles. Belgium is supposed to be famous for their waffles but all the waffle shops close at 5pm so we haven't had them yet. The waffle was sweeter than the ones we are used to in the states and the outside of it had a little bit of caramelized sugar on it. The outside of the waffle was super crispy and the inside was nice and soft and chewy. It was one of the best desserts I've ever had. The fact that it gets dark so late takes some major getting used to. We were walking around and Kyle happened to look at his watch and it was 10:30. It felt (and looked outside) like it was about 7:30.
Yesterday I ventured out on my own and did a little window shopping and hit a grocery store and picked up some lunch. There was an "excursion" planned with the group from Monsanto and they sent a taxi to pick up me and the boyfriend of another engineer. The limo picked us up at the hotel at 4:30 and we headed over to Monsanto. Traffic was light so we ended up getting there early enough to have a chance to drive through a small village of Lillo. The entire town was about 50 buildings. There were 2 roads with a small round-a-bout in the middle of the town. We stopped at the river and I took a couple of photos of the new Antwerp harbour they are building and will be opening in 2 years. I also got a shot of a Nuclear power plant that is next door to Monsanto as well. It's so strange to see nuclear power plants everywhere. I was talking to the taxi driver and he was surprised that the US uses oil and coal for power. He couldn't believe that we don't have windmills or nuclear power.
The only thing we knew about the excursion was that we were to wear shoes that we didn't mind getting dirty. We ended up doing something that was totally more our speed. We drove out to the country in Holland (which I learned is actually not a country of it's own but a part of The Netherlands) and we played Farmers Golf. We were broken up into teams of 4 (there were 16 of us) and given a ball and a mallet per team. Throughout this large field, with cows, a horse and a donkey grazing you hit the ball with the mallet (the mallet is a stick with a wooden shoe on the end) and try to get it into a bucket on the other side of the field. There were a total of 9 holes. We also had the added fun of trying to watch out for cow patties and horse poop. There was a small strip of "green" from one hole to the next but a great deal of it was "rough". I think our team ended up winning but we didn't keep super close track. It was a lot of fun though. The fields were bordered by small creeks. I kept mouthing Kyle telling him not to hit it into the creek. So of course, I smacked it right into the creek. Luckily Kyle and his freakishly long arms was able to get the ball with a little help from Tony. After a few beers we were taken to a nearby restaurant for dinner.
The restaurant was absolutely gorgeous. We had some amazing food (some of the best smoked salmon I've ever had in my life) and wine and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We had a taxi back to Antwerp and got back here a little after 11pm last night. Notice how light the sky is in these photos of the restaurant. It was about 10:30 pm when I took these!!!
A few things I learned today:
People really and truly do wear wooden shoes. A couple of the guys who work at Monsanto brought their wooden shoes to wear during the game. We bought a pair for Benjamin and Morgan. I keep joking that I'm going to wear them everywhere I go from now on.
People here don't think twice about riding their bicycles very long distances, even in winter. There are many people at the plant that live over 20 miles from work and ride their bikes!!! One of the men we rode with last night was telling us that if he rides his bike to work it takes him about an hour and a half each way to ride his bike. I can't even imagine anyone at home riding a bike that far. I tried to convince Kyle that he should start riding his bike to work but we decided that riding a bike through Cahokia and Sauget probably wouldn't be that great of an idea.
Old versus new here is a much different concept than at home. We were talking to another guy here about the rest of our trip. We mentioned going to Germany/Austria to see castles. He said, "Oh, the modern castles." The castles we are going to see were built in the 1700's!!!! They consider them the "modern" castles.
Tonight we are going on a walking tour of downtown Antwerp.
On Tuesday night Kyle and I took the #17 bus and went down to the Central Station, the main train station area. It also happens to be the fashion and shopping area of the city. All shops close down at 5pm here. They stay open late on Thursday night until 9pm but every other night they all just close up and go home at 5. Strange. So we walked around that area for a long time. I found some really great pieces in some windows but for some reason Kyle told me I wasn't allowed to buy any of them. There was a really great Chanel dress in the window of a store that was only $4395 Euro's. (only $6916 US).
We had dinner at a nice little Italian place. I know, Italian again. There are Italian restaurants on every corner. I'm not sure exactly what Belgian food is since all we are finding in all the areas are foods of different nationalities.
After dinner we found another gelato place (have I mentioned I'm in love with gelato?!?) and this gelato place also had waffles. Belgium is supposed to be famous for their waffles but all the waffle shops close at 5pm so we haven't had them yet. The waffle was sweeter than the ones we are used to in the states and the outside of it had a little bit of caramelized sugar on it. The outside of the waffle was super crispy and the inside was nice and soft and chewy. It was one of the best desserts I've ever had. The fact that it gets dark so late takes some major getting used to. We were walking around and Kyle happened to look at his watch and it was 10:30. It felt (and looked outside) like it was about 7:30.
Yesterday I ventured out on my own and did a little window shopping and hit a grocery store and picked up some lunch. There was an "excursion" planned with the group from Monsanto and they sent a taxi to pick up me and the boyfriend of another engineer. The limo picked us up at the hotel at 4:30 and we headed over to Monsanto. Traffic was light so we ended up getting there early enough to have a chance to drive through a small village of Lillo. The entire town was about 50 buildings. There were 2 roads with a small round-a-bout in the middle of the town. We stopped at the river and I took a couple of photos of the new Antwerp harbour they are building and will be opening in 2 years. I also got a shot of a Nuclear power plant that is next door to Monsanto as well. It's so strange to see nuclear power plants everywhere. I was talking to the taxi driver and he was surprised that the US uses oil and coal for power. He couldn't believe that we don't have windmills or nuclear power.
The only thing we knew about the excursion was that we were to wear shoes that we didn't mind getting dirty. We ended up doing something that was totally more our speed. We drove out to the country in Holland (which I learned is actually not a country of it's own but a part of The Netherlands) and we played Farmers Golf. We were broken up into teams of 4 (there were 16 of us) and given a ball and a mallet per team. Throughout this large field, with cows, a horse and a donkey grazing you hit the ball with the mallet (the mallet is a stick with a wooden shoe on the end) and try to get it into a bucket on the other side of the field. There were a total of 9 holes. We also had the added fun of trying to watch out for cow patties and horse poop. There was a small strip of "green" from one hole to the next but a great deal of it was "rough". I think our team ended up winning but we didn't keep super close track. It was a lot of fun though. The fields were bordered by small creeks. I kept mouthing Kyle telling him not to hit it into the creek. So of course, I smacked it right into the creek. Luckily Kyle and his freakishly long arms was able to get the ball with a little help from Tony. After a few beers we were taken to a nearby restaurant for dinner.
The restaurant was absolutely gorgeous. We had some amazing food (some of the best smoked salmon I've ever had in my life) and wine and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We had a taxi back to Antwerp and got back here a little after 11pm last night. Notice how light the sky is in these photos of the restaurant. It was about 10:30 pm when I took these!!!
A few things I learned today:
People really and truly do wear wooden shoes. A couple of the guys who work at Monsanto brought their wooden shoes to wear during the game. We bought a pair for Benjamin and Morgan. I keep joking that I'm going to wear them everywhere I go from now on.
People here don't think twice about riding their bicycles very long distances, even in winter. There are many people at the plant that live over 20 miles from work and ride their bikes!!! One of the men we rode with last night was telling us that if he rides his bike to work it takes him about an hour and a half each way to ride his bike. I can't even imagine anyone at home riding a bike that far. I tried to convince Kyle that he should start riding his bike to work but we decided that riding a bike through Cahokia and Sauget probably wouldn't be that great of an idea.
Old versus new here is a much different concept than at home. We were talking to another guy here about the rest of our trip. We mentioned going to Germany/Austria to see castles. He said, "Oh, the modern castles." The castles we are going to see were built in the 1700's!!!! They consider them the "modern" castles.
Tonight we are going on a walking tour of downtown Antwerp.
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