Ice, Ice Baby...

We saved Amsterdam for the last day of the Fewell's visit. After lunch, a boat ride, and the usual walking tour of the canal streets and the Red Light District (which as Veronica prepares to study sex ed at school, was the subject of a lot more questions than in the past), we decided to take the gang to the Ice Bar. Since it was too early for the hip bar crowd, the kids were allowed to join us for an icy apple juice. The first photo is still outside and Johnny's just pretending to be cold. For Floridians, he and Jimmy were pretty tough to handle the cold while wearing shorts. Check out the boots the girls borrowed.

Not Your Typical Kiddie Show...

These photos show why there was a warning that the gladiator fight at Archeon wasn’t for the squeamish. It also explains why the ground is covered in sand, which is clearly good at absorbing “blood.” We forgot to ask this dead gladiator if they take turns getting killed or if he gets to be pulled out of the arena by his ponytail everyday. By the way, Jimmy’s not afraid; the sun’s in his eyes.

Let's Go Back in Time...

Veronica was especially excited when we decided to go with her cousins to Archeon, an outdoor park recreating the living past of Holland. First we traveled back to the prehistoric times of 5000BC and saw how early man lived. Then we wandered through Roman times during the 2nd century and saw a gladiator fight. We ended the day learning about the middle ages of 1350AD. There were a lot of hands-on activities for the kids including archery (Johnny got a bullseye!) and spinning wool (which was a lot harder than it looked).

Cousins Having Fun...

The girls were just thrilled that their cousins Johnny and Jimmy from Jacksonville, Florida were able to visit during our half term break. The number one place on their list of places to show them was Madurodam, the miniatures park featuring highlights of Holland. Here they are with the model of the De Valk windmill in Leiden; later we visited the real one and climbed the ladders to the top.

Valuable Lessons Learned - Part 8

* Don't try to squeeze 4 adults in a canoe with only 3 seats unless you like to get wet. When Jimmy did this when he hared a Hague Hash, he was very lucky that everyone dunked had a good sense of humor. We were all shocked how fast the canoe capsized and how quickly the 8 beers on board sunk; of course, Jimmy was harassed more for losing the beers than dunking the hashers. Since we missed getting a photo of the action, those involved did an reenactment during the circle.

* When getting on a train with visitors, make sure you actually read the sign before boarding the train. Not only is it embarrassing to be on a train that goes blowing past your station, but you’ll get to hear “Is this is the right train?” for the rest of their visit.

An Enlightening Beer Experience...

OK, maybe it’s not so enlightening, but the Heineken Experience, a quasi-museum, is a lot of fun even for non-drinkers. While the building was a brewery until 1988, it’s now visited by 350,000 visitors annually each paying $15 for 3 beers and an entertaining journey through a giant ad; you have to admire the marketing geniuses that came up with the idea. The girls especially loved the two simulators. In the first, you’re a beer bottle going on a typical journey from cleaning to filling to being shipped and then eventually opened; on the second, you’re riding on the Heineken horse carriage through the streets of Amsterdam. There’s also karaoke, trivia games and two smoke-free bars. You can see that we’re not complaining about being brainwashed. Long live Heineken.

Swinging in Amsterdam...

While I’m sure it’s possible to do a variety of swinging in Amsterdam, the only swinging we’ve done was on this pedestrian bridge. While we’ve seen a few bridges that we thought might swing around rather than lift up, we’d never seen one in action until this visit. We were especially impressed that this much effort was made for pedestrians.

We all thought it was so cool that we had to wait until it swung back into place so that we could walk across it to see what was on the other side. Turned out to be a huge indoor rock climbing gym that Jimmy’s already plotting to take the girls.

A Final Day in Amsterdam...

No visit to Holland is complete without a day in Amsterdam. Our day started with a train ride into Amsterdam Centraal. We'd thought about picnicking in a park, but then Veronica remembered that the sun deck on the roof of the science museum is open on weekends. Not only was it an unique place to visit, but it had a great view of the city. Afterwards, we went on major walking tour including through the infamous Red Light District, which seemed to have a lot more merchandise for sale in the windows than previously (which in turn created a lot more questions from the girls than previously). That evening I took Jim and Carolyn to the Anne Frank House (we're waiting until the girls can fully comprehend the impact before taking them), while Jimmy took the girls to the great Mediterranean deli we'd discovered on our last visit.

Hanging Out in Holland...

We did manage to spend some time outside of hashing to show Carolyn and Jim around Holland. We wandered the canals of Delft and had lunch at an outside terrace; checked out the pier, sandcastle exhibition and sculpture garden at Scheveningen beach before having dinner; viewed the Dutch Masters at the Mauritshuis (my favorite art museum); biked along the dunes of Wassenaar to the beach at Katwijk for lunch (sadly, the hills still kicked my butt); and paddled into Leiden (somehow into a headwind both directions) to see the market, the Pieterskerk, the Burcht and the medical history museum, which has this recreation of a 1600's anatomy theatre.

Queen’s Day...

In honor of the Queen’s birthday every April 30th is a legal holiday (actually Queen Beatrix’s birthday is in January when the weather stinks, so the Dutch continue to celebrate her mother Juliana’s when the weather is historically fantastic). Everyone dresses in orange, and there’s giant flea markets and special events in every city. While the hash trail skipped the main street of Wassenaar, we took Jim and Carolyn on a detour so they could get a feel for what happens in Leiden but on a smaller scale. The night before, the kids stayed at the hostel with a babysitter while we took the school bus to the center of Den Haag for Koninginnenacht, a giant free musical event with five stages. We managed to see Los Lobos for a few minutes, but Carolyn and I were showing our age because we weren’t comfortable with the crowds and lack of toilets (of course, there were plenty of portable urinals for the boys), so we took the early bus back.

A Pirate Family...

How convenient for us that the theme party at the Hague’s 25th was pirates since we’d already gotten pirate outfits for Ashlynn’s class event in March. The evening started with a Caribbean buffet, then moved into the entertainment portion with karaoke; they didn’t have “Love Shack,” so we sang “Dancing Queen.” The girls really loved singing; it was hard to get the mike away from them. Afterwards we danced until about midnight. A good time was had by all!

How Did We Miss This?

By now you might have seen on the news that a New York photographer did another one of his infamous nude photo shoots yesterday in Amsterdam. It's a bummer we didn't know about this since we just happened to be in Amsterdam yesterday with James' sister and family. Once again, we saw a big media difference between Holland and the US. The photos our friends sent were rear views of folks posed along this parking garage, but seen from a distance. The photo on the front page of the paper here was a closer full frontal shot of the same parking garage (you'll have to search for that one yourself). Luckily, not much shocks our kids anymore.

Opee Gets Tied Up...

Fairly universal amongst hashes we've attended, there is a circle after everyone's done on trail where hashers are called up to chug a beer (known as a down-down) for various crimes committed on trail or since the last hash. Unlike other hashes we've been to, the Hague Hash picks a scribe to record trail crimes and then report them during the circle. Opee did such a good job during his first scribe duty at the Red Dress Hash, that he was asked to do it for Saturday's trail. We were all surprised when a group from Brussels dashed into the circle with duct tape to tie Opee up. After he did a down-down sitting on a block of ice, he managed to free up his hands so he could continue his job. As you can see, the girls weren't too fazed.