In a city that is lacking in public toilets, Amsterdam mas modern outdoor urinals on various corners. There are also several old-
No visit to Holland is complete without a day in Amsterdam. Like many of our typical tours, our day began with a walk through the Red Light District. For the first time, we stopped in the Oude Kerk, which dates back to the 14th century. We particularly liked the unusual wooden carvings teaching moral lessons over the choir seats from 1480. Our favorite was the above “Money doesn’t fall out of my arse” which means that money doesn’t grow on trees. We also visited the Van Gogh Museum and the Anne Frank House, which Veronica got to visit for the first time since Ashlynn wasn’t along (I think it’s important for children to be old enough to understand the significance of what happened there, so Ashlynn won’t go for another few years).
Since we would be celebrating our 2nd anniversary in Holland without Jimmy but with visitors Kristine and Carolyn instead, we decided it would be a great time to go to our favorite pannekoeken restaurant Oudt Leyden and collect our special plate as frequent visitors for the restaurant’s 100th anniversary. We chose to postpone doing our annual highs and lows, but enjoyed sharing our favorite restaurant with our friends.
While fall weather in Holland wouldn’t entice most visitors, Raleigh hash buddies Kristine and Carolyn didn’t let the wet and windy weather scare them away. They arrived on Thanksgiving and stayed for 4 days. Of course, part of experiencing a new country is trying the local foods. On their first night, they enjoyed trying pannekoeken, traditional Dutch pancakes.
In honor of Thanksgiving, we toured some of the Pilgrim sites in Leiden on Friday, then I invited the Busches to join us for dinner. With my tiny oven, I never considered cooking a whole turkey; instead I made cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes and a crock pot meal with turkey. It was hardly a traditional American or Dutch dinner, but luckily it was tasty.
This year we went with Camilla and Tristram to see Sinterklaas arrive down the Vliet in the town of Voorburg. It was somewhat uneventful compared to last year’s big parade in Den Haag, but still fun since we were with friends. And it’s impossible not to laugh at this politically incorrect custom.
I also got a good laugh from that Monday’s paper. Apparently some of the Zwarte Piets elsewhere in Holland had a lot of fun as they mooned the crowd gathered to watch their arrival. Can’t imagine what the kids thought of those funny people with the black faces and white bums.
While we opted not to go trick or treating in Wassenaar this year, we were happy to go out for Sint Martin’s Day on November 11th with David and Andrew in Heemstede to celebrate the saint who gave half of his cloak to a beggar before the city gates on a cold winter’s day. Traditionally children make lanterns, but ours were store-bought. Similar to Halloween, the kids go door-to-door and receive candy, but in this case they earn their reward by singing traditional songs. There were lots of comments about the cute English accents while the kids sang in Dutch:
It was great seeing all the colors of fall while in Sweden, which is something we don’t see much of in Holland. We saw this waterfall on the grounds of a castle (unfortunately it wasn’t open to the public). Afterwards we visited a traditional Swedish Christmas market. On our last day in Scandinavia, we took the ferry back to Denmark and attempted to get into another closed castle. Despite not getting inside, we thoroughly enjoyed walking along the water’s edge and seeing the beautiful views. Overall, the combination of amusement park, big city culture and walks in the countryside made for a great vacation.
