Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

The Netherlands!! September 17 - 21.

Busy weeks equal delayed posts, but here it is, and I'm hoping to get an accompanying photo album up on Facebook soon as well, which I'll link to for the non-Facebookies among us.

So after one week here in the hostel in Dublin, I woke up early and returned to Dublin Airport to start on my first side-trip from Ireland. I hopped on my first-ever Ryanair flight and headed off to Eindhoven, the first stop on my journey where I would be meeting my old friend Lennart before catching the train heading back to his hometown.

I hadn't seen Lennart since Kassandra and I escorted him to Ezeiza Airport in Buenos Aires at then end of our six months together at la Universidad del Salvador. That was over a year ago. He was one of those friends that you make while abroad and (because you have no one else) they become like family. You learn as much about each other in the span of a few months as some people learn in lifetimes. We saw each other nearly every day, lived less than four blocks from each other, ate together, partied together, traveled together. Then, with these friends, at the end of your time together, you branch off and go your separate ways, and in all likelihood the next time you see each other won't be for years if at all. It's one of the "double-edged sword" aspects of doing this.

IT WAS SO GOOD TO SEE HIM!! Weird. But good. We both acknowledged on a couple of occasions how strange it was to be seeing each other again. It wouldn't have been as strange to be reunited in BsAs. That was our world. This was his world, his real life and not his abroad life. I encountered the same feelings visiting Isabelle in Montreal or hosting her in Boston. When we're together in these places, I feel like once in a while the feeling sneaks up on you, that this simply might not be where you belong. After arriving on Thursday, I think it took at least until Saturday, even early Sunday, before Lennart and I were back in our old rhythm, when we had finally adjusted to seeing each other in this new place.

The trip was a lot of fun. After a week of the hostel and living on cheap Irish food, it was fantastic to head to Lennart's home town of Duiven and meet the de Lange family, sleep in my room, and eat home-cooked meals. Their hospitality was incredible and greatly appreciated.

The weekend was a bit of a whirlwind. Almost directly after dinner Lennart drove us out to Arnhem, about a 15 minute drive from Duiven, where he went to school and lived until recently. I got have some drinks and meet his friends, including a host of very handsome and very charming Dutch men who insured that I didn't pay for a drink the entire time. Whenever I protested the response was "Don't be ridiculous! Have fun! Welcome to the Netherlands!"

Friday we caught another train for an hour's trip across the little country to Amsterdam. What a fucking beautiful city. Weaving in and out of the streets and canals was incredible. We walked everywhere - up and down the city, the Red Light District, the shopping districts, the government houses - by the end of the day we were exhausted and hopped a tram back to Centraal Station to avoid having to cross the entire city by foot again. I failed to charge my camera battery before leaving (which Lennart didn't hesitate to rail on me for, over and over) so unfortunately I couldn't go as photographically nuts there as I wanted to. It's a beautiful place.

Honestly, I was in the Netherlands primarily to visit Lennart so going into the details of Amsterdam doesn't really seem necessary to me, but because it's such an infamous city in the States (and everywhere I suppose), I guess it would be irresponsible not to go into a little more detail here.

Does it smell like weed everywhere? No. It's like living on a college campus, walk around in normalcy and occasionally catch a whiff of something on someone. I had heard from a Dutch girl on the way over that the passage of the no-smoking-indoors laws that have been sweeping the globe had finally reached the Amsterdam coffeehouses (it's a fairly recent development in Dublin pubs as well). That's right folks, apparently you are no longer allowed to smoke inside the coffeehouses. Thus, all the smoking we witnessed, or that I noticed, happened around small outdoor café tables or rather pathetically as someone was sitting on the curbs of the crowded sidewalks. Kind of takes away from it a little, I think. Glasswear and other paraphernalia, including seeds, were sold openly in the same cornershops that would sell coffee or postcards in another city, and were comparatively very cheap. Nearly half of the postcards sold in the city had genitalia involved somehow in their design, often in rather disgusting ways. Need more detail? Conjure up an image, and now think "overzealous piercings". Maybe you came close.

Unfortunately, I think Amsterdam might be less famous for its architectural and physical beauty than it is for things like the coffeehouses and the Red Light District, which are things that I just didn't find very exciting. Lennart warned me before we got to the city of what I could expect in the District as far as far as comments and other things went. He used the term that I had taught him when we were in Argentina and dubbed it "very sketchy". He was very worried about my sensibilities, which he clearly thinks are a bit more delicate than they actually are.

I guess the effect is different during the day. It's more of a tourist trap and less of a working district. Interesting but not necessarily impressive. It was situated along just one more beautiful canal with old buildings growing up around it. If you ignored the neon signs it'd be just another neighborhood. But because of where we were, in addition to passing the usual bars and coffeehouses we would be passing windows where girls of all shapes and sizes were displaying themselves, simply looking very bored.

After exploring more of the city, we got back on the train, stopping in Utrecht (largest train station in the Netherlands - it's like a mall) where we had to connect for the train to Arnhem, to have dinner in the city center along the canal before heading back home Arnhem and then hopping the bus to Duiven for the night. Saturday held the open market in Arnhem, where I bought €10 worth of Dutch cheese which I would later smuggle back to Ireland in my carry-on (so delicious). Lennart had a 16k to run that evening, so after a energy-giving pasta lunch we headed back to Amsterdam by car for Nike's Dam-to-Dam race. After dropping Lennart and his brother off, the de Lange's drove us out to an open-air museum so I could see some of the old famous Dutch windmills. The windmills used to be responsible for pumping the water out of the ground, thus keeping the Netherlands (a country that is almost entirely below sea-level) from being buried under the ocean. They were quite impressive.

After a quick meal at McDonalds (fries come with mayo there, and you can sub out fries for a decent-sized salad at no extra cost) we headed to the finish line. Lennart managed to finish in time to beat the family record. We then headed back to Duiven for a relaxed evening of wine, cheese, and conversation out in the de Lange's beautiful garden.

Sunday held more trains and more trams, this time to the Hague. Mrs. de Lange had told me before we left that she loved the Hague, that it had a "grandeur" to it that couldn't be found in many other places. She's right. The Hague is the seat of government in the Netherlands, and houses many beautiful and impressive palaces and embassies and the like. As I had charged my camera battery by this time, there are a lot more pictures here. Lennart got me to try the Dutch "haring" (herring), which is a small fish that has been gutted and scaled, but that you eat without forks or knives, it's simply given to you on a napkin with a pile of chopped onion. You take the fish by the tail, roll it around in the onion (it's slimy so the onion sticks) then lift it up over your head, tip your head back, and lower it into your mouth. You look ridiculous, but it's pretty damn good.

After wandering the Hague a bit we caught a tram out to the coast and had lunch in the beach-town of Scheveningen. We walked the beach, collected some shells, got our jeans wet and got some ice cream before heading back. How nice to end my weekend by getting my feet wet in the other side of the Atlantic (technically the North Sea, I guess, but whatever).

Once we were home in Duiven once again it was pretty much just resting and chatting before getting driven out to Arnhem in on Monday morning to get the shuttle over the border into Germany to the Weeze airport outside Düsseldorf, where my flight was delayed for an hour or two before Ryanair flight #2 and back to Dublin to start Week One (see below).

It was a great trip. My first experience with the intercity train systems so prevalent in Europe. To me, the trains seemed almost tiring, hopping on and off, making connections, etc etc, but to the Dutch it's second nature. Lennart has several hours of commute by train every day to his job at Nike. I'd be interested to tally up my total travel time for the weekend - it seemed like a lot. But it's a great way to see the country. It's always good to see new places, and to reconnect with old friends, and I got to do both at the same time :)