The Iceman Cometh...

Spent the last 3 days meandering down to Bodensee (See big picture on top of this page). Meeting friends and having a glimpse at Heidelberg where many a person "lost their heart".

The weather is so unstable, wet & cold and our woollies were hidden deep in one of the 4 suitcases. It's a long drive down south. The thermometer on the car showed the outside temperature between 10-14 degrees Celsius.It feels lore like late fall than summer; forecast not convincing either.
We lit wood burning stove in our "new home", a god-sent.
After this morning's heavy rain had stopped we heard a chime of a van. Neighbors kids told me: The Ice cream man. How appropriate: The Iceman Cometh...!
A neighboring old farmhouse has a stork's nest on its roof.Something I haven't seen since my child hood.
There are two more blogposts about Holland I'd like to post when I get a breather. Our Dutch exchangers posted the most wonderful photos from Florida, pool, sea, sun...generally having a good time.I'm glad they liked it!

On the Road Again

As our stay in Amsterdam comes to an end, we had to pick up a rental car at Schiphol, Amsterdam Airport.We passed a memorial chapel for victims of light MH17, unexpectedly which send shivers down our spines.

Van Gogh Museum

A must - you would say when in Amsterdam. I'm not the most motivated museum goer and Van Gogh is not my most revered painter. Having said that, we felt it was de rigeuer...
The first hurdle of getting tickets is easily overcome by buying them online. You can even choose a specific hour of the day you'd like to be admitted. How whole families with little children queue outside, rain or shine, beats me if there is an easier way.
Spoiler alert: Most of his hardhitters, the most famous pictures were not there!

Sunflowers yes, Starry nights, THE self-portrait: NO! They are in NY or in another museum in a different part of the world.
Every hour they let in about 100 people who then move slowly past the pictures on 3 floors. The audio guide, however, only comments on about 9 pictures out of the 30 or more on the ground floor. We saw 3 other self-portraits by the master himself which were not honored by any explanation. How many did he draw?
If you're interested more in his artistic development and have techniques explained, then you won't be disappointed.
Friday night, unfortunately, was also the time for musical entertainment for the visitors.The group was substandard- sorry, but loud. So loud in fact, we had to give up on our audio guide system.
I liked the museum shop best. A very tasteful collection of many different touristy, even useful gifts arranged according to the predominant colors Van Gogh used: yellow bags, red purses, blue ipad cased for example.
Another area for improvement is the locker room / hand in your coats etc.. Two lonely if busy bees tried to efficiently handle the crowds. From one line to the next: Security check point afterwards. If some bad guy wanted to do harm, he can easily hand in his bomb with his backpack in the locker room and not try to bring it through the scanners.
As the whole outing cost a bomb, I admit we were disappointed.
This picture was obviously taken on another day as it has practically no visitors and photography is forbidden!

You've got Mail!

What do you do with your mail when you leave the country for a number of weeks? USPS offers a hold your mail service which you can organize online.
But what if you are expecting important communications and would like to get them? USPS will forward it temporarily anywhere on US territory. But what do  you do if you venture further afield?
As we found out, there is a private service which will expedite it to you anywhere in the world--for a fee.
It may be essential if you go away for 2-3 months as we do. That company is reliable if not cheap.
We did have problems, however, with USPS. Our neighbors informed us in previous years that our mail box was overflowing. We had to call the sorting office to remind them of our request which they should have on file. Yes, they were going to remind the mail carrier...
This year, we handed a copy of our request over to thepost lady personally. In spite of this, things have gone terribly wrong for almost 3 weeks.We had fallen victim to a spammer instead of the Texas based company we have been dealing with for a couple for years. As of today, everything looks good!One thing less to worry about....

A local statue. She looks like a farmer's wife, doesn't she? Or just a woman in old-fashioned garb?

Live Like the Locals

Home swappings gives you a taste of what it is really like to live in a country. You can live like the locals, go to their markets, eat the local food, enjoy restaurants your swapping partners recommend, walk in their parks and drive around in their cars. We almost zip around on our bicycles like the Dutch although we don't enjoy it in the rain.
You get the best feel for a country if you travel this way. Here are some pics from our neighborhood which offers a wild life reserve  and several parks.

                                                                         A Dutch duplex!
There are also curios like this.(De gustibus non est disputandum). Probably not politically correct for most people, but tolerated here:

 

Some community art project came up with this beauty.

And another really nice nature shot that hubby took in one of the parks:

Old World Charm in Holland--still there!

With the weather being so beautiful we decided to make a trip to the seaside. Last year we had visited Zandfoort several times; now a friend recommended Noordwijk. Once we had found the right one on the car's GPS, we were almost there (40km).

                                                                            
There was a strong cold breeze coming from the sea so that we agreed to skip our beach experience and drove on to Leiden, a mere 10km away.

A city of about 130,000 inhabitants, it houses Holland's oldest university, founded in 1575. I was  hoping to see some of the old buildings, -like when we watch a show about Inspector Morse, playing in Oxford- but all we saw driving  along were modern concrete buildings.

The town center was hard to find due to some missing directions and the navvy (GPS) sent us around the block several times. We parked in a area reserved for residents so that we felt under pressure not too linger to long. A cute little center with all these picturesque "Grachten" like in many other towns and a windmill museum:

 An American Pilgrim's Museum only consists of 2 rooms, but the curator is a very knowledgeable guy who explains everything very well. There is also a hotel "Mayflower" and Museum Boerhaave, the Dutch National Museum for Science and Medicine. If we had had more time we could have gone on a boats tour around the city's Grachten (canals). Maybe we should go back; there is so much to see!

German Engineering in Holland

When abroad one always needs to learn a few new tricks. Especially appliances need some explanations. So we grateful for the lovely manual our swapping partners prepared for us. We usually do the same.
So what have we got here? A Miele tower. In the middle is our coffeemaker. We even got it to work after reading the manual which is thankfully in English.We even managed the difficult part of decalcifying that gadget which was necessary of course on day 2 or 3.Murphy's Law!

At the bottom is a little oven, similar to our little guy at home. And at the top? A CD Player or an old-fashioned record play? Hardly made by Miele. It's a pressure cooker that I haven't even dared to open yet. Next to it is the fridge. European houses often have a freezer separately. In this house it's next door. In some houses it was 2 levels down in the basement. And most don't have an ice maker. So we travel with our own ice cube maker, prepared! Washer and dryer as well as the hoover are German products, so I have no problems there.

We would have overlooked this if it hadn't been pointed out to us by friends of the home owners who gave us the grand tour. It's a recessed outlet which can do a disappearing act as the touch of a hand.Very practical! Why don't we have that in the US? But why is a garbage disposal absolutely unheard of in Europe? We live in hope!

How does the idea of an extra tap strike you that spouts boiling water in your sink? I make my tea that way instead of using a kettle.Very useful!