Holland - Spring Cultural

My last cultural trip was in Amsterdam, Holland. It's a beautiful city, one of my most favorite cities for sure. Bicycling is their main means of transportation. Crossing the road, one must be very aware of their surroundings. One usually has to cross a bike lane, a car lane, a tram line and then the car lane and bike lane on the opposing side of the road. The organized chaos is difficult to explain.

Mary and Neyer were the other faculty sponsors on the trip. Here is me and Neyer.


Parking garage for bikes....




The architecture of Amsterdam is quite interesting. Most of the buildings are built at a slight angle. At the top is a hook for which the Dutch use to lift up furniture etc when moving to and from the buildings. This, in turn eliminates the hassle of moving furniture upstairs which, most of the time is not possible due to the narrow stairways.


Open Market




The Anne Frank House is located in Amsterdam. Unfortunately, one is not allowed to take pictures inside. It's the actual house where Anne Frank and her family hid for two years and it has been kept in just the order that it was left.


Got enough bells?


A new way to transport cheese




Andrew, Mary and I took a tour up the church tower. Here are some views of Amsterdam








This is a 3200 kg bell.




Who would have thought, coming from Switzerland, that we'd be tasting cheese in Amsterdam....did an official cheese tasting and it was delicious. This is called the guillotine and it cuts the cheese...


We also fit a bike tour of the city in which conveniently also went through the Red Light District....I would probably be fired at most schools if I was found biking through the Red Light District in Amsterdam



Art inside the bike shop....bike frames hang, but the wheels are just painted on the wall to fit the hanging frames.


My bike was called "Boston SHORTY"....it was given to me, I didn't pick it out....ironic


Our two Saudi students on the trip, Badr and Fahad...they were late to everything so they earned the honor of wearing red and green sparkly ties.


Holland also exports about 80% of the world's flowers. We went to the place where the auctioning takes place and saw some of the process




Brie, Strawberries and Mint on a sandwich....looks delicious, but I don't like mint. This was Mary's sandwich


This was my sandwich...after a little tomato control....goat cheese, honey and figs


One of my favorite pictures from the trip


The bikes around the city are more like art work in most places....so many abandoned bikes. I also learned that when the Dutch play the Germans in futbol (soccer), they still chant (in Dutch) a rhyme that means, "Tell your grandfather's to give us back our bikes." Apparently, in World War II, the Nazi's stole all the bikes from the Netherlands.




Vondel Park which was the main hub on the hippie highway in the 70s. The hippies came in to Amsterdam and took over the park. They lived there. So much so that one of the cafe's in the park turned it's upstairs into a post office so that the hippies could get mail. If someone was trying to get a hold of a hippie friend or relative (in the days with no internet or cell phones), their best bet in contacting a hippie on the road was Vondel Park because with Amsterdam being one of the biggest transfer cities from flights between the U.S., chances were pretty high, their hippie friend or relative would end up there at some point.




Some of the group...we had kids from China, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Turkey, Brazil, India, Germany, Romania, Spain and Malaysia.








Interesting...




We made it out to The Hague and visited the North Sea. The wind was brutal...










I found a wooden shoe....just a little too large though






A delicious sandwich I ate....chicken, sundried tomatoes, eggplant and tapenade.