Kaag Week

This weekend was the middle of Warmond's Kaag Week. The Kaag is the lake next to Warmond, and Kaag Week is a celebration here that's full of games, food/drink, and a few strange things, like a huge soap suds party in the park. Obviously Nicholas and Morgan have thrown themselves into local culture...


We're spending more time sailing with the great weather and steady winds.


And also as part of Kaag Week one of the local farmers opened his windmill for locals to explore. We climbed up into the top to see how it all works. The first floor has a small room for keeping warm and the wood burning stove exhausts into the top of the windmill's interior to help keep the wood gears dry. Mo wasn't a huge fan of climbing so high, so it was nice to be back on solid ground.


Some canal cruising was also part of the weekend...


And we found our way to meet Barbara's uncle/aunt, Frans and Thera at their boat, where we enjoyed hours of play...





Frans serves up a good time...


... and we ended the day with a BBQ back in Warmond with Jan and Sabine.


We really had a great day on Sunday with an all-day visit with some old friends from Tokyo who now live here--Jelle and Monique.


Just as we wound down the weekend, Nicholas and Morgan did the dishes trying to earn a few extra Euros from chores to help pay for gifts and the like.

Amsterdam, Kröller-Müller, and More

A sponstaneous afternoon in Amsterdam this week made for a lot of fun, and tired feet. We just decided to walk and take in the atmosphere.




We've also spent a bunch more time in random small towns--fishing villages, farm towns, and seemingly towns that specialize in nothing but pancakes... the gastronomic tour continues!


Earlier in the week we also biked through the Hoge Veluwe National Park to visit the Kröller-Müller Museum , which might be the best museum user-experience we've even 'experienced.' There's an incredible mix of sculpture and painted art. The Van Gogh collection is huge. And the outdoor sculpture gardens are very special.





... and then more biking through random farm and fishing towns.

Sunday Afternoon Canal Cruising

Random Things

You always need to be prepared for low bridges when cruising the canals.


And if the bridge is a little more flexible...


Has any American ever heard of an orange spreadable meat? Now you have, and it's labeled in every grocery store in Holland as "Filet American." Yum!


"Where's my money?!?!" OK, funny story, we take this side trip up to Vlieland which is somewhat remote by Dutch standards. The first evening we're there, we bike up to this restaurant and sit down. As we consider paying, Barbara starts to count our Euros... and sure enough we're down to like 12! Hmmm. Now let's see. We paid for the bus, the train, the ferry, the bikes, the apartment... and now we seem to be out of money. We laughed very hard as soon as Barbara finished counting.


Barbara's Oma's house was built in 1687, and there are tons of little unique things about it, like the 'little up room'...


... where Barbara and Momo have been known to hide.


Morgan and Nicholas are conducting a gastronomic tour of Holland, and pancakes are one central element of the tour. They generally come in size large, and are generally available with a few ingredients baked in. Plain and with strawberries/cream are favorites. So far the pancake house across the lake from Oma's wins with an excellent combination of taste and presentation.


Now you see it...


And now you don't!


Can I have another?

Vlieland, Part II

Bikers were the main way we explored Vlieland, and on our second day we rode around the entire island, which basically took all day.


Fun in the dunes...



One of Barbara's favorite things about the islands up north are the big swings in tides. With the waters so shallow in this area, there are a lot of channels that have been dug to allow for larger boat traffic, but in a lot of cases, you have to know your navigation well to avoide shallow areas. And often when anchored you just accept that you'll be laying on the bottom when the tide goes out.


We don't seem to eat as much at meals here, but we eat/drink more often. We love the mid-morning coffee stops.


We enjoyed a picnic at the end of the day, hidden in the dunes, away from the wind. Cheese, bread, and some mystery orange spreadable meat called "filet American."


And finally, Morgan had enough of the bike seat, so she invented the "Mopper" (aka the Morgan Chopper), which is sitting on the back rack of the bike. We didn't exactly have ape hanger handle-bars, but you get the idea.

Vlieland Part 1 - getting there

Taking a vacation while on a vacation can be interesting. We just returned from packing up and heading north to the island of Vlieland, off the north coast of Holland.

With no car we walked, bussed, trained, ferried and biked to get there--all in one day.

Barbara and Mo took in scenery on the leg between Leiden and Alkmaar, taking in a lot of wind mills, old and modern, and countless tulip fields.


We took the ferry--about 90 minutes across the Wadden Sea--to Oost Flieland, the main town on the island, that is otherwise just sand, birds, rabbits and the like.


The variety of boats we saw on the crossing was awesome. Many seem from another time, but in fact most are still manufactured and used every day.


I think the Dutch relationship with boats is like the American relationship with cars. There's a lot of culture that's taken root around boats here. And there's an incredible variety of boats.



So finally at the end of the day we arrived at our rental on the main street in Oost Vlieland. The story of our exploration of the island will follow shortly.

Engelenburg family history tour

We drove, and floated, the car to get to Vollenhoven today for a small Engelenburg family get-together.


We visited the Engelenburg family plot. (The Engelenburgs are Barbara's Mom's family.)


Then we went to this huge house--still out east of Amsterdam. This is where some Engelenburg lived many many generations ago; and that is Frans Engelenburg, Barbara's uncle, walking toward us.



And then we picnic'd with the whole clan. Gourmet!

Going to Leiden by Canal

We took off yesterday morning by boat for Leiden to cruise the canals and find lunch.



We passed probably 6 windmills along the way. Most of them are still a functional part of the 'polder' (reclaimed pasture land) drainage system.



We found a terrace in the middle of town to drink a beer at, and then do a little shopping...



... and the shoppers found some huge stroopwafels (syrup waffles).



Then late in the day we did some in-house exploring in the attic over the garage. For a house built in 1687, it has a sort of hay loft that was used for rope. This house was at one point a rope hanging shop. So now the kids have found Oma's woodshop. Nicholas is building a catapult and Mo is building a windmill.