Holland Bike'n'Barge

We started our Bike'n'Barge trip in Amsterdam (of course!). The canals are always fun to see. On our walking tour, we found out there is a boat in the city that does nothing but go around and pick up the hundreds of bikes that get (accidentally or on purpose) dropped in the canals every year. The guide says the most dangerous thing you can do in Amsterdam is to jump in a canal. You will probably break a leg on a submerged bike.

We like to find unusual museums to visit. This one in Amsterdam is the "Our Lady in the Attic" museum. During the time of Catholic persecution, a man bought up three houses, linked their attics together and put in a 150 seat Catholic church. They were a little vague on how 150 people walked in and out of this house on Sunday and no one seemed to notice!

Here is Alonda and her two sisters with our "barge". It is actually a sort of river cruiser and never carried coal or other cargo in its life.

The bikes are stored on the roof of the boat and we took them up and down the ramp. 

This is a side-by-side tandem bike with an electric booster motor. You didn't really have to pedal unless you wanted to.

We rode the traditional two-wheeled, 7-speed, coaster brake clunker bicycles. Everyone in Holland owns a bike and rides it. This picture was taken during one of our lunch stops and Jim had to fix the only flat tire we had during the entire trip.

This is why everyone wants to ride in Holland. The scenery is lovely, the flowers are in bloom, the canals are beautiful and you can always look at a drawbridge.

Once you get away from the towns, the scenery just keeps getting nicer. The nation-wide bicycle highway network has excellent signs and is extremely nice to ride on. Dutch law says any car that hits a bicycle is automatically at fault. You can be quite brave in traffic with that sort of protection!

We visited the Royal Delft factory (in Delft, of course!). There are several Delft pottery factories and they all claim to be the "official" one. This one claims to be the only "royal" one. The fine pottery technology was all stolen from the Chinese! This was our worst day for weather. We were absolutely soaked to the skin from the downpour riding to the factory from the town square. The weather statistics for summer in Holland said it wouldn't rain!

This is the "Waage" or scale house in the main square at Gouda. All goods coming and going were officially weighed so taxes could be levied. It also meant that if you bought Dutch products, you got full weight of whatever you bought. It was good for business and good for taxes! We also bought a bunch of real, live Gouda cheese in Gouda.

One of the days, we didn't trust the weather (remember Delft?) and rode the boat to the next stop. The weather looked much better so we rode the route in reverse to go visit the "castle". It certainly looked the part!

This is first stop at the "Zaanse Schans" open air museum. You play the slot machine if you want a free map of the museum. We won, of course! Our guide on the boat had warned us about this place. Not about the museum; just about the bus-loads of Chinese tourists. He wasn't kidding! They were everywhere!

Everyone thinks of wooden shoes when they think of Holland. Here is photo shoe.

This shoe was so popular with the Chinese tourists, you had to stand in line!

Alonda's feet aren't really this big! In the workshop, they had hundreds and hundreds of traditional and non-traditional wooden shoes. You would not believe some of the styles!

You can't visit Holland without seeing the windmills. Here they are.

They actually work. They don't do a lot of water pumping any more, but any windmill that is still standing is still functional.

After our Bike'n'Barge trip, we went down to Brussels in Belgium for a couple of days. We didn't want to go back to Karachi too soon! This is the Atomium. It was built for the Expo '58, the Brussels World's Fair. This was the first world's fair after WW II. The shape is that of an iron crystal and is over 100 meters tall.

From the top looking down, you can see all of "Mini-Europe". From this height, you may not realize how much of Europe is down there!

This is the town square in the middle of Brussels. Every year (end of August) they decorate the square with piles of cut flowers. It is absolutely stunning! We only got to see this miniature version!

This video shows what the real square really looked like!

Each country designed their own exhibit and Holland, of course, put in some windmills.

Alonda's sister found Big Ben. The real one is a lot harder to stand next to.

This is the Atomium (life-sized) hanging over the Eiffel Tower (miniature) and the Arch d'Triomphe (miniature).

We took pictures of the real Tower of Pisa. You might want to compare our pictures from our trip to Tuscany. Click the link and scroll down if you want.  http://anjdroege.blogspot.com/2009_10_01_archive.html

We went to the Chocolate Museum in Brussels and learned how to make hand-filled Belgium chocolates. You can also learn how to make a chocolate Mickey Mouse. Alonda got a senior discount. Jim couldn't get a discount for senior, teacher, Esperantist, ex-Army, living in Pakistan or anything else. The girl did, however, give him some sympathy chocolates.

We went to the Comics Museum. Brussels is, oddly enough, the comic book capital of the world. Yes, Alonda is standing next to a giant Smurf.

 Jim is standing next to one of the scenes from the TinTin books by Herge. Herge was, of course, from Brussels.

No picture, but we are back at work in Karachi!

Summer is almost over

Our summer is almost over. Weather in most of the country has been killer heat, but here in Bremerton/Seattle, it has been unseasonably cold.
Here is a picture of the newest tourist attraction on the Seattle waterfront: a giant ferris wheel. We haven't been on it yet. It opened less than a week ago.

We are going on a one week Bike and Barge tour around Holland. We have been to Holland multiple times with the students for Model United Nations, but never in the summer. After Holland we will spend a few days in Brussels and then go back to Karachi to open school. First day with students will be August 1st!

Frankfurt-Wiesbaden June 2012 and home!

We finished school the end of May and stopped in Germany for a few days on our way home for Rest & Relaxation.

This picture is of one of the Kleingaerten (little gardens) that we wandered through. This particular one is in a "garden union" that recently celebrated its 100th Anniversary. Some of these gardens have been in the same family for generations.

We also ate at the small restaurant at the Garden Union. Food was excellent!

 We went walking along the Main River. This is looking back at the old center of town with the typical cathedral looming over it.

We visited the Bible Museum in Frankfurt. We try to find different and unique museums like the Chocolate Museum in Barcelona, the Wine Museum in Lisbon and the Clock Museum in Vienna. The mainstream museums are nice, but not very original.

 We took the S-Bahn up to Wiesbaden for the day. This is the Saturday market. We didn't buy anything since we were travelling home and staying in a hotel.

June is the month for weddings in Germany and just about everywhere else. We sat on the steps and watched one bride go in while her wedding party had to wait and party outside. The office is in the city hall and doesn't have room for anyone but the bride, groom and witnesses. The happy couple came out exactly 30 minutes after they walked in. We saw them checking their watches before going in. They must have had a precise appointment to get married!

Spain, March 2012

Alonda & Jim went to Spain for Spring Break. The school closed for two weeks in March so they went looking for someplace a little less "wintry". They visited Málaga for a week and then stayed in Madrid for a few days before flying back to Karachi.

Pablo Picasso was born here in Málaga and the Málagueños never let you forget it! Of course, they tend to skip over the part about him leaving the city for good at the age of 14. He never did any of his work here, but the city still claims him. He did a lot of his work in Barcelona. We saw the Picasso Museum there when we visited Barcelona a few years ago.

The churches looked a little odd. If you look at the picture, you will see that they have a sort of large "garage-door" near the normal-size door. This is for Semana Santa (Holy Week). This is the biggest religious/tourist deal of the year. You would see gigantic statues related to Jesus' death and resurrection paraded through the streets. The statues are carried by crews of up to 200 men. Some of them wear what look like Ku Klux Klan robes to hide their identities (no one is supposed to know you are doing penance). You can go to YouTube.com and search for "Semana Santa Malaga" if you want to see why the churches all need an extra-large door! We are frankly glad we missed it by a week! The crowds are horrendous and all the hotel room rates are about double (if you can even find a room!).

This is one of the many cruise ships that stop at Málaga. The city has added a huge new warf to accommodate up to 8 ships at once. With each ship dropping 1000-2000 tourists into the city for a single day, you can imagine the crowd when 15-16,000 tourists are all trying to get lunch at one time. Our tour guide commented that, without the cruise boats, Málaga would be just another Third-World city! We had fun at lunch watching the "boat people" come by!

One of the stops on the walking tour was the local market. We are very familiar with this type of market since Seattle is world famous for the Pike Place Market. Jim got yelled at (in Spanish) for touching the display! The apples were absolutely wonderful!

Alonda loved all of the varieties of olives.

Olives seem to be grown all over the country. We took the train down to Málaga from Madrid and it seemed to be non-stop olive groves. Taking the bus over to Granada seemed to show nothing but olive trees, too.

If you ordered anything to drink in a bar or restaurant, they would automatically give you a "tapas". The tour guide claims this is the law left over from the time of the Spanish Emperors. One of them ordered a beer and the bartender put a slice of cured ham over it to keep the flies out. King Philip (don't ask us which one!) liked it so much he made it a law to serve food with drinks. Jim thinks he would have been more likely to pass a law that they put a lid on the beer to keep the flies away!

This is one of the marker signs at the Botanical Garden in Málaga. It used to be a large private residence outside the city. Very nice place to visit, although the view of the city has obviously changed a lot in the last 100 years.

This is the fort in Málaga. The Spaniards finally threw the Moors out of Spain in 1487 (yes, that is five years before "Columbus sailed the ocean blue"). The war lasted about 300 years and this is just about the last place taken by the Spanish. Spain is absolutely littered with 500+ year old forts built by the Moors and taken over by the Spanish.

This video was taken while we were eating chocolate muffins with "cafe solo" (espresso) just outside the old fort in Málaga. We saw school field trips everywhere we went every single day. We are not sure if there are that many trips or this was just the "season."

This is the little animated "walk" signal. Watch what he does when the time gets short! This is something we consider an "idea from elsewhere". We always look for good ideas we have not seen in the US.

We took a side trip to Fuengirola on the local commuter train. The beach is over 10 miles long and there are condos everywhere! This area is one of the "top-10" for retiring outside the US.

This is the gigantic cathedral in the middle of Granada. We took the bus from Málaga to Granada and needed to ride the local bus from the bus station to downtown to ride the bus from downtown up to the Alhambra. You wouldn't think you miss the directions to get "off at the Cathedral", but from ground level, you cannot see the church. Of course, all the locals know where it is!

This is the Alhambra. The Alhambra (taken over by the Spanish from the Moors in 1487, of course!) is THE number one tourist attraction in all of Spain. If you look online for recommendations of what to see and do in Spain, the Alhambra is always on the list at, or close to, the top. This is the view toward the palace and fort part from the garden part. We had to buy reserved, timed tickets to get in. You can buy them from the ATM's (believe it or not). If you don't have a reserved ticket, you stand in line and hope that there will be a ticket for the time when you are standing in line.

This is a view of the old gypsy quarter from the fort. The average tour of the Alhambra takes three hours. They tried to sell us a two-hour walking tour up and down the hills of the gypsy quarter before our Alhambra tour. We are not that dumb! Old forts are really hard on your legs. All those stone walls and steps ...

This is one of the fountains and watercourses that make the Alhambra famous. You can tell it was a bright day since the camera shutter speed was fast enough to stop the water drops in mid drop.

These are some of the Moorish decorations. At the time (and still today), Islam forbade the depiction of the human or animal form so they did all their decorating with patterns and script. These reminded us of the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul.

Here are some closeups of some of the decorations at the Alhambra and the fort in Málaga.

This is the famous Patio de los Leones (Plaza of the Lions). You can see that the entire thing is ripped up and undergoing renovation.

This is a close-up of the newly renovated lions. They have shiny lips since they have new, stainless-steel fountain pipes!

This is why you need to travel before retirement (if possible!). The USA is mostly wheelchair accessible, but the rest of the world is NOT. We saw one man taking his wife around in a chair and she was unable to see at least 75% of the Alhambra.

We took the high-speed train (Jim saw 270 kph /167 mph) up to Madrid. This is the official symbol of the city. It is a bear with a madroñe (Madrona) tree. The tree is also known as the "strawberry" tree. This is closely related, but is not the same as the Pacific Madrona tree seen all over the Pacific Northwest.

This is NOT the Skagit Valley in Washington State! This is also NOT Holland. This is spring in Madrid! Alonda went to the Botanical Garden in Madrid. Jim rode the train back to Málaga and then back to Madrid. We had carefully put our passports in the hotel safe (no in-room safe!). Since we were going by train and not by plane, we BOTH forgot about them until we tried to check in at the hotel in Madrid.

A little fun at the airport on the way back to Karachi!