Netherlands Adventures!: Leiden's Ontzet (Liberation Day)

On 2 and 3 October, the city of Leiden celebrated it's liberation from the Spanish during the 80-years war.  I didn't go out on Thursday, but on Friday, I went out with some people from my floor and went to see what this Ontzet thing was all about!

On the corner of where Central College sits, there was a parade!  We were trying to get to the other side of the crowd, but that was easier said than done for a while, so we stayed to see what the parade was all about.  It was so strange... the central theme of the parade was travel, but there also didn't seem to be a rhyme or reason to what was actually in the parade.  Still, it was good fun while we stayed!

These guys were hilarious.  They were obviously a bit drunk, but they were a hilarious drunk :)

After we escaped the crowd surrounding the parade, we moved on to a new and crazier part of town.  I guess we'd call it the Midway, the place with all of the rides are, but the rides were all spread out, because there's no one place big enough to hold all of the rides in the center of Leiden.

Any way, we walked around there for a while and waited while Marika went on a crazy ride that no one wanted to go on.  It's an upside down ride and I don't do upside down rides.  That's one fear I won't be overcoming on this experience.

It was such a chaotic day-- on top of a parade and tons of rides going all at once, there were also a bunch of concerts.  Stages were set up on almost every street.  Some were small enough to fit in alley-sized streets while some concerts were a bigger deal and took place within one of the last remaining gates of Leiden or on the Oude Rijn.  There was an assortment of music from, I think, salsa music sung in Spanish to Dutch screamo music, which was really strange to encounter.  There was definitely something for everyone playing at Ontzet, you just had to look.

After we'd spent a couple hours walking around the festivities, Marika, Kristin, JJ and I went to meet Andrew and Olivia (Olivia is the only one who doesn't live on our floor-- she was visiting Andrew for the weekend.  She was a delight!) in the Rembrandtpark, which happens to be near a boat rental.  We rented a couple of row boats and for almost two hours, we (well, everyone else but me.  I didn't get a turn) rowed up and down a handful of the canals.  This was an excellent way to break up the day.  It was nice to get away from people and find a little quiet.  That's how I felt any way.  I'm not sure how the other felt.

You'd think I would have had enough of the festivities if I was actively seeking out a quiet place.  But no, I went out again that night.  I didn't stay out for more than an hour.  But this week I had an assignment for my photography class to take pictures at night with a daylight setting (I'll talk more about classes in a later post.  I have to make a video for Central College any way).  So I tried my hand at night photography.  These are the pictures I came up with:

Boats were decorated for the occasion.  I think this picture is my favorite.

One of the roller coasters.  I think we call it "Mad Mouse" in the U.S.

Games, very near some of the rides.

And the bands played on!

That's it for me!  Tot Ziens!

--Jude

Netherlands Adventures!: Anne Frank House

Last week on Thursday I decided that it was time to visit the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam.  

Warning: I don't have pictures.  Pictures are prohibited at the Anne Frank house for a number of reasons.  Snapping photos, particularly if those photos involve using a flash, can damage the delicate remnants left in the annex.  Snapping photos can also disturb those around you.  For some people, visiting the Anne Frank house is more than just a casual visit.  It can be very emotional for them.  So... I bough postcards.

Plus, I forgot my camera at home and I didn't realize that until after I finished my visit.

My Visit

Once I got through the line and got my ticket, I joined the conga line (I don't mean that this was an upbeat line by any means, just that there was a line and we were standing close enough to each other that we might as well have put our hands on the person's shoulders in front of us) that was my visit to the Anne Frank house.  The space itself is so small that there is a prescribed path and somehow, even though there wasn't any instructions to do so, everyone formed a line and followed each other from room to room.  

The museum covers the warehouse where Otto Frank had his pectin business.  That's where you start.  As well as talking about the warehouse and the business, there's a general overview of why Anne and her family and the Van Pels went into hiding.  After that, you head upstairs where there's more of the warehouse and then... you see it.  The bookcase that hid eight people for two years.  I got chills just looking at it.  The bookcase that's in the museum is the original bookcase with the original documents placed on it.  It's so fragile that it now has to be protected with glass.

Once you go behind the bookcase, you have to jump up and you simultaneously have to duck to avoid hitting your head.  Immediately, you're hit with just how close together everything was-- still is, I suppose.  I don't know what it would be like to have just seven other people and myself in the annex but it was awful having the number of people in that small space.  I can't imagine being cramped up in such a small space for two years.  All of the furniture that was in the rooms before has been removed, which is good because of the sheer volume of people coming through the house.  I am sort of sad that the rooms weren't kept completely intact though.  That would have been really cool and immersing to see.

To go through and see the pictures that Anne pasted on the walls and see the markings on the walls indicating how much Anne and Margot had grown during their time in the Annex... I couldn't help but think about how similar Anne and I are (were?) at age fifteen.  She had a postcard collection and put them up on the walls, she was a writer, heck, we were about the same height (she was a little taller than I am now, and I haven't grown very much since fifth grade).  I couldn't help but think, if we had both lived at the same time, she would have died and I probably wouldn't have had to worry about whether I was going to live or die, purely because I grew up in a family who is Christian.  How unfair is that?  It's completely twisted.

After going through the tiny annex and moving up the "leg-breaking" stairs, as they called them (I bumped some bones trying to go up-- it hurt like a son of a gun), we went into a different part of the building and this was the part of the exhibit that talks about the arrest of the people in the annex.  There's a display with pictures and cards with names (I think through the Red Cross) saying where each person was last scene and whether or not they died.  Otto Frank was the only one to make it home.  The others died in concentration camps around Europe.  Anne died in Bergen-Belsen with her sister Margot one month before the camp was liberated.  The last person to see her was her friend who happened to be in the camp next to her.  

In late December or early January before I return to the U.S., I will visit Bergen-Belsen, located in Celles, Germany, just outside of Berlin.  There's been an effort to create more of a memorial for those who suffered in this camp.  I believe there's a memorial for Margot and Anne there.

This was a deeply moving experience for me.  I'm glad that I went by myself for this.

For Those Who Can't Visit

Here's a thing that I found after I started following the Anne Frank page on Facebook.  For those of you who aren't close to Amsterdam and can't easily visit the Secret Annex on Prinsengracht, you can now take a virtual tour of the Secret Annex.  Go check it out!  There's a link below (the image below is just a picture and not a link.  It's just a sneak-peek!).  I think everyone should experience the Anne Frank house, but not everyone physically can or can manage to fly to the Netherlands on a whim.  So here's an opportunity for you.

Explore The Secret Annex From The Comfort Of Your Own Home

If You Hope To Visit Soon

If you're hoping to visit the Anne Frank house.  Don't be alarmed, but I'm about to put this in capitalized bold lettering... GET THERE EARLY.  I woke up at 6:45am, got ready for the day, hopped on the train at 8:12, got there half and hour or forty-five minutes later, got a little lost walking to the Prinsegracht, and finally arrived at the Anne Frank House around 9:15 or so.  The house opens at 9:00am.  My wait was about 45 minutes.  Considering the horror stories that I've heard, my wait was not that bad.  One of the girls in my program hosted one of her friends from home from Thursday to Tuesday and decided to go.  She left at 9:00am and got there maybe around 10am between walking, taking the train, and walking again.  She waited in line for two hours to get into the house.

Also, please note that the stairs are incredibly steep and narrow.  If you have trouble with stairs, I suggest that you give a second thought to visiting the house.  While I was visiting, a woman with bad knees had managed to make it up the first couple sets of stairs, but when she went behind the bookcase and, I imagine, when she saw the "leg-breaking" stairs, she realized that she couldn't get up those stairs.  She had to fight her way against the people coming into the warehouse and the annex so that she could get done the stairs again.  Even then, it was hard for her to get down because of her knees.  There aren't any elevators in the house and the path through the house is very linear.  I don't mean to be rude, but honestly, it's not an accessible house.  Maybe you'll be able to get halfway up, but you might be stuck then.  Do what you think is best, but keep this in mind.

That's my Public Service Announcement for the day.

That's it for me!  Tot Ziens!

A Review of 'Fever 1793' by Laurie Halse Anderson

"It's late summer 1793, and the streets of Philadelphia are abuzz with mosquitoes and rumors of fever.  Down near the docks, many have taken ill, and the fatalities are mounting.  Now they include Polly, the servig girl at the Cook Coffeehouse.  But fourteen-year-old Mattie Cook doesn't get a moment to mourn the passing of her childhood playmate.  New customers have overrun her family's coffee shop, located far from the mosquito-infested river, and Mattie's concerns of fever are all but overshadowed by dreams of growing her family's small business into a thriving enterprise.  But when the fever begins to strike closer to home, Mattie's struggle to build a new life must give way to a new fight-- the fight to stay alive."

I love Laurie Halse Anderson as an author and she didn't fail to disappoint me with Fever 1793.  This book is different from Speak and Wintergirls in that it's a piece of historical fiction.  I was drawn into this book by Mattie and her seemingly ordinary life.  She was so sweet and she had big plans for her family's business.  But then terror ripped through her life as well as everyone else's lives.  Mattie was forced to grow up faster than a fourteen-year-old should have to.  She sees her town die off a little at a time and people come to collect the dead.  She returns home and finds that her home has been ransacked and pillaged.  She has had to survive with little help from people around her.

Reading about Mattie making her way through difficult time such as these kept my eyes glued to the page.  I couldn't put this book down.

You'll become attached to the characters and you'll be so horrified by what's going on in Mattie's world that you won't be able to look away even if you want to.

This is a good book for middle school readers and an excellent piece of historical fiction.

I give 'Fever 1793':

Thanks for Reading!

--Jude

Netherlands Adventures!: Biking in the Netherlands

Several weeks ago, a neighbor of mine back home posted a video similar to (if not the same as) the one below on my mother's Facebook wall.  Panic and surprise ensued over how chaotic the bikers and traffic were and how they were convinced that someone was going to be hit and die in the process. I tried to do a little trouble-shooting in the comment section, but I figured that it would be a little more efficient to talk about the biking system in the Netherlands, according to my own experiences and observations (I guess that's a disclaimer.  I'm not the goddess of bikes in the Netherlands-- I don't know absolutely everything) here on this blog. First Impressions Biking was terrifying.  The roads are quite narrow, considering there's two-way motor vehicle traffic plus two bike lanes on each side of the road going different directions.  Sometimes the road doesn't even look like a road until you see a car turning onto a very sidewalk-looking piece of concrete, then you know it's a road.  The first time you're biking on the road and a bus passes by a handful of inches away from you, you're convinced that you're going to die, but you can't make any sudden movements because then you'll either take a swim in the canal or be crushed/hit by a bus or other moving vehicle.   So I guess what I'm saying is, your fears aren't totally unfounded.  So now that I've been a biker her for five plus weeks now, it's time to debunk some (if not all of these fears). Bikers Rule the Road It's true, even though it's not something that's written down.  Here, there's a sort of hierarchy of the road: the more exposed you are, the more people seem to look out for you.  Now, that doesn't mean you should just dart out into the road or that you can walk in the street when you please, but if you're biking somewhere (to the laundromat, to class, to visit somewhere, etc.) and there's a car coming in the opposite direction of you plus there are cars and a bus behind you, they will move around you.  Cars will stay in the one official car lane (unless you're in a particularly busy area or on a highway, you won't have lanes marked by paint on a road) until they have to move over to make room for another car.  If you happen to be biking when they need to get over, they'll get behind you until it's safe for the car to make their way around you without getting hit by another car.  The buses do the same thing.  The only reason they're so close to you is because you're in Europe, where everything is small and close together.   There's a Lot of Biking Infrastructure, Making Biking Pretty Darn Safe Usually you will bike on the same road as a car.  But no matter what, there is always a signified lane for bikes.  In Leiden, when there's a corner to turn because of a general curve in the road (as opposed to turning onto a residential street), there's a physical barrier.  A raised concrete barrier will be put in place and you, as a biker, will be on the other side of this barrier or you will be on top of the barrier.  The barrier prevents cars and buses from taking too sharp of a turn and running you down.  If you're taking a longer journey, say, going to Katwijk to see the sea, you'll follow the general direction of the high way, but you'll have a completely separated road to follow.  You'll only being sharing the road with other bikers and mopeds as you all travel by different transportation to see the same thing.  There are also different lights for different forms of transportation: one for bikers/mopeds, one for walkers, and one for every other motor vehicle on the road.  You won't be told to go until the cars have stopped.
Biking Isn't Just a Hobby or a Form of Exercise...
It's a way of life here.  Occasionally I will see a biker wearing racing gear, but it's not like the bikers I remember seeing in Minneapolis.  There are a TON of bikers wearing racing/triathlon gear there when they're biking on the street.  A bike is a smaller and much more portable version of a car.  Seriously, they have their own parking garages, just like a car in a busy part of town.  Biking is by and far merely a form of transportation; a way to get from A to B.  Because there are so many people using bikes like they might cars, there are laws put in place for bikes and people do know what they're doing.  Each bike must have front and back lights and must have a bell to warn people that you're coming and they're in the way.  Bikes may not ride on the sidewalk.  What looks like chaos in the video above is really just a high volume of bikes.  People who have biked here for years know what they're doing and for the people who haven't been here as long (whether they're studying here like I am for a short while or visiting for only a couple weeks) do as the Dutch do.  To bike in a busy area here is to move as a school of fish does-- when they go, you go too.  If you don't follow what everyone else is doing, you're going to be hit by a bus.
Sorry, that turned into a bit of a defense for cycling and also a public safety announcement.  Didn't mean to get preachy, just hoping to mythbust.
That's it for now!  Tot Ziens!
--Jude

Netherlands Adventures!: We Visited Texel!

Last weekend, we had our first relatively big excursion as a program-- we went to Texel!

For those who don't know, here is a map of how I got to Texel.  Texel is the island very North of where I live.  We stayed there from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon.  The place where we stayed was just outside of Den Burg (the highest point of the island).  Please ignore the times Google has listed.  I promise that it didn't take between 5 and 12 hours to get there.

Bright and early, we all walked to Leiden Centraal station with our stuffed backpacks on our back and we took the train all the way to Den Helder.  From Den Helder, we hopped on a bus to get on a ferry, which let us actually set foot on the island of Texel.  Below is a photo pointing in the direction of Texel.  I think if you look closely, you can see the outline of the buildings on the island through the fog (don't make yourself go blind though, please).

Friday Afternoon (Arrival)

We got off the ferry, rented bikes, and biked maybe twenty minutes to where we were staying.  Steef's sister owns property on Texel and she has a house that groups of travelers can rent.  The building has a kitchen and a few rooms filled with bunk beds.  We were the only ones in the house this weekend though.

The first day that we were there was a little dreary, but it did become absolutely gorgeous as the weekend wore on.  This was our "backyard":

Fun Fact: On Texel, sheep outnumber humans 4 to 1!

Saturday

We got up bright and early again on Saturday, because we were going fishing!  Sort of... we were going to watch other people catch shrimp on a boat!  The boat fished in the Wadenzee, not the North Sea.  Here are some pictures from that experience:

After all of the things that weren't shrimp were sorted out, the shrimp were washed and boiled and we were able to peel and eat them right on the boat!

Even I had one and learned how to peel them :)  They were small, so it was a little difficult to take the shell off.  But the fisherman went around and showed everyone several times.  They were quite delicious just out of the sea!  I'm not much of a shrimp-eater, but these were really good!

After we got off the shrimping boat, we stayed and explored a little bit, which was fun.

It's like that one scene in Mulan!

Oh!

Abby became a mermaid!

Boo!  Still here :)

Part of exploring in the area was going to the Beach Combers museum.  A prominent hobby (lifestyle?) in Texel is to go up and down the beach looking for objects that wash up on shore.  That's basically what this museum collects.  There are a number of shipping routes in this area, so sometimes if a ship sank or lost some of its cargo for one reason or another, the objects would wash up on the beach.

Washed up on shore!

Outside in the "backyard" of the museum was a small model fishing village that was typical to Texel in the "olden days."  That was interesting to explore.  There were also bigger finds and art created out of objects that washed up on shore.

Inside the wind mill (which did NOT wash up on shore-- it's like the model village).

Peek :)

I found wooden shoes outside one of the model houses, so I put them on :)

On the way back from the shrimping boat, Steef stopped and showed us a cemetery/memorial space commemorating the Georgian soldiers who helped the Dutch fight against the Germans during World War II.

Over 400 plants of the same kind.

Sunday

Sunday was the day we visited Ecomare!  Which is also the place where rescue seals and porpoises are cared for.  Warning: SOOOOO many seal pictures ahead!  They reminded me of Louie, my beagle dog, at home :)

I thought the seal on the right looked rather sassy :)

A lot of the babies liked to flip over and float on their backs-- how cute!!

After Ecomare, we went and visited the beach.  My reunion with the North Sea.

So that was last weekend!  I honestly wasn't ready to go home.  Texel smells like camping and the weather was so mild.  The sheep were adorable and it was nice to be by the beach and in a quiet space.  It was a little bit of a shock to get back to Leiden and be engulfed with car horns, concrete everywhere, and avoiding the high volume of buses, cars, bikes, etc.  I guess I just needed the relaxing weekend.  The worst part about a vacation is coming home, purely because you're not on vacation any more.  But I have plenty of other adventures to report on.  There's never a dull day in the life of a study abroad student, I'm learning.

Until next time... Tot Ziens!

--Jude