Castles and Windmills

So, I've been here for more than a month and no one has asked me about the windmills and castles.  They're out there for sure.  Staying close to home, I went to Wijk Bij Duurstede which is only about 20 minutes outside of Utrecht.  There's a cute town square and because it was Saturday, the town was busy and crowded.  Having a decent weather day certainly helped.

We found a place to park and headed toward the windmill at the end of town.  I'm not sure if this one is a working mill but it was cool to actually stand underneath it.  There are something like 1600 working windmills throughout the Netherlands.  That's the old school variety.  The new energy generating ones dot the landscape as well.

The other site to see is the Duurstede Castle.  This one has it's origins back in the 13th century and there's a structure still standing!  The main castle was added during the 1500s.  We didn't get there in time for an inside tour but the grounds where the castle stands complete with moat are impressive.  I hope to get back can photograph this site at night.

Duurstede Castle

Amersfoort

Koppelpoort - Amersfoort, NL

Well, despite a full day of walking Saturday, we decided on Sunday to go check out the nearby town of Amersfoort.  There an old gate on the west end of the town that was part of the original fortress to protect the city.  It’s called Koppelpoort and dates back to 1425 when it was completed.  I was most interested to see this as we have nothing like it in the U.S., certainly not this age.  It amazes me to see such sites that are nearly 600 years old!  Amersfoort is a city of old vs. new.  The old part of the city is still surrounded by canals and walls offering its protection.  In this case, it’s protection from the modern architecture that exists beyond the old city walls.  Within the walls however, is a very quaint typically dutch down with windy streets and lovely homes.  The town square with it’s tower is quite impressive as well.  We happened to be there on Koopzondag or “Shopping Sunday”.  Once a month, stores are allowed to open on Sunday and this was the day in Amersfoort.  I think the whole town and surrounding community was out roaming a main street like area that was filled with all kinds of shops.  Some are similar to home but most are specialty shops.  We like Amersfoort a lot.  There were some restaurants we’re thinking of visiting sometime soon.

Everything . . . It's What's For Dinner

Dinner at Blauw in Utrecht, NL

Tonight we had dinner at Blauw in Utrecht, an Indonesian restaurant.  This was a first for us.  The restaurant was recommended by Jamie’s yoga instructor so she made a reservation and off we went on this Friday night.  The place was upscale but relaxed and as we are finding out, most restaurants are casual when it comes to dress code.  Looking around we saw that most people had all these little plates stacked in front of them.  Looking at the menu (in english!) we gathered that they all ordered rice plates, an assortment of small plates.  So we decided to order two rice plates, one with meat and the other with fish.  Well, they brought some plates, then some more, then even more!  What you see in the image above is the full monty . . . our dinner order.  It was overwhelming to say the least and there was barely enough room to fit our plates on the table.  The food was outstanding!  So many flavors and many we hadn’t had before.  We just about finished everything!  We can’t wait to take family and friends to this place.  In fact, if you check out their website, they show pictures of the patrons when their food is served.  For the next few days, check out the images for Friday the 28th of January!

Gouda and Den Haag

Another weekend for exploring.  We went to The Hague this weekend but on the way we stopped in Gouda.  Yes, like the cheese but the Dutch don’t pronounce it the way we think.  In Dutch G’s are pronounced like a guttural ‘Ch’ similar to the sound you hear in German and Yiddish.  Also, the ‘ou’ in Gouda is pronounced like the ‘ou’ in out.  So Gouda in Dutch rhymes with Chowda.

Anyway, Gouda is a really cute typically Dutch town with a central square and wonderful churches and architecture.  The town has it’s share of small windy streets and canals.  But the Saturday morning market is wonderful.  Meats, Cheeses, fruits and vegetables are standard fair but our favorite was this little bread and pasty stand.  We shared an apple turnover and I have to say it’s probably the best thing I’ve eaten in the last two weeks.  I won’t even bother to ask how much butter went into a single pastry . . . better I don’t know.

Gouda, NL

We left Gouda for Den Haag.  It’s a much bigger city and for our first visit, we focused on the palace and surrounding grounds.  It’s is certainly impressive and history of Dutch government and the Binnenhof were amazing.  The palace is surrounded by water on one side.   That ‘one side’ looks to be about 2-3 football fields long!  We’ll visit Den Haag again now that we know our way around a little better.

The palace in Den Haag, NL

Speaking Another Language

A really great thing about the Netherlands, or at least here in Utrecht and Amsterdam, is that most people speak english.  This is good since my Dutch is almost non-existant.  However, I find enough similarity between Dutch and German that I recognize many words but sentence structure escapes me right now.  But there’s another language here that requires just as much study.  It’s called the metric system.  Roads are measured in kilometers, gas/drinks in liters, and food such as meat and cheese in kilograms.  Then there’s conversion of US dollars to Euros to get a sense of my overall cost.  So, when in the grocery store and you want to buy a pound of meat for dinner you're looking for something that’s just over 450 grams (453.592 gms to be exact).  Then you factor in the price (Euros/Kg) and convert to the dollar just to get a sense of price/lb.  Same with gas which is quite expensive here.  1.50 Euros/Liter x 3.785 Liters/gal x 1.3 dollars/euro = $7.38/gal.  Hmmm, Maybe I should just leave the calculator alone!

It's All Relative

Well, all good things must come to an end.  My work permit arrived and so it was off to do what I came here for . . . so posting to this blog daily just won't happen!

That doesn’t mean I can’t find evening time to go out and shoot a little.  So far there’s been more rain than sun but when the sun comes out, it’s wonderful.  First, it’s quite a bit warmer than Milwaukee, especially now as the temp there dips below zero Farenheit.  Here it actually cooled down a bit but still reached a relatively balmy 40F.  We’re settling into routines and I think I found my preferred route to the office although as the temperatures climb, I’ll consider biking to work not on my racing bike but on a Dutch classic.  I hear there are shops where you can find a second hand bike.  Just as well as bike trading (stealing) is part of the folk lore here.  It’s been said that if you’re standing in front of a group of cyclists and say, ‘Hey that’s my bike’, half of those people will drop the bike they’re on and walk away!