My final three days of the trip were spent in the Netherlands. By this time, I was getting tired and less interested in taking pictures, also, the weather kind of sucked and didn't really lend itself to glorious images of, well, anything. So, things I noticed in Amsterdam: A) there are canals. Actually, there seemed to be canals everywhere we went. I realize that's a pretty well known fact, and I was certainly aware of it going in, but I think I was surprised by the massive infiltration of these canals. It wasn't just in the crop fields, these canals were everywhere, even the housing developments. To put this into perspective I tried to imagine the development where I grew up being crisscrossed by these canals. Playing around or even in them as a young child. Passing over them, biking beside them. But no, I couldn't. We had a creek running through the development, but that was directed by nature (roughly) and concealed by the trees that cloaked its journey through the neighborhood. B) The weather sucks. I didn't even remember England being that gloomy, but that was remembered through the foggy distorted glass of distant childhood. C) Everyone rides bikes. It doesn't matter, kids, adults, seniors, whole families, I even saw a lady riding a bike with two child seats mounted on it. And though people here do ride bikes, the thought of the majority of the population moving on these human powered vehicles is simply incomprehensible. It's as if someone had told me that a full grown elephant weighs six and a half fluid ounces. Like, first of all, that's not a measure of solid mass, and second, I can't picture "most people" around here riding bikes. And so we're clear, I don't think that's a good thing. It would be great if the default mode of transportation around here was the bicycle, but unfortunately, things aren't laid out to support that. And also, we're lazy Americans.
I think one of my favorite pictures (and sights) was De Burcht, which is basically a defensible wall crowning a hill in Leiden where people could shelter in case of flood. It also looked pretty wicked, hunched up on the hill like that, with a really creepy looking tree to keep it company. Standing up on the wall I snapped this second picture of the inside of De Burcht, which semi-clearly highlights the large tube of toothpaste and a nearby pile of expelled toothpaste. I have no idea what's up with that, but I explicitely avoided reading or even looking for an explanation for fear of there being some perfectly rational explanation. I much preferred the rather more colorful ideas my own mind concocted. For example:
Back in the olden days, an evil witch, sore about her cat being run over by a rogue bicycle messenger and then punted into a nearby canal, cast a spell on the queen and king turning them into a tube of toothpaste and expelled toothpaste respectively. No one at the time really understood what it all meant since, you know, they didn't have toothpaste or anything. But eight hundred years later it made somewhat more sense, except for the reason behind that peculiar transformation.See, that's much more interested than something like "Donated by Mr. Npheldigger to the town of Leiden to remind people about proper oral hygiene."
The final "new" place I visited was Delft. It looked a lot like Amsterdam and Leiden, really. We strolled around and visited "The Old Church" (which has a rather distinct lean to it) and "The New Church" pictured here. I've been told the upper section is blackened because everyone in Delft loves Cajun cooking. Though, I could have been confused, she may have said that it was damanged in a fire and never cleaned up. After that stroll around town we went back to Jochem and Tracy's and played some Munchkin and ate pizza and talked about nerdy sci-fi and fantasy books that I haven't read.
You can see the full Netherlands photoset as well as the now completed EuroTrip Collection over on my Flickr page.
