preparing to leave Ambassador hotel in Haarlem by the back door 5 august 2011

Day 1 – Ambassador Hotel back entrance ready to go to the station to catch the train for the first leg to Utrecht.

Why!!

Still things to do like organise a train journey to the plane for last ride from Europe etc.

All loaded, with somewhere to go

Oh yes – and we were very tired.

Which is really why we didn’t ride any of that day apart from 1 k to Haarlem Train station and then around 5.5 k’s to the hotel in Utrecht. Malie Hotel The hotel was charming, the staff such fun, the walled garden with mirrors which extended the space beautifully. We also packed up some clothes and sent on to NZ – the bags are stuffed full and heavy.

How can it be when two people plan a training program so they are capable of riding the 850 k’s on their city bikes from Haarlem in the Netherlands to Untersiggenthal in Switzerland – that it just keeps on raining. In March and April we cycled regularly doing several 50+ days. We cycled out on the polders, to the sea and round trips around Haarlem. We also tested our bags and packing and so on and stayed in Alkmaar overnight – in short we had been preparing.

NOW 8 days, 22 hours, 45 mins, 22 secs – out from our departure date we have not cycled for a month.

Do you lose all your condition if you don’t cycle for a month? I think so, but I certainly hope not.

Our original plan was about 55 to 60 k’s in each of the first 2 or 3 days – now we are starting at 35 or 40 – depends on accommodation, which means we will not actually reach Germany for 3 or 4 days depending on the time we take to cycle the 140 k’s approximately to the border.

Does fitness for cycling improve quickly once you are cycling regularly? I certainly hope so.

Sadly the weather forecast from Accuweather says it will be raining on 5th and 6th becoming cloudy on the 7th and 8th. So there is faint hope. BUT if it is raining on the 5th we may take the train for the first section and then have more time in Germany and France.

NOTE: Not because we are lazy, but because we cannot ride bikes in the rain as we both have to wear glasses and funnily enough ours don’t have windscreen wipers on them.

So will have to keep you posted, meantime we are sorting our stuff to make sure we take back to New Zealand only what we need there.

We certainly will get to Untersiggenthal – with some of it being by bicycle.

Now I have written that it is raining again – it is NOT NOW raining. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, the clouds are light and fluffy.

AccuWeather says:
Wednesday 7/27/2011
Clouds and sun with a couple of showers
High Temperature: 19°C
RealFeel: 24°C

We are having major computer issues – laptop is having its hard drive replaced – you know the one – slot out, slot in – but here in the Netherlands it takes from 2 to 4 weeks apparently. So far we are in week 3.

Don’t think Acer and Computerland are doing any kind of quick turn around. PITY

I am using the Dell “Blue Screen Queen” – which as the name suggests crashes all the time with pretty blue screens

So the quick update is – we leave 12 weeks tomorrow – to cycle to Switzerland and then return home to retire, somewhat earlier than initially planned. But then we didn’t know that a permanent job doesn’t mean that in some work environments. Here Best Beloved was forced to retire as he had hit the magic 65. So no it turned out to not be a permanent job.

But now we are in go home mode. It is amazing just how much we are looking forward to it now that we have no other option. A New Zealand pension would mean we would have to live on the streets here – so we are going home instead of taking up that option.

But of course there are many bonuses such as family and friends, special grandson,  great fish and chips.  Can’t risk starting a long rave now just in case the computer does that blue screen dance again so this is over and out.

12 weeks till we leave.

Tonight at den Uiver we enjoyed great jazz, and we talked to the many people we have got to know there over the last 2 years.

Sorry – gotta go now

12 weeks

Queens Day, 30th April 2011.

Yes I have mentioned Queens Day before – this is the third time. Well of course it is the third time – it is our third year here so it would be the third time, wouldn’t it?

Another party day – lots of stalls, people selling anything and everything, music, laughter, fun. This is an event we have enjoyed each year.

Swan walking to me on frozen canal, for bread

We arrived here in the Netherlands at the end of August 2008 after a winter in New Zealand sorting out our lives in preparation for a new life in the Netherlands and of course heading directly for winter there in the Netherlands.

It was a beautiful winter, there was some snow and there was ice – really iced up canals. We walked around with our eyes wide and exclamed at the beauty of it all.

Best Beloved even walked on the ice and got very excited about it – so excited he wanted me to do it as well, but he also kept on about don’t fall, don’t slip, don’t …. So I decided to leave him to do it for us and I just took the photos. That computer is being a pain and I can’t find the photos – but trust me I did take a photo or three of Best Beloved walking on water and will add them when I locate them.

Winter decorations shrouded in snow - it is profile of St Bavo Cathedral in main square - winter 2009/10

Looking out the window - Vejle, Denmark 27th Dec 2010

We will be leaving here in the Netherlands summer, and will arrive in New Zealand in September heading for a New Zealand summer. I am kind of looking forward to a full summer even though I find New Zealand summer humidity draining. I didn’t realise that there would be low humidity here in the Netherlands and my asthma is much better here in the Netherlands than it has ever been in New Zealand.

There is one other factor though, and that is I am allergic to the wonderful group called “New Zealand trees”. They, the doctors, made that discovery in 2004. So maybe it is not the humidity but the general environment we’ve lived in as we have always managed to plant many many New Zealand trees if we were not already sharing our living space with them.

So that will be a big challenge for us – living in New Zealand without being in close proximity to New Zealand trees.

Snow scene outside our door Jan 6th 2010

So there are many pluses and minuses. On balance it is time to be home, and I cannot wait for regular hugs and maybe smooches – although grandson will be 8 this June, so hugs and smooches hmm – we will wait and see.

Grandson watering our garden 2008

Wikipedia:
Sea change or seachange is an idiom for broad transformation drawn from a phrase in the song “Full fathom five” in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and connotes a transformation.

Here in the Netherlands we have seen many more birds than we could have imagined. One very shy bird is the Jay and we have enjoyed watching this lovely bird coming and feeding here, ever so shy and nervous as always.

Today was a real bonus as I was able to watch and also video a jay feeding from our Bird Rock Cafe. It is especially for our grandson in New Zealand where there are many birds also, but they are quite different to those we see here in the Netherlands.

Hope you enjoy it as well – and this is the link to a previous wonderful Jay experience of nearly one year ago. The Jay Restaurant and Dance Venue

Trams in Amsterdam are run by the Gemeente Vervoerbedrijf (GVB for short.  It means, as far as my limited Dutch can assess, “Local Government Transport Business”).

On Thursday morning, 25 November 2010, I caught a Number 9 tram from Amsterdam Central Station to Alexander Square.  I don’t remember the exact time – shortly before 10:00 AM, I think.

A crowd of small Muslim children arrived, accompanied by their teachers, four or five Muslim women in flowing black robes and full head-scarves.  The teachers shepherded the children to the tram-stop and boarded the tram when it arrived.  So the tram was very crowded.

I took a seat.  At the next stop. someone tried to board the tram at an exit-only door.  The driver growled into the intercom and sorted him out.

We proceeded.  Some of the children were excited and noisy, but the smaller ones were nervous and fidgety.  The teachers tried to cheer them up by leading them in a song.  That’s when the driver worked his magic.  He joined in and led the singing through the intercom, but this time his voice was a comic mock-growl, like a gravelly bear.  The children laughed with wonder and delight, and the whole tram smiled with pleasure.

The driver kept up his entertainment.  On discovering they were going to the zoo, the driver said “zoo” and then rhymed it with mock-gorilla noises “Hoo, hoo, hoo”.  This caused more laughter, and the smiles of the other passengers grew wider.

The teachers and children departed at their stop, and one of the teachers came forward to thank the driver.  When we reached Alexanderplein, I too disembarked, thanking the driver for an entertaining ride as I did so.  I walked ahead of the stop to the corner as the tram loaded more passengers.  When the tram caught up with me, the driver used his loudspeaker and called “Goodbye”  as he passed me.

Take a bow, Amsterdam GVB, and give accolades to that driver.  He entertained those children and completely removed the nervousness of the little ones.  For me, he transformed a crowded noisy tram ride into a journey of delight and admiration.

PS – The song the children and driver sang is very popular with parents and children.  They sing it when travelling:

“We zijn er bijna, We zijn er bijna, Maar nog niet helemaal” (repeated).  In English it means (literally) “We are there nearly, We are there nearly, But yet not completely”.

We would probably write  ”We’re nearly there now, We’re nearly there now, But not yet all the way”.  But no matter how we put it in English, it could never sound as good as it does in Dutch.  ”Zijn” rhymes with “fine”, and “bijna” rhymes with “finer”, so the song has a lovely internal rhyme pattern that we cannot match in translation.

PPS – Today Sunday, my Darling and I attended memorial services for Hannie Schaft, a Dutch resistance fighter who was murdered by the Nazis only three short weeks before the Netherlands was liberated.  One of the prime reasons she joined the resistance was her abhorrence of the Nazi regime that discriminated against Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and other minorities.  We stood in silence in Kenau park before her statue, and it occurred to me that she would have been proud of that driver.

A bitterly cold but very clear day

We attended the service in the Roman Catholic Church, Oude Groenmarkt, followed by laying of wreaths at the statue of Hannie Schaft in Kenaupark, Haarlem on the 65th anniverary of her reburial after the war.

The service was in Dutch of course, as was the beautiful and powerful singing by the choir.

We do know a bit about the girl with the red hair now. The creator of the sculpture and friend and fellow resistance member of Hannie Schaft; Truus Menger Oversteegen was there as well. She is now 87 years old.

There will be much written about this event today – all I can say is that it is important that the youngsters of the world know about people and the events during any and all modern wars. Only then can we have hope that they will say no to this in their own adult futures. All people with the true and honest knowledge of what occurs must share it with their own young.

Truth and honesty and awareness and teaching / sharing

Hannie Schaft – National Memorial Service on Sunday 28 November at 1pm

Hannie Schaft, 1940-1945, Woman in the Resistance

At the Roman Catholic Church, Nieuwe Groenmarkt 12, Haarlem, followed at 2pm by a Commemoration Ceremony at the “Women in the Resistance” Hannie Schaft Monument in Kenaupark.

The church is nearly opposite “Ma Browns” restaurant.

About Hannie Schaft from the Haarlem Shuffle.

memorial to those killed in Kennemer Downs May 1945

We viewed the Hannie Schaft memorial service last year from our house and because we had no idea what it was about we did not go out and attend the service. We had not explored the park properly and so had not discovered the statue of Hannie Schaft. After watching from our house we did go to the park and then of course we had to find out more about this remarkable young woman.

Since that memorial service we have discovered memorial plaques or stones in the dunes where people were shot as well as the Dutch Honorary Cemetery on the way out to the beach near Bloemendaal on the way to Parnassia.

Hannie Schaft 16 Sept 1920-17 April 1945

It was heart wrenching to see the graves that are grouped by the date executed. That really hit hard, I wasn’t even born then, my family is not from the Netherlands, yet I stood there stunned, shell shocked. These ceremonies must go on – to bring young people into the knowledge of what has gone before – so that it stops.

Hannie Schaft was one of 371 people buried at this graveyard and the only woman. On Nov 27th 1945 – Dutch resistance fighter Hannie Schaft was re-buried in presence of royal family at the honorary cemetery at the dunes in Overveen. Later, Queen Juliana unveiled a bronze commemorative statue in the Kenau Park in nearby Haarlem, the birth place of Hannie.

Hannie Schaft also received the ‘Wilhelmina resistance cross’ and a US decoration. Truus Oversteegen was friend and a resistance fighter with Hannie Schaft. She is also the creator of the sculpture in Kenaupark.

Hannie Schaft essay by Tracey Brouwer, Ireland

Dutch Honorary Cemetery Bloemendaal

Eerebegraafplaats

Truus Menger Oversteegen Website

We (Best Beloved and I) shopped in Haarlem for a few important things – like coffee, tobacco and Dilmah Supreme Ceylon tea. You do know of course that tobacco is not important to me, but along with excellent coffee and tea tobacco keeps Best Beloved on good behaviour.

And we purchased Christmas lights, Christmas presents, saw a few of those Zwarte Pieten, ate a beautiful steak pie from an Organic Pie maker at the market in Grote Markt, tried olives on our journey through the market. In short we had a lovely day.

Something we knew was that the All Blacks would playing Scotland in the early evening our time here in Haarlem. It is not always easy to know these things as we do not have a TV, the local papers never mention Rugby and sometimes we do not check the computer for news of interest to us as expats. Rugby becomes quite important when away from home. I am not suggesting that it is not important when at home – there it takes on a stronger level of passion and drama. Best Beloved watches during the night with a friend, another John. I go bed, close all the doors between us, fully expecting the two Johns to be down and out as they suffer so during the games – heart attacks or strokes seem imminent. I rarely join them because it feels like the “sky is falling” when watching the games with these two.

Anyway we really must have been just a bit discombobulated – the game was at 6.15am New Zealand time. That is now 6.15pm Netherlands time and I am guessing 7.15pm Scottish time. I assume the game was played in Scotland. At about 8.30 or so, after a few wines in the late afternoon with our Californian neighbours, and a simple diiner of steak and chips; I said to that Best Beloved who was lying on the couch listening to Jazz and thinking all was well in the world, “Rugby”!

We went downstairs, added the requisite layers and wandered out into the night to the local Irish Bar. You remember the one, Tierneys, who said they would have the game on for us on a previous occasion where there was no game. That bar. That Irish humour.

We wandered through the little streets, past the little red light district to the little pub. Hardly anyone there. Looked in the window, rugby was on the screen. Best Beloved stamped out the remainder of the pipe he was smoking. We walked in, the channel changed and it was advertising a dreadful looking boxing match on pay TV.

We were so discombobulated that we had missed the entire game. It was game over, finished, finito – gone burger.

I just checked on the computer this morning and the All Blacks won 49 over Scotland 3.

Best Beloved did well. He had a Guiness, I had a sparkling water and then we wandered off home again. I guess if we had hurried down the stairs we could have experienced the after the match raves – but at 49 – 3 that may not have been so interesting.