RIP Albert Heijn

Now that's it's officially been two weeks (and then some) since I visited Amsterdam, I suppose I should let you all know what I've been up to since then.  I can go with the excuse that I've been super busy, blah blah blah and though that's true, it's lame.  We'll just ignore the fact that I've been kind of lazy in addition to busy :-) 

The weekend of the 15th there was an excursion organized by ESN, the Erasmus Student Network, to the nearby city of Arnhem.  There was a group of a little over twenty that went to an Open air museum.  You might say, "What exactly is an "open air museum"? Besides being outside?" and the answer to that would be...well, it's basically self explanatory.  If you have ever been to a fort in the U.S. or any historical place that is re-done to be like the time it was when it was in use, that is pretty much what this open air museum was.  Except it was quite a lot bigger.  

Due to the fact that it is still winter, we weren't able to see as many things as in the summer, but we still got a pretty good tour from our tour guide, Heijn (like heintz but just hein), like the Dutch grocery store, Albert Heijn.  The first thing our tour group found out when we began the tour was that the grandson of the founder of the Albert Heijn stores (also named Albert Heijn) had died.  It was a great start to the tour, to say the least. 

We learned a decent amount about Dutch history and life from Heijn, of which I could tell you all about and you might find it interesting, but I feel that hitting the highlights might be a better idea. 

Dutch House with anti-Devil protection

There were many (original) Dutch buildings brought to the open air museum and re-built; thus making them look better than when they were in their original location.  One of the buildings we saw is pictured here and you’ll notice the blue line about a foot from the ground.  It doesn’t really add anything to the design of the building, but it definitely adds some protection.  According to the Dutch, the devil is the reason that cheese goes bad.  The devil is warded off by anything that has something to do with God, however, and seeing as God resides in heaven, up in the sky, the blue line is a representation of God.  The devil comes up from the ground to get into the house, but when he hits that blue line… needless to say, whoever makes cheese in this house can make it knowing that it will not go bad. 

Wind paper mill 

What is a Dutch museum without windmills?  Not a Dutch museum, that's for sure.  There were roughly 4 different windmills onsite and not only did they grind flour, but they also cut wood!  I was quite impressed by the Dutch version of a paper mill considering the more technical one we have back in Mosinee doesn't really utilize the wind...at all.  

Nick (right) helping Simone skate

I have two favorite parts of this trip: one was skating on the ice rink that was outside and the other was finding the random patch of gnomes whilst wandering about the grounds.  I haven't been ice skating in I don't know how long, so getting to ice skate in Europe and outdoors was a pretty fun experience.  Not to mention, Simone (See-moan-aye), the Italian, had never been skating before and thus was all over the rink (he stayed mostly upright with our help).  All in all,  I felt like it was Christmas again. 

Gnomes, gnomes, everywhere!

The gnome patch: Bekah and I are walking along "the Dark Path" (don't ask) and there are a bunch of random buildings with historical things as well as this super sweet maze-y thing. Suddenly, we see them: GNOMES.  I tried looking for a sign to explain them, but I couldn't find one.  It was pretty ridiculous. I was very sad that I had forgotten Herbie the Traveling Gnome because he could not meet his brethren.

Typical Dutch trees

Lastly, a mystery was unraveled for me.  The Dutch have a favorite way of training their trees called "espalier" (see picture) that you see everywhere.  It's pretty intense for just home gardening.  I had never seen it except at Olbrich in the Herb Garden with the pear trees, but here the majority of the trees in yards are done this way.  According to Wikipedia, it is the "horticultural and ancient agricultural practice of controlling woody plant growth by pruning and tying branches so that they grow in relatively flat planes, frequently in formal patterns, against a structure such as a wall, fence, or trellis..."  The secret? Tying branches to pieces of straight wood so they follow it when they grow.  Genius! 

The Secret

It was a pretty eventful, fun and informative day.  My plans were to go to Utrecht in the evening to meet up with some of my other friends that were spending the night, but then the hostel was difficult to find, we would have gotten there late, etc., etc.  Instead, Jane and I went and joined the potluck with the people I had been hanging out with during the day (they all live in the same place) and had ice cream time!  MMMMM ice cream with chocolate sprinkles, of course! 

This is my last week of class for this period (thank goodness!), and next week is the "re-exam" week for people who failed any of their previous exams.  Students are allowed to take an exam 3 times before they outright have to re-do the class.  It might sound like an awesome system (and I suppose it is) but the exams can also be more difficult.  Seeing as I don't plan on failing this class and have no other classes that I could potentially take exams for, I have made plans to travel! 

I will be going to Paris from Friday to Monday, flying to Barcelona Monday and then flying to Seville on Thursday to visit some fellow Badgers and my awesome cousin, Amber! Hopefully we will be able to get back in time to see the Super Bowl, seeing as the Packers are in it and I plan to cheer them on.  

Poffertjes:  mini Dutch pancakes that are DELICIOUS!

Sunday during the NFC Championship game, my friends Wendy and Blake from U of I and thus Illinois and I tried to watch the game online but gave up and found a sports bar in town that got Fox.  We then proceeded to watch the game on a huge projection screen that was probably bigger than anything we would have seen it on in the U.S.   Unfortunately, the bar closed at midnight and we only stayed until the 3rd quarter because it was kind of a let down....however, when I got home and started watching the rest online, it definitely got more exciting! You had to love Raji's touchdown dance... trying to explain it to my European classmates (talking about American football linebackers and BJ's weight in pounds) was interesting and funny because the more I explained, the less it really meant to them.  

I will definitely be posting once more before I leave, with more details about what I do during the week and not just what goes on during the weekends! 

plants and love forever,

Mackenzie

The gang!
Front: Liz and Brian
Back: Nick, Bekah, Linda, Liz, Pauline, Jelena, Simone and I

Gnome Josh and I :-) 

Ahoy matey! The Dutch know how to topiary like no other

Traditional Dutch women's style....
no idea why they have little satellites coming off their heads...

Ice rink from the outside

Awesome maze thing

XXX: Part 2 ("Shoot me!")

 Where I left off:  I had just arrived in Amsterdam and seen the beginning sights.

Little do you know, the swans were snorting

To begin with, our goal was to get to the Red Light District area and find some place to eat.  Yes, it was 11 am, but we probably weren't really ready for the full Red Light experience, anyway.  What is nice about Amsterdam is that nothing is really all that far away from anything else--you do want to bring a good pair of walking shoes, however.  Some of you might say, "Duh, Mackenzie, if you know you'll be walking all day you should probably bring a comfortable pair of shoes!" but if you know me at all, I tend to think everything will be fine...until the end of the day when my feet hurt. A lot.

The Red Light District is also Amsterdam's Chinatown area, and one thing I've noticed is that there is no escaping Asian cuisine thus far in the Netherlands.  I don't really think this is necessarily good or bad, just interesting.  We ended up walking right through the heart of the Red Light District and into an area called Nieumarkt.  You might wonder how the heck we missed the most famous part of Amsterdam, but the truth is that there aren't really any signs saying "Red Light District: THIS WAY!," though once you know you're in the area, it's not hard to recognize it.

Red Light District: day time

In the Nieumarkt area, we discovered a nice little organic farmer's market going on (it was a Saturday morning) as well as stumbled upon the Waag.  This building (built in 1488) used to function as the city's gate and would close at night to keep out all the bandits (because I'm sure they couldn't find any other way in...).  It was also the first place in the Netherlands where public autopsies were performed, but only in the winter, for obvious reasons.  

De Waag  (backside) 

 Of course it was raining again (the rain continued on and off all day) so we decided to find some place to sit down and eat a little lunch.  The Waag building has been transformed into a nice little dining place, so we ate our first Amsterdam meal there.  The dining area spreads throughout the ground floor and everything is lit by candlelight (there windows, too).  Something you don't see everyday were the chandeliers that must have been original, or made to be original because even they were fully decked out with lit candles.

Herbie the Traveling Gnome next to the mustard

I'm pretty sure my favorite thing about the whole dining experience was the fact that our waiter, when he was ready to take our order, said "Shoot me!"    Needless to say, I was slightly confused and laughed a little, as did Ada.  He also talked us into these things that are called croquette (kroket is the Dutchified French word) balls.  They are breaded on the outside and have some sort of meat/cheese/other? combination on the inside.  We got them served with (spicy) mustard, and they were actually pretty good, if you could get over the weird consistency in the middle.  Also, each one had a little Dutch flag stuck in it--which made me think "Tourist food much?"

Sam, Myself, Wendy, Blake, Jane, Ada
Note the small Dutch flags in the kroket balls

We had something similar, called "bitterbals," the other evening at the student drink.  They are not bitter, but apparently were originally supposed to be eaten with a drink called "bittertje," which is sort of similar to gin.  The kroket balls are definitely a little higher quality than the bitterbal bar food.

After lunch, we divided into two groups: myself, Ada and Jane wanted to go to the Hash Marijuana Hemp Museum and Blake, Wendy and Sam went to wander about.  The museum was interesting because although you might think it would be full of bongs, it definitely emphasized the usefulness of hemp as a fiber throughout history.  After all, it was used to make rope and ropes are crucial to ships in a port town like Amsterdam.  There was a contraption called the "Volcano," which can be used to get the effects of THC from marijuana without all of the other chemicals.   It apparently vaporizes the THC into this balloon-like thing and you inhale the vapor from the balloon/bag.  Because it doesn't have many of the other chemicals, it's a softer way of using marijuana and more potent.

Add caption

Here is a picture of the guy that was running the machine (you could inhale as many bags as you wanted).  Ada, Jane and I were talking to him and when we asked where he was from, were surprised to hear he was from Ohio.  He's lived in Amsterdam for 12 years, and I think he was happy to talk to us because we were all from near his home state.

Not surprisingly, the museum was on the same main drag as the Red Light District.  Obviously, we couldn't see the infamous lights, but there were enough red curtains in windows that we figured it was about equivalent.  Even though it was mid-afternoon, we did see some ladies advertising in the windows.  

Question: What do you do if you're a "lady of the night" during they day, trying to sell yourself?  Well, the answer is slowly rotate back and forth in the window, mimicking a robot.  Granted, I don't know what I would do, but it was kind of entertaining.

One of the main places we all wanted to get to was the Anne Frank Huis (House).  I really hope you know her story, but if you don't (or you need a refresher):  Anne Frank and her family fled to Amsterdam from Germany when anti-Jewish sentiments were starting, and eventually things were getting strict enough on the Jews that Otto, Anne's dad, decided their family (Otto, Edith, Margot and Anne) should go into hiding.  They lived in the Secret Annex, the back area of the house that Otto's company was housed in. Only a few, very trusted, employees knew about the Franks living there and helped them while in hiding.  Later, the van Pels (Hermann, Auguste and their son, Peter) and Fritz Pfeffer, a dentist, joined them.  It's still unknown who betrayed them all, but a phone call was made to the German Sicherheitsdienst (Security Police) and everyone was deported to various work and concentration camps.  Otto Frank was the only one who survived and he had been at Auschwitz extermination camp. Anne kept a diary and wrote in notebooks throughout the two years in hiding, and this is what many students (myself included) read in middle school.

Blake demonstrating proper back pack-wearing technique in the museum

Having read her story was the impetus for my desire to see the place where she was in hiding for those two long years.  Luckily for us, the line wasn't all that long (it can get very long in the summer) and it moved pretty quickly.  You're not allowed to take pictures inside, but you do get a guide that includes commentary and relevant pictures as you go through the house.

This was probably one of the saddest "museums" I have gone to.  Being there where Anne wrote her diary and had to sneak around with 7 other people for such a long time, all for naught (sort of) made me feel like I had much more of a connection with the whole story.  It was also kind of eerie; everything is dark and dimly lit and thinking about what happened there just adds to the ambiance and experience.

The house doesn't have any furniture in it--the Nazis hauled it all away after it was raided.  It was Otto's desire, when the museum was getting designed, for furniture to remain absent.  Throughout the museum there are passages that tell about artifacts from the annex-dwellers as well as videos from some of the people that knew/helped the Franks (Miep Gies and Hannoli, Anne's friend who saw Anne through the fence at Bergen-Belsen) and Otto himself.  After Otto had gotten back to Amsterdam, he cut out the wall paper in Anne's former room that she had decorated with glued pictures from magazines.  This is back up on the wall, surrounded by glass.  Her diaries and notebooks are also on display.

All of these things make the exhibit a very powerful experience, and I really encourage everyone who gets to Amsterdam to see it.  Read the book first, though.

To conclude our day, we wandered around for an hour or so, sort of lost.  My feet were really starting to feel the pain from my 4-P footwear choice.  We did manage to re-orient ourselves, and then made our way to a place to sit down for dinner and check out the Red Light District once more before leaving (and when it was finally dark).  Wendy, Jane and I all got fries on the way to dinner--I had mine the traditional Dutch way with mayo.  Yes, this sounds disgusting and it sort of is, but it's really not all that bad.  Their mayo is also a little different than in the States, so that makes it better as well.

Red Light District: night time 

Dinner was at a random little Italian restaurant (salami pizza, anyone?) and then we ventured into a coffee shop.  Last important Amsterdam facts:  Coffee shop = smoking marijuana, Coffee house = drinking caffeine and the Dutch don't really smoke marijuana all that much, it's more of a tourist thing.  I DIDN'T smoke anything, for the record (nor did anyone else).  The menu was very interesting--one one side was drinks (the place we went squeezed their own orange juice...) and on the other side was all the choices for marijuana.  You could apparently buy different cultivars and roll them into a joint yourself or buy "special" cake, hash, a joint, and general marijuana.

To be completely honest, on the train ride home, although my feet were killing me, I felt that the day had been a success and was rather proud of my navigational skills.  It's definitely in the plans to return and finish seeing the rest of the city (seeing as we didn't venture very far from the center), but Saturday was a great start, especially for having only being in the country for a week.

This weekend I'm looking forward to an excursion with the Erasmus Students Network to Arnhem (a larger city than Wageningen) and the open air museum there.  Probably not as exciting as Amsterdam, but still another place to see.  I'll let you know how it goes!

Amsterdam was built on a marsh, so it's slowly sinking--
making the buildings crooked.

XXX: Part 1

Before you get the wrong idea, the triple X does not mean anything lewd or lascivious.  This was one of the more important things I learned from my handy-dandy Amsterdam and the Netherlands Fodor's guidebook.  The XXX you see everywhere is simply because they are "part of Amsterdam's official coat of arms--three St. Andrew's crosses, believed to represent the three dangers that have traditionally plagued the city: flood, fire and pestilence."  Of course, with Amsterdam's reputation you may tend to believe otherwise. 

On Saturday, I took a trip to the infamous city of Amsterdam with five other exchange students:  Wendy, Blake, Jane, and Ada, all from Illinois; and Sam, who is from Canada.  We kind of threw the excursion together at the last minute, seeing as we met each other Tuesday and sort of discussed it, then met again on Thursday and finally decided on it.  We considered spending the night, but most hostels require at least a 2 night stay so that was nixed due to (thanks to Josh and Chip) the 4 P's: Piss Poor Prior Planning.   This wasn't exactly piss poor, but I would still say poor prior planning played a part (haha I love alliteration!).

After a failed Friday (I accidentally shut off my alarm without resetting it, resulting in me sleeping in until 9:30 am when class starts at 8:30), I was definitely looking forward to taking a fun trip and exploring my new surroundings.

Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I woke up at 8:15 so I could trudge into town with my bike and meet up with everyone.  Mind you, it's a good 20-30 minute walk depending on how fast you go and I was running late.  Of course.  The reason I didn't ride my bike is because the back tire is currently flat and doesn't hold air--far from ideal in a place where the motto is "No bike--no life."

I had a minor freak out because I managed to miss the group of people I was going with (they all live in the Brink Residence, which is temporary housing for international students) but thankfully found them at the bus station.   We had to take a bus to Ede (pronounced "aide-ah") where there is a train station.  Upon getting to the train station, we thought there wasn't any way to buy train tickets because all we saw were machines that didn't take our cards.  Some kind security guard man informed us that there was a ticket office and that we had to go down the stairs and then up them to get by the platforms.  Then we got confused and went up the wrong stairs to get to the ticket office.  Needless to say, the day was off to a great start.

The minute we stepped outside of the Centraal Station in Amsterdam, we all stopped, stared, gawked, pointed and snapped pictures.  There was so much to take in! People were everywhere, trams were whizzing around, birds were flying, it was windy and then it started to rain.  Blake was quick to point out that we were acting exactly like tourists, which made us all laugh.  One thing to note is that Amsterdam really is a tourist town, so I personally don't think it is anything to be ashamed of.

I was inadvertently made the navigator of the day because I had my guidebook out and was immediately trying to figure out in which direction we should walk to start seeing the sights.  We walked down a main road, Damrak, and were able to see the Royal Palace and the National Monument in Dam Square.  Unfortunately for us, the Royal Palace was/has been under construction, so you can't see the front because it's all covered with scaffolding and plastic.  Apparently, Queen Beatrix stays here sometimes but she's had rather poor encounters with Amsterdam in the past, i.e. student groups interrupting her wedding carriage ride with smoke bombs and riots interrupting her coronation.  Quite unfortunate for a Queen, really.

Royal Palace (covered by construction)

The National Monument is in honor of all the Dutch who died in World War II.  In it are 12 urns: 11 with soil from each of the Dutch provinces and 1 with soil from each of the former Dutch colonies (Suriname, the Antilles, Indonesia).  My guidebook poked fun at how it looks...I'll let you use your imagination and read my caption.

For the record, it's very useful to actually READ a guidebook before you go to the place it is guiding you through.  I got a lot more out of seeing everything in Amsterdam by reading about the places and then recognizing them than I would have had I just gone and looked at everything.  You can also spout off useful/less facts about the various places of note and sound like a twit, but at least you learn something.

National Monument (in all its phallic glory)

And here, with this wonderful picture of me standing in a wooden shoe, is where I leave you today.  It's past my bed time here in Tulip-a-go-go-land, as Olivia calls it.  I promise the rest of my XXX adventure very soon!

Wendy, myself and Sam in the necessary wooden shoe

One tin of chocolate covered blueberries, please.

With reference to my last post, I have officially been in de Nederlands for about 6 days now and (not surprisingly) have been told on several occasions that my name A) sounds like a last name B) sounds Scottish or Irish C) is not had by anyone else in de Nederlands (or at Wageningen University) D) is long and E) is unique.  I guess Sarah could, in this case, say "I TOLD YOU SO!"  I can just hear her saying it now...but she's in Costa Rica so she probably won't see this for at least another week. :-) 

My adventure turned into a misadventure right from the get-go, which if you know me, is not surprising.  I was supposed to fly from Central Wisconsin Airport in Mosinee to Chicago and then from Chicago directly to Amsterdam.  Needless to say, that didn't end up happening.  I received a phone call at 6 am on the 30th, the day I was scheduled to leave, and was told that the flight out of CWA to Chicago was cancelled (it was supposed to be at 1:30 pm) but I could leave on a 5:30 flight to Detroit.  I was annoyed but it was probably better in the long run as, me being me, had procrastinated and final packing still had to be done before I left. 

Fast forward to 3:30 pm: I walk into an unusually quiet (and CWA isn't the most bustling place in the first place) check-in area with my fully packed hiking backpack, messenger bag, and rolling suitcase (assisted by my parents and Josh).  I think this is kind of odd and I soon discover that all flights out of CWA are cancelled for the day and probably the next...I wouldn't be able to leave until the next week.  My only option (after flip flopping between the United and Delta Airlines counters) is to drive to Minneapolis and catch a flight at 3:20 on the 31st to arrive in Amsterdam at 6:50 am on the 1st.  January 1st.  

Thankfully my parents are wonderful and it worked out that we could do the drive.  My only complaint was that I would be spending New Year's Eve on a plane over the Atlantic Ocean (or Greenland, as it were).  

Something that I found interesting is the idea of Duty Free sales.  I have never encountered them before, but apparently it's typical on international flights.  If you don't know, Duty Free sales on flights means you get to look through a catalog filled with various things such as alcohol, perfume, food, gadgets and when you buy them you don't get taxed by any government.  Kind of nifty if you fit under the correct regulations.  Thinking of you all,  I wrote down the description for Canadian chocolate covered blueberries.  I found it entertaining: 

Warning!  Can be wildly addictive.  Moist and flavorful dried blueberries enrobed in creamy milk chocolate.  A true Canadian delight in a super savvy tin. 

While you digest that description, will someone please tell me how the heck blueberries can be "enrobed"?!! Also, the pictured tin was not "super savvy" as they describe it...I'm not entirely sure how a tin can be savvy, period.  Lastly, I have to confirm this with the Canadian exchange student, but I'm pretty sure that chocolate covered blueberries are NOT a "true Canadian delight." Crazy Duty Free sales catalog. 

I began my first class on Monday morning at 8:30 am.  It is called "Plants and Health" and it's about how plants can be used for the compounds they make/can be engineered to make for health purposes.  A major difference is the fact it is an all-day class--I have class until about 5:30 or so every night.  As such, I wake up when it's dark and return from class also when it's dark.  Not a fun routine.  

We have lecture for about 2- 2 1/2 hours with a short break and then break down into groups of 4 or so to do a group assignment, which we have to present at 4:30 to the rest of the groups.  Yes, we get an assignment, have the afternoon to work on it and produce an end product (some sort of presentation, for the most part) and then present it.  A little more intense than a typical college class in the U.S. 

I have had the fortune to work with pretty good people all week--most of them have been friendly and fun to work with.  I also have met people from more places than I can remember--Mozambique, Egypt, Finland, England, Greece, France...the list goes on.  It's nice because the class is taught in English and that is the primary language of communication amongst everyone (except the Dutch students...they sometimes speak in Dutch to each other).  I have a bit of a thing for accents, so listening to everyone's accent is really interesting.  

Something else that's, well, disconcerting, is the fact that because I'm a native English speaker, people ask me how to say things and can easily understand me (for the most part).  There is a boy from Cambridge in my class, so I guess the same could be said for him.  Also, whenever someone speaks English really well (and they're not Canadian or American) they generally speak with a British accent.  The boy from Finland in my class threw me for a loop because his English is so good and so British that I thought he was a Brit...until he informed me that that was not the case.  Tricksy, tricksy those Finnish people.  

Tomorrow I am going to Amsterdam (woot!) with some other exchange students from the U.S.  We were going to spend the night, but apparently many hostels require at least 2 night stay.  We didn't plan that far ahead, thus we will be going for the day.  I hope to hit up the Anne Frank House (please tell me you forgot it was in Amsterdam like I did) and perhaps get some "super savvy" European boots.  

Hopefully this trip doesn't turn into an entire misadventure, but we will see! 

Tot ziens! 

Mackenzie