All Things Holland

If you enjoy eating delicious food and/or being gastronomically adventurous your entertainment surrounds food.  That being said I will try almost anything once and the Netherlands does not have many foods that really scare me ( cow tongue, squid, chitlins) When we set our feet down in Amsterdam I immediately thought of all the foods I wanted to try.  Some words that I quickly became familiar with were 'gesloten' (closed) and open and the abbreviations for the days of the week The food. Pickled herring-> no I didn't try them.  I know, I know; during the winter they only have the canned variety so you need to wait until May-June to get the years fresh catch called 'hollandse nieuwe' Bitterballen-basically hush puppies.  They can be filled with different things. Frites-normally with frites sauce which is most similar to mayonnaise, but it is a tad lighter with a hint of lemon in my opinion.  The food to eat in Amsterdam, no you can not start a diet while tr

Do not be sucked in by Argentinian or Italian restaurants, they are everywhere instead go to the outskirts of town for some excellent local food. Come in through central station-> if coming with luggage prepare yourself to wheel your bags over rough cobblestones to your hotel. Walk streets before biking them, otherwise you will get hopelessly lost. Rental bikes- find one close to hotel or a spot that you want to see as you walk back to the hotel, scout out prices, check your bike before you leave to see if you have a small map attached on the back, be careful about brightly colored bikes because they mark you as a tourist [which tells the Amsterdamers to take it easy on you when biking but also draws unsavory types], always lock your bike completely Try to get off Damrak (main tourist street)- it's really crowded with luggage wheeling tourists, full of souvenir shops, and lousy restaurants Canal boat tours are worth it especially if your feet are tired from walking

So after waking up from delayed sleeping pills, which had been recommended to me by some French friends, we lumbered out to catch our train at the Gare du Nord in Paris.  We got to the train station at 5:45 and our train left at 6:25am.  After our 3 hour train ride we arrived at the busy and beautiful central station in Amsterdam.  Is there any big city that I have felt so at home?  I like the way they talk, I love their style, they have great comfort food, they are 'the' bike people, ecofriendly, and easy going. Amsterdam is also called the Venice of the north, complete with open plazas filled with pigeons, surrounded by beautiful gilded stone buildings, high fashion shops, cafés and this Venice is a bustling one.  Zoom! three heavy black bikes go by brushing beside you with the ring of their bells, stop! there's a tram coming through, wait! there's a car going down the road, watch out! for the rickshaw, make way! for the horse carriage, and even the occasional keep

I decided not to do a medal by medal count of the Dutch Olympic results for the 2014 Sochi Olympics this year. Good thing I didn't. It would have been repetitive. The 'Orange Crush' won an astonishing 23 of a possible 36 medals in Speed Skating with 3 'sweeps'. Take this into consideration. The Canadian team brought 140 athletes to Sochi and only left with 1 more medal than the Dutch who only brought 41... all they really needed was their Speed Skating team. They had twice as many medals in speed skating than all the other countries combined. In fact, it was so dominant the International Skating Union is looking at why the other countries did so poorly and is considering making changes for up coming Olympics. Speed Skating is a way of life for the Dutch. It's their unofficial sport and they backed it up finishing 4th in the total medal standings with 23 of their 24 medals coming in speed skating. The 24th was also skating... short track.

Hello. It's been a while. Wanted to let you know if you didn't already. The other writer to this blog (and the one who was good about writing articles on time) is away and started her own blog about her travels. Check it out here  http://sewfrance.blogspot.com  Definitely worth your read. In fact, today's has a little Dutch touch. See what I did there. So, she's got me motivated to write more soon. Look for new articles coming up. I have a backlog. So enjoy your winter; spring is coming.

I found this interesting.  The Dutch were definitely a force in the east indies but did you know they had a settlement in Taiwan!  For 38 years ( 1624-1662) the colonial Dutch government had a settlement on the island, toward the south, as a pit stop to trade with China and Japan; almost all of the Dutch there were soldiers at a defensive fort.  At that time the island was inhabited by aborigines and Chinese immigrants, its main resource was deer.  Basically after a while the native people were sick of Hollands tyrannical colonization, and after several uprisings they took back their island.  Some of the interesting contributions of Dutch rule are the standards that were set for Taiwan's international trade ability as well as a liberal view of immigration that allowed many Chinese to come to the island, creating an ethnically Chinese majority, and opening up communication between the Chinese and Taiwanese who were culturally more Polynesian.