OktoberTrip, dann FebTrip, in die Niederlande!

OktoberTrip for my travel companion concluded in the Netherlands.  The train from Köln (Cologne) brought us into the flatland littered with extensive kilometers of shallow waterways lined with long grass.  We hopped off the train in Utrecht, rode up the escalator, and there was Kristel, our lovely Dutch hostess who completed her half year stay in Houston just two weeks before I left.  She even brought a peace offering of stroopwafels - thin crisp wafels sandwiching a thick caramel-like syrup.  Mmmm!

After climbing up 509 steps in the tower of the renowned Kölner Dom, we decided to climb the 465 steps in the Dom tower in Utrecht as well.  Also, we had to climb down them.  To stick with the title of this posting, I won't elaborate more on these easily comparable and contrastible and impressive structures, herein, although I hope to make a collage posting of the dozen or so cathedrals I have visited in my journeys.  Great scenery, great company, and great beers marked our time in Utrecht.

     

See how Kristel is bending over and I am stretching and she's still taller.  We fought the wind unraveling us and the wah wah weee what a view from the tower!  -  Photo by Bill

Bikes by the River Kwai
Photo by Bill

Canals!

Hop back on the train toward the coast and in half an hour, you're in Amsterdam!  In Utrecht, the canals mirrored their waterfront architecture.  In Amsterdam, the canals were slightly dirtier mirrors.  Amsterdam has one of the neatest looking train stations and is rich with museums, markets, more canals, day life, night life, and bicycles!  I conclude from my experiences in the country that the Dutch are born with ice skates and bicycles. 

Stayed at Bicycle Hostel, and rented bicycles.  I tested this bike sized for a big kid when I thought their smallest adult bike was too large.  Turns out I was more comfortable jumping on an adult size Dutch bike than steering like a T-Rex.

My second trip, just two weekends ago, stands fresher in my  mind, and therefore comprises the bulk of this posting.  I journeyed on my own to see Kristel again and Saumya, former colleague who first taught me Matlab, and many things about optics.  After defending his Ph.D. in Oktober, Saumya has been postdocing with Michel Orrit, a pioneer of single molecule spectroscopy, at University of Leiden.  Leiden lies about 45 km southwest near the coast from Amsterdam.  After asking to see the lab earlier in the week, I was delighted that they asked me to give a talk during their group meeting time, so I did (!), and had a day of fruitful discussions and tours of their lab, as ~ 5 cm of snow were shaken from the clouds onto the previously bare ground.

My academic sibling, Ph. D. since October

Leopard print bicycle

View toward Uni Leiden

View of the other side of the street

As the snowfall calmed in the evening and I woke from my recovery nap, the temperature outside fell to -10 degrees C, the coldest experienced by my Indian colleague, we voted to cook Indian food (I voted to let Saumya cook Indian food for me) and take it easy by heckling other colleagues.

Two of the most famous landmarks are the Anne Frank House, the house/workshop where she and her family hid until arrested, and the Rijks Museum, a large collection of some of the top masterpieces, a large portion of them by Dutch artists.  The centerpiece is Rembrandt's Nachtwacht.  My impressions of both run deep, and for now I prefer to make some comments on my observations on lifestyle.

We were fortunate to arrive at the Anne Frank House and Museum on a rainy day in October and wait only 45 minutes.   A typical wait on a good days is ~ 2 hrs.  

Transport: Bicycles are the superior transportation within cities in Holland - weather dependent of course, but there are always bikers in the well defined and often double-laned bike lanes and they have the right of way over pedestrians.  Similar to Beijing, crossing the road requires careful notice of both cars and bicycles, who may not follow the traffic rules.  

Heating: In many homes, they turn their heat off at night.  Supposedly, you don't care anyway if you're asleep.  The among that tenants in Saumya's neighborhood get billed for energy depends highly on an average and distribution.  If you are within a certain deviation from the average consumption per unit among your peer residences, you get billed an average rate.  If you consume more than a certain threshold above that average, not only do you pay for more energy consumed, you also pay a higher rate.  Thus, energy non-conservation can be heavily penalized.


Food: Bread and cheese, most of the time, all of the time.  Breakfast, lunch, snack with beer, a little bit with dinner as well.  The bread and cheese available are nonetheless very good.  Then there are potatoes, Holland is famous for fries with mayonnaise, and other delicious and calorie friendly sauces, like pindasauce, a peanut-butter based satay inspired paste.  Regarding spices though, Saumya mentioned to an Indian friend in Houston that he could not locate some of his most used spices in Leiden.  Within weeks, he received a huge shipment of spices that he now lives off of.

The above points can also be said of Germany, but Holland takes them to their own extreme.

'Holland's most famous fries' - according to MP, October 2011

A really good bowl of stew, much like split pea soup with chunks of sausage, potatoes, and carrots.  Served with a little sandwich of some hearty seedy non-flexible bread with a thin slice of bacon, between slices of malleable soft sandwich bread .  A hearty combination perfect for winter!

Language: Dutch seems like the middle ground between German and English, which makes a lot of sense geographically.  Now that I know a little more German, I can figure out more Dutch (just a little bit though).  Dutch is melodic and friendly sounding, a bit less stringent than German can seem at times.  To begin: Mrs = Frau = Mevrouw, pronounced like meh-Frau;  Thank you = Danke = Dank U;  the semblance is strong in Dutch and German numbers.  

Architecture: Houses are stereotypically narrow, the staircases are steep, and the steps are narrow - I can't even fit my whole foot on a step sometimes (not facing up the stairs, at least).

See how he can reach the top from standing almost at the bottom?  Now imagine four flights of these babies, late at night.  

Ice skating (!!): Ice skating can be the daily recreation and even transportation once the temperatures drop below 0C for long enough periods of time.  The extensive waterways become extensive ice paths, and just 10 cm is enough of a solid layer to skate on.  Kristel drove us to her family who had an extra pair of skates from the times when they're daughters were younger and therefore shorter.  The Dutch are some of the tallest people in the world.  Another 10 minutes into the countryside took us to the head of a frozen stream where I skated on natural ice for the first time!  Natural ice, unlike our rinks, is not zambonied once every hour or two, or ever.  Brave volunteers may bring out machines that push the snow off the surface to expose the ice, but the surface retains natural roughness that depends on both the contents of the water and the conditions of the air while it formed.  According to Kristel et al, this ice was good ice.  Kristel, and most skaters there, wore speed skates, significantly longer than the figure skates that I wore.  In addition, many skates basically looked like a shoe that did not rise above the ankle with a blade attached - they must have really strong ankles!  Many skaters went the whole length of the canal - about 5 km.  I chose to turn around where the path was no longer uncovered from the snow, at about 3 km, as I was just de-rusting from more than a year off the ice.  After a round of hot chocolate and apples, we repeated.  The second time, Kristel's boyfriend and sister accompanied me on my slow and short trip to release Kristel all the way to the bridge at the other end.  

Get yo skates on!

You can skate further than you can see!

Weee!  Yay for my first 10 km on natural ice...Kristel et al went 75 km the following weekend....
 photo by Kristel

The most anticipated even is Elfstedentocht - a 200 km tour on ice in Friesland, a northern Dutch city.  The weather rarely allows this much ice to freeze at once, and therefore the event does not occur so often.  The last occurrences were in 1963, 1985, 1986, and 1997.  When the weather falls to these temperatures, the country is abuzz with anticipation.  Will it happen?  Will it stay cold enough?  The ice must be 15 cm think along the entire course.  In addition, registration is limited - that ice can only hold the weight of so many people.  If it happens, organizers expect almost 2 million people to travel to the region to watch.  The winner is a national hero for years to come.  

Trains: Despite temperatures falling to -10 C and below each year, train failures remain common in Holland. I say this based on my experience and those of others.  This past weekend with only ~ 8 cm of snow on the ground, Kristel waited more than an hour and a half to get on a train that would connect in a small town and then continue to Amsterdam to meet me, when normally direct trains between the two cities run every 10-15 minutes, taking ~30 minutes each way.  That gave me time to buy and write a postcard.  Holland is expensive - it costs more to send a postcard from Holland to Germany than it does to send one from Germany to the US.  Nonetheless, joy (!) when we finally met in Amsterdam Centraal, one of my favorite looking stations of the ones I've seen in Europe.  

After ice skating on Sunday, Kristel and I loaded up on fries with pindasauce in Utrecht station before I boarded the ICE International train.  As I passed through the aisle, I recognized one of Saumya's new colleagues I had just met on Friday, on his way to perform an experiment at another lab in Germany for several weeks.  After sitting still at the Dutch - German border for more than 10 minutes, an announcement informed us that they would need more time to switch from Dutch power to German power.  This was not necessary when I made the same trip back to Mainz in October.  15-20 minutes later, they informed us that they would need to reboot the train's computer.  During this time, they said, the lights would go out, the WC's would not work, and the doors would not open automatically.  Indeed, the lights went out for a few minutes, came back on, and we continued to sit.  After another length of time long enough for me to walk 3 cars to the Bordbistro (dining car), purchase a 0.5L Franziskaner, and drink most of it, another announcement stated they now needed to perform a 'full reboot'.  Again, the lights would go out, the WC's would not work, and the doors would not open automatically, for 5-6 minutes this time.  Everyone remained in good spirits though and laughed at those and subsequent announcements, like the detailed one in Dutch, followed by the German translation, followed by 'Ladies and Gentleman, caput is this train and we do not know yet.' silence, followed by laughter.  Eventually, they were in touch with Holland.  The train moseyed back into Holland to the nearest stop, called Venlo, where all passengers alighted from the train and waited on the platform in -15 C for the next ICE International.  Deutsche Bahn offered one free hot beverage as compensation from the snack stand there.  The line was too long for most of us to take advantage of this offer.  Eventually, the next train arrived, and we took advantage of all the open first class seating.  Many passengers would not complete their connections to their final destinations that night, and would have to find hotels in larger cities, like Köln instead and then take the train in the morning.  I was lucky to catch the last train toward Mainz in Frankfurt and arrive in Mainz around 1am, a little beyond 22:30, as originally scheduled.  I was just in time to check in on the neck-and-neck Giants - Patriots match up, way to go Giants, thanks for making me as happy as I was the last time you beat the Patriots.  Too bad I didn't stay up til 4:30am to watch it.

Sunset from the train, before it broke :-)

Medizin

Three weeks ago, on Friday the 13th, I visited a doctor because to replenish my supply of daily synthetic thyroid hormone.  The visit went impressively easy, once I found the right place.  First, I went to Ludwigplatz and not Ludwigstrasse.  The building with the same number but on the wrong street was the courts.  Law, medicine, same thing.  The nice man at security looked up the name of the doctor for me and sent me in the right direction, which was easier to get to than Ludwigplatz.  Jonathan and Allayna recommended this lady.  Although they had not seen her, they received the recommendation from an English speaking site.  The day before, Irene talked to the receptionist over the phone for me because the receptionist did not speak English.  The visiting hours were 8am-12pm that morning, no appointments, first come, first serve.  I did not arrive until after 10am.  When I arrived, I paid 10 Euros, because my government run health insurance requires its holders to pay 10 Euros once every quarter of the year if they should seek services.  In other words, if I need to go to another doctor before I leave Germany, I will not have to pay again.  I was the only one in the waiting room when I arrived, and waited not more than 10 minutes.  2 more people arrived before I was called in.  The physician asked me a few questions, I showed her my prescription bottle that I brought with me, and she determined that since I will return to the states in 1 month and had my blood tested in July, she wrote me the prescription for 100 tablets (so 100 days worth) without further tests, knowing that I would receive my next blood test back in the states.  "It will cost five Euro" she said, followed by "yea, unfortunately you almost always have to pay something for prescriptions in Germany".  Five Euro for 100 days worth?!?  Wow, what a deal!  After the ~ 5 minute visit I went to the Apotheke around the corner.  I handed over the prescription to the pharmacist behind the counter, who took it, looked in a drawer, pulled out a package containing my 100 tablets of medication at the right dose, handed it to me, I paid 5 Euro, and the visit was over in about 2 minutes total.  I really thought I would have to set aside my whole morning, and possibly have to make multiple trips for medication.  German word of the day: Shilddrüseunterfunktion - you can figure this one out

Family EuroTrip Part V(?): Silvester in Berlin!

The day after our road trip out of Prague into the tiny town of Kutna Hora, we embarked on an even longer drive from Prague to Berlin on New Year's Eve, the celebration termed 'Silvester' (in honor of St. Sylvester) in Germany.  Having only 8 days on the road together, the family elected the following itinerary departing from Mainz: 2 nights in München (Munich), with a day trip to Neuschwanstein, 3 nights in Prague, with a day trip to Kutna Hora, culminating with 2 nights in Berlin over Silvester, a route that could entertain travelers for about a month.  Had we a month, we could have easily stopped in Stuttgart, Heidelberg, Nürnberg, Regensburg, Dresden, various countryside castles and ruins, and multiple national parks known for neat forests, rock formations, or decent skiing.  The abundance of natural and historic sights to see within close distances distinguishes travel in Europe from travel in the states, and this 8 day, ~2200 km journey is characteristic of American or Australian tourists, who are used to travelling long distances with few desirable (or stoppable) stopping points in between.

The most beautiful (so I've heard) city of former East Germany, Dresden, thus remains a destination for a EuroTrip outside my 6-7 month tenure.  Nonetheless, highway construction outside of the GPS's knowledge taught us to follow signs through a countryside detour in the mountains and through a mountainside town with winding and steep roads, sometimes narrow enough to impose one lane traffic.  Ryan had a blast driving our 6-speed standard transmission diesel Opel houseboat, the same one you saw him expertly park in Prague.

We arrived in Berlin around 3pm, looped around the block by our hotel before emulating the 'legal' parking of other patrons of the apartments and hotels along the same street.  We went online, looked for available times to view the Reichstag, the building of the Deutscher Bundestag, or German Parliament, from within, and quickly learned that the next available time just to enter the building and view out of the Dome would be the evening of the 2nd, and we were departing the morning of the 2nd.  Moving along, I skipped showing my family the film traditionally viewed in Germany many, many, times in one sitting on Silvester in an attempt to get out before the sunset.  Since it was already after 4, we were unsuccessful.

 

We boarded a regional train headed into the center of the city that was smokey (despite smoking being illegal on trains) and full of heavily pre-gramed and songful Silvester prepared youths.  We surfaced for air at Potsdamer Platz, immediately hitting a wall. 

Berlin Mauer

A giant ice slide at the Christmas Market by Potsdamer Platz Bahnhof

Mmmm shroooms!

We indulged into museum mode before letting the brick path indicating the former path of the Berlin wall lead us across the street to the Christmas style market to begin delving into tasty holiday sweets, i.e. Glühwein mit many versions of schuss, (gotta catch 'em all!) and some of the best food I've had in Germany out of giant skillets.  

Once filled, we ventured to Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate), an entrance to the city since the late 1700s, closed in 1961 'until further notice', i.e. the fall of the wall in 1989.  On Silvester, this is Germany's Times Square, the cite of the biggest party in Germany, and possibly in Europe.  We passed through a checkpoint on the west side of the gate and south side of the stage where a few guards casually searched our personal bags, then submerged into the crowd in front of the stage.  Realizing we needed drinks, we attempted to take a left turn to the stands in our sight.  "Entshuldigung" (Excuse me) I said nicely.  "Nein", the crowds had formed walls.  "Warum nicht?!?" (Why not) I said.  Some of the crowd had begun streaming the rest of the crowd through the back of the crowd.  To the back of the crowd, however, were more fences containing the party.  Now it was only 7:30, and remaining here until midnight would require us to a) not drink anything until then and b) not discharge any drinks already consumed until then.  We grasped hands and danced our way out over possibly half an hour, occasionally squeezing hands as signals we were still attached even when the density of the crowd prevented us from seeing each other over our linked arms.

Brandenburger Tor, west side, site of the biggest party in Germany

Packed at 7:30pm - you'd have to dehydrate to last 'til midnight in this crowd

Once outside the checkpoints we had entered through, we followed the redirected pedestrian traffic passed the Jewish Memorial, a small field of rectangular cement blocks of varying heights.  The heights are not so varied as you gaze upon them from outside the memorial, but walk between them and realize that the stone lawn is a bowl, with perhaps some rolling bumps.  The situation resembles a deep pond: a nearly even surface, shallow by the edges, deep in the middle.  The blocks near the sidewalk rise just past my knees, some in the middle are higher than Ryan (188 cm).  We would return here later to view the fireworks centered over the Brandenburger Tor.  

The Jewish Memorial of Berlin
From: http://vanweeldenj.files.wordpress.com/judaism

Inside the Jewish Memorial, haunting, day or night

The redirected pedestrian traffic sent us several blocks away from the Brandenburger Tor on the east side, along Unter den Linden, the boulevard lined with Linden trees, once and still known as one of the 'grandest' streets in Berlin.  Manned Glühwein carts and tables stood at multiple street corners and shop entrances.  Three of us bought Glühwein at an ice cream shop so the fourth one could use the WC.  Wandering and window shopping eventually led us back near Brandenburger Tor.  Our group divided in two.  The sky was already becoming yellow with the smoke and sparks of the civilian sparklers, bottle rockets, Roman candles, and other readily available firecrackers.  I followed Ryan into a store.  Opportunistic shop owners stay open until at least 11pm on Silvester well stocked with goods to satisfy the impulses of the crowd, much of which has pilgrimaged across multiple country borders and possibly oceans to partake in this party.

Mother and brother, with a quintessential tourist bear of Berlin, window shopping

Window shopping

Window shopping

Shopping

Taking pictures of road signs helps you locate a previous location

Street lights, search lights

Within half an hour of the official year change, we found front row standing room near our initial checkpoint, still on the old path of the Berlin Wall, and counted the minutes, then the final countdown (how appropriate that the band is called 'Europe'), to fireworks higher than the ones being shot off around us.  

The Eltern were still up when the Kindern arrived, after visiting the subway, some currywurst and pommes, and a decent walk to digest that currywurst and pommes.  A small piece of firecracker shrapnel had bit my mother in the imitation-UGG boot, leaving a little fuzzy hole in it and a light singe on her ankle.  She was nonetheless in good spirits.  'It's really like a combat zone out there,' my father chuckled.  The whole family slept until 11am the following morning.

A silhouette...made of light...

I think the gate is patterned onto the subway windows

Giant neon snowman

Mosaic rock!

Berlin feels modern, edgey, busy, mixed, and alive.  It's beauty and energy are felt, not seen like in the romantic towns along the Rhein.  I hope to elaborate more if I post pictures from the postSilvester wandering.  

Family EuroTrip, Part IV (?) – Kutna Hora, via Prague, Czech Republic

Our day in Kutna Hora, ended by our last evening in Prague, will not wait its turn in the chronological order of travels to be blogged.  A great tip from a great friend to Google ‘Bone Church’ led us there in the boat on wheels we rented: an Opel Insignia, they’re called Buicks in America.  This small town located about one hour’s drive east of Prague provided one of the most peaceful and interesting days of sightseeing during our week on some central European roads. 

With expert guidance, Ryan managed to park this house boat in the midpoint of the space between these cars, plus or minus 2 centimeters.

Kostnice is the first Cistercian abbey built in Bohemia.  It has a tiny chapel in the upper story and an ossuary decorated with human bones of all parts of the body.  The abbey was settled beginning in 1142 in the valley by the Order of the Cistercians with the ‘goal to deepen the discipline and sincerity of the monks through austerity as well as manual labor’, and therefore strove to remain fiscally independent of the town’s administration. 

Sidewalk in front of the gate to the abbey

The cemetery became famous after a king returned from Jerusalem in the 1278 and sprinkled dust from the holy land over it.  Apparently, being buried in this area was appealing because bodies decomposed to their skeletons quickly, minimizing the amount of time spent in slow and ugly decay.  The plague and Hussite wars of the 14^th and 15^th centuries filled the cemetery quickly.  The tiny chapel containing the ossuary was built in the 1500s in the middle of the cemetery, and therefore now contains the bones of over 40,000 people who were excavated. 

The little church with the ossuary

One descends the stairs toward the altar to find a massive pyramid of bones in each of the four corners of the room.  The bones interlock like Lincoln Logs; nothing was added to bind or stick them together.  The ossuary provides a powerful reminder of one’s own mortality, only enhanced in this season by seeing your own breath even while inside.

First view, above the entry stairs descending into the ossuary

One of these on the wall on each side of the entry stairs

Chandelier

A tower like this sat in each of the four corners of the room.  The bones packed together with nothing added to bind them together

A tunnel, through the middle of the tower

Close up of another tower segment

The altar

One of these sculptures stood in each niche on both sides of the altar

One tower had been fed a lot of money

A family coat of arms, with bones from all parts of the body.  Zoom in and you can identify shoulder blades, collar bones, hip bones, vertebrate, femurs, etc.  A bird is pecking out the eyeball from the skull in the lower right hand corner.

The chapel on the top floor, accessed from the stairs outside, was boneless

Someone already made this hole

'Window', where I peaked in to take the preceding photo

For only 80 Czech Korunas (about 20 per USD), you can get a combined student ticket for the ossuary and the Cathedral of Assumption down the street, all part of the same Abbey.  This cathedral contrasts the common template consisting of main tower plus twin towers.  The architecture here is Gothic.  While the insides are well decorated with Baroque paintings contributed through the centuries, the windows are not stained glass and the outer stones are not ornate.

Cathedral of the Assumption of our Lady and St. John the Baptist

Zoom in above the main door

Although originally built in the 1200-1300s, the interior decorations have evolved, and are now mostly Baroque

A panel in the floor

Organ!

The ceiling in the center, between the pews and the altar

The relic of St. Felix

Touring the attic

Pass through the attic to the balcony, view the entire sanctuary as well as the shadows of the exteriors by the entrance

In the winter, these sites close entry to visitors at 4pm, as the sun already begins to set then.  Most neighboring shops and restaurants, and even the coin operated WC closes then.  A short drive down the hill, however takes you to more Cathedrals and castles dating to the 1100 and 1200s.  The darkness and calm along the narrow cobble stone streets deepen the chill and isolation brought on by the crisp cold air and vast distance from the throngs of Prague.  Nonetheless, a thin neon sign and chalk board will invite you for a cup of hot wine or apple wine punch. 

Cathedral of St. Barbara

Cathedral of St. Barbara

Faces in the cafe

We dined at an inviting restaurant near the top of the street leading to St. Barbara’s Cathedral.  Tart, dark blueberry sized berries enhanced the rich brown gravy of my venison goulash and a generous amount of onions laced and sweetened my delightfully chewy potato pancakes.  After the prelude of a Kozel brown beer, I let the warmth of the meal draw on by sipping a shot of Fernet.  We left the town tucked into its bed of black, cold, and Goth shortly before 8pm.

Mother's 1/4 duck, served with a 'bread dumpling', fluffy and sliced, and stewed red cabbage

My venison goulash, served with potato pancakes, accompanied by Kozel, a brown beer with a light but slightly sweet finish

For our last night in Prague, Ryan and I wandered back near Wenceslas Square, busy despite the memorials.

Vaclav Havel, 5 October 1936 - 18 December 2011

After vetoing hotel bars and restaurants obviously catering to people like us, we turned onto the darker narrow street neighboring the Museum of Communism we visited the day before.  The first bar had no one inside.  The second was a shisha bar, dark with couples snuggled on recliners.  The third bar, called CafeBar was smoky, lively, full people speaking Czech, all ages represented, although more in our range.  Easy choice, we passed through the door (kind of thick curtain, made of kind of thin carpet), passed into and then out of the 2 x 3 meter room containing a dart board, pin ball machine, and kicker table, then down the spiral metal steps to find more tables and another bar in the basement.  Ryan ordered and beers and vodka shots poured into tumblers fresh from the freezer arrived via our barkeep whose appearance resembled an older version of Charlie Brown.  He persuasively convinced me to have another beer with a wordless jestful frown later and thanked Ryan gratefully for returning the extra change he gave.  The young tenant of the neighboring table was happy to practice English with us, having rare opportunities in his profession as a waiter in a sushi restaurant, as he described it.  The impeding nightly five hour pause of subway service approached and we wished him and his cohort appearing 2x older in age a happy new year, then bid a happy farewell to downtown Prague. 

CafeBar

Regal table cloth

Mmmm